Looking forward to the past: Archaeology through rose-coloured glasses

Abstract

There are multiple groups who find archaeology and its findings of particular use; these include those who pursue it for sheer love and excitement of the past, those who conduct it professionally such as in an academic setting, those who do it as part of larger undertakings such as compliance archaeology or cultural resource management (CRM) and then those whose ancestors (real or perceived) created the materials under archaeological investigation. This chapter addresses relationships between archaeology as it is currently organized in the USA and Native Americans and how relevance of this archaeological enterprise to Native Americans could be improved. It notes that while this enterprise includes mechanisms for Tribal involvement, such as Tribal Historic Preservation Offices with parallel powers and responsibilities to State Historic Preservation Offices, these mechanisms remain based in Western scientific and legal frameworks and so continue to discount Native perspectives and approaches to the past. Even political definitions, such as controversies that developed with the Kennewick Man case and proposals to replace the term Paleoindian with Paleoamerican, include culturally specific assumptions about population roles in both the past and present. If archaeology is to be more truly useful to indigenous peoples, it must reorient itself from being a finder of single truths and move toward a collector of approaches to better understand the array of cultural meanings of the past and past events.