A common task on my various projects is consultations with Native Americans likely to be concerned about the particular project area. Usually, this starts with me obtaining a list of concerned NAtive American individuals and organizations for a given geographic region from the California Native American Heritage Commission. Once I have the list in hand, I write up consultation letters describing the location and the project, and send them out to the groups an individuals listed by the NAHC. A few weeks later, I will make follow-up phone calls or, when possible, send out emails. Depending on circumstances, a second round of follow-ups is often necessary as well.
More often than not, I don't receive responses. However, when I do receive responses, they usually falls into one of five categories:
1) Important information regarding something that may or will be negatively impacted by the proposed work. When we get this information, we can signal to our client that this is likely to become an issue, and, if they are wise, they will be proactive in working with the Native community to address concerns. If they are unwise, they will proceed ahead only to get caught up in a public relations battle (and sometimes legal proceedings) down the road.
Responses in this category are unusual, however.
2) Statements that the respondent has no information regarding the project area (the most common response). This is usually accompanied by a request that the respondent be notified should anything be found during fieldwork.
3) Statements that the respondent has no knowledge about the area, but is concerned about the possibility that the proposed construction will impact previously unidentified archaeological sites or cultural properties. Usually, responses in this category are well-written and thoughtful, on rare occasion they are just kind of odd or even surreal.
4) Statements that the respondent knows nothing about the project area/that it is outside of their area of interest.
5) The respondent is irritated that we are contacting them and wants to know why we won't just leave them alone.
It's #5 that I want to talk about here.
Many of the individuals who we contact routinely respond that they are not interested in the various projects about which we try to consult. I have, on more than one occasion, been screamed at over the phone by a Native American who was sick of getting a constant stream of mail regarding projects in which they are uninterested, and each time they demand to know why we keep contacting them when we know that they don't want to hear from us.
The list of Native American contacts provided by the NAHC is a composed of a group of self-selecting individuals. They have to ask to be on the NAHC contact list. However, it's not entirely clear how they get removed, when they get removed. I have been told by some folks at the NAHC that it is as simple as requesting removal from the list. However, I have also been told by some of the people on the list that they have been trying for some time to be removed, but that the NAHC has failed to do so.
I take no sides, I don't presume to know the truth of the matter, this is simply what I have been told.
So, we are put into an odd situation where we are, usually, required to contact them, even if we know that they don't want to be contacted. As long as they are on the list, a regulator or a member of the public who is looking to litigate against a project can point to our failure to contact even one individual as evidence that we failed to make a good-faith effort to identify cultural resources. Similarly, a member of the Native American community who is not contacted can create a problem for our clients on the ground that they were not consulted as a stakeholder for a project. And while those who ask not to be contacted generally don't want to be stakeholders, if there is one thing that is true about humans in general, it's that they are an unpredictable lot who are prone to changing their minds.
At the same time, it is understandable that many of these individuals and organizations might want to no longer be contacted. One thing I have been told frequently is that those who signed up for the NAHC list had no idea just how many notifications they would receive in the course of a year. Moreover, when they do tell us anything, we put it in our report, and most of the time the resources that are known are avoided, so from their perspective, nothing happened. Some clients and government agencies are better than others in involving Native participation, meaning that while there are good outcomes, there are also many bad outcomes. So, on those occasions where it doesn't seem like nothing happened, there is a fair chance that it will seem like something has gone awry.
So, again, I get why being on the list may seem like a waste of time.
Nonetheless, as long as they are on the list, I am required to contact them. Which means that I can expect a future filled with unresponded-to letters, and the occasional episode of having someone scream at me that they don't want to be contacted, despite the fact that they remain on the list.
Showing posts with label Native American Consultation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Native American Consultation. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Ignorant Savage Miners!
Some years back, I witnessed a discussion that contained a rather bizarre form of racism, and it's the sort of thing that I have not really been able to get out of my head since.
I was working on a project in the Sierra Nevadas, near the heart of the Gold Rush territory, and amongst the historic features that we were having to evaluate were a set of mining ditches. Mining ditches, for those unaware, are, just as the name implies, ditches dug into the ground (often on the slopes of hills and mountains) to transport water for the purposes of running sluices and later for using gravity to pressurize water used in hydrologic strip mining. In the Sierra Nevada, the mountainous terrain meant that many systems contained both ditches that run downhill and along the slopes and flumes that crossed drainages, gaps, and often were affixed to the sides of particularly steep mountains.
For this project, we held regular meetings with representatives from the Native American organizations that hisotrically lived in the area. For the most part these meetings were interesting and yielded good results. But sometimes very odd things came of them.
In on particular meeting, talk turned to the Gold Rush-era sites. The Native American representatives had typically shown little interest in these sites, but on this day they wanted to discuss them in-depth. When we got to a discussion of the mining ditches, one of the representatives stated "well, these ditches all follow ones used by the Indians" When asked why she had made this claim, her response was "well, they have to have. I mean, those miners didn't have engineers to build the ditches, so they had to follow the routes put there by the Indians!" She was then asked if she knew of any such ditches being made by the native peoples of the area, and what the ditches were used for, and she responded that she didn't know of anything of the sort, but reiterated that they must have existed because otherwise these miners wouldn't have had anything to follow and they wouldn't have been able to make their ditches.
Historically, the true accomplishments of Native Americans have often been denied by citing the alleged engineering knowledge necessary to build the earthworks of the midwest and southeast, or the pyramids and cities in Central America and South America, or the amazing cliff dwellings of the southwest...and then denying that the Native Americans had any such knowledge. Then, naturally, claims about various people from all over the world who "clearly colonized the Americas" were floated, each one pointing out that "a savage couldn't have constructed these amazing structures!" Of course, the native peoples did build these things, and were able to develop the technical know-how necessary to do so. It was nothing but racism that led people to assume otherwise.
And here I was, with a Native American representative telling me that a group of 19th century miners must have copied ditches from the Native Americans because they lacked the technical knowledge necessary to build them. This buried the needle on my irony meter, and when I returned home I had to find a repair shop to recalibrate it.
Some of the mining ditches are spectacular feats of engineering, to be certain. And most of these truly spectacular ones were, in fact, designed by engineers who were hired by the firms that owned the giant mining companies that characterize later gold mining in the Sierra Nevadas. Many of the ditches, though, were very simple hand-dug channels that flowed downhill - I could build one, and I am no engineer. The in-between ones, the ones that were impressive but didn't scale cliffs or require miles and miles of complex scaffolding to keep them aloft? Well, those ones would require a certain amount of know-how, and yes, a native person could gain that known-how through trial-and-error and through keen observation. A farmer from, say, the east coast of the United States who has had to deal with moving water for irrigation would come with that know-how based on past experience.
It is entirely possible that the native peoples of the area did construct some ditches for their own purposes prior to the Gold Rush. I can think of a few potential uses for such constructs, and they certainly had the degree of technical sophistication necessary to do so. But the idea that the miners had to occupy native ditches because they were too stupid or ignorant to create their own? That's just weird.
I was working on a project in the Sierra Nevadas, near the heart of the Gold Rush territory, and amongst the historic features that we were having to evaluate were a set of mining ditches. Mining ditches, for those unaware, are, just as the name implies, ditches dug into the ground (often on the slopes of hills and mountains) to transport water for the purposes of running sluices and later for using gravity to pressurize water used in hydrologic strip mining. In the Sierra Nevada, the mountainous terrain meant that many systems contained both ditches that run downhill and along the slopes and flumes that crossed drainages, gaps, and often were affixed to the sides of particularly steep mountains.
For this project, we held regular meetings with representatives from the Native American organizations that hisotrically lived in the area. For the most part these meetings were interesting and yielded good results. But sometimes very odd things came of them.
In on particular meeting, talk turned to the Gold Rush-era sites. The Native American representatives had typically shown little interest in these sites, but on this day they wanted to discuss them in-depth. When we got to a discussion of the mining ditches, one of the representatives stated "well, these ditches all follow ones used by the Indians" When asked why she had made this claim, her response was "well, they have to have. I mean, those miners didn't have engineers to build the ditches, so they had to follow the routes put there by the Indians!" She was then asked if she knew of any such ditches being made by the native peoples of the area, and what the ditches were used for, and she responded that she didn't know of anything of the sort, but reiterated that they must have existed because otherwise these miners wouldn't have had anything to follow and they wouldn't have been able to make their ditches.
Historically, the true accomplishments of Native Americans have often been denied by citing the alleged engineering knowledge necessary to build the earthworks of the midwest and southeast, or the pyramids and cities in Central America and South America, or the amazing cliff dwellings of the southwest...and then denying that the Native Americans had any such knowledge. Then, naturally, claims about various people from all over the world who "clearly colonized the Americas" were floated, each one pointing out that "a savage couldn't have constructed these amazing structures!" Of course, the native peoples did build these things, and were able to develop the technical know-how necessary to do so. It was nothing but racism that led people to assume otherwise.
And here I was, with a Native American representative telling me that a group of 19th century miners must have copied ditches from the Native Americans because they lacked the technical knowledge necessary to build them. This buried the needle on my irony meter, and when I returned home I had to find a repair shop to recalibrate it.
Some of the mining ditches are spectacular feats of engineering, to be certain. And most of these truly spectacular ones were, in fact, designed by engineers who were hired by the firms that owned the giant mining companies that characterize later gold mining in the Sierra Nevadas. Many of the ditches, though, were very simple hand-dug channels that flowed downhill - I could build one, and I am no engineer. The in-between ones, the ones that were impressive but didn't scale cliffs or require miles and miles of complex scaffolding to keep them aloft? Well, those ones would require a certain amount of know-how, and yes, a native person could gain that known-how through trial-and-error and through keen observation. A farmer from, say, the east coast of the United States who has had to deal with moving water for irrigation would come with that know-how based on past experience.
It is entirely possible that the native peoples of the area did construct some ditches for their own purposes prior to the Gold Rush. I can think of a few potential uses for such constructs, and they certainly had the degree of technical sophistication necessary to do so. But the idea that the miners had to occupy native ditches because they were too stupid or ignorant to create their own? That's just weird.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Prehistoric, Historic, and Arbitrary Distinctions
If you look at a California Department of Parks and Recreation Form 523 Primary (see it here), the one required for recording archaeological sites in California, you are giving three options for the site's age: Prehistoric, Historic, and Both. This seems straightforward - if the site pre-dates the introduction of written records (literally predates recorded history) then it is prehistoric, so everything prior to Europeans showing up; if the site post-dates the introduction of written records, then it is historic; if the site has elements from both before and after the introduction of written records, it is both.
Simple, right?
Of course not.
I'm not going to wade into the debate about whether or not oral traditions should be considered history. It's a valid line of debate to a point, but not what I'm interested in here. What I am interested in is what we use to make the distinction between prehistoric and historic sites, why the three check boxes aren't maybe the best way to reflect the archaeological record, and what's they ultimately mean.
For starters, when we record a site, the way that we identify which of the three boxes to check is be evaluating what materials are present within the site. If it is filled with flaked stone tools, ground stone tools, and no evidence of metal, glass, or European-style tools or structures, it gets labelled "prehistoric"; if it contains things such as milled wood, metal, glass, paper, etc, then we label it "historic" (and, obviously, if it contains elements from both categories, then we label it "both").
Here's the problem: The prehistoric/historic dividing line in California (and much of the world, in fact) is murky at best, and nonexistent at worse. The introduction of written records to California came with the Europeans. The problem, of course, is determining when you should place this. Should it be with the early voyages in the 1540s? Should it be with the founding of the missions in the 1760s through the 1820s? Should it be with the establishment of Euro-American settlements in even the more remote parts of the state in the 1890s and 1910s?
The practice that we have been in is to ignore all of these potential dates and look insteadm as described above, just at what's present in the site. The problem here is that this results in sites that were occupied by people well-documented in the historical record being labelled "prehistoric", which is just plain factually incorrect. There are other, more correct, labels available: ethnohistoric, protohistoric, etc. All of which are in active use in research archaeology, but not available as a check box on the documents that we are required to use.
What's more, there's a tendency to associate "prehistoric" sites with Native Americans, and "historic" sites with everyone else (Euro-Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, etc.). But this really isn't correct, either, as Native Americans did adopt many of the materials from the newly-arrived groups, and so it is not uncommon to find a Native American site from the late 19th or early 20th century that is comprised of a wood-frame house and glass and metal detritus, similar to the non-Native homes of the day. There would be differences in the material patterning of the site, just as there are differences between the sites of Italian immigrants vs. German immigrants, but it would still end up being given the "Historic" label (maybe a "both" label if things such as ground stone were found on-site, but the ground stone would often be assumed to have pre-dated the rest of the material, even thought it didn't necessarily), and unless there was a clear record that the home belonged to a Native American, there would typically be little effort made to determine to whom it belonged.
Up to this point, this has probably all seemed like pointless ranting about something that is unimportant. So, I'll try to explain why this actually does matter.
Under current practice and regulations, Native Americans have a more significant role when a "prehistoric" site is found than when a "historic" site is found. The reasoning seems pretty clear - the prehistoric site belongs to their cultural lineage, whereas the historic site is seen as belonging to the post-European cultural lineage. But the problem is that, as describe dabove, many historic sites are Native American sites, and so it seems rather bizarrely inconsistent to only consult with them on prehistoric sites when they may have relevant information on historic sites as well.
Now, many of my colleagues will point out that sufficient background research will identify historic-era sites that are the homes of Native American individuals and families. This is generally true, but because of the nature of late 19th/early 20th century racial politics, it's not uncommon for ownership information or ethnicity identification to not be readily apparent in this historic record.
The reality is that the division of prehistoric and historic, while it annoys my inner fact-checker, does work the majority of the time. But that doesn't stop me from wondering how often we get it wrong, or when it is going to bite some (or maybe all) of us in the ass.
Simple, right?
Of course not.
I'm not going to wade into the debate about whether or not oral traditions should be considered history. It's a valid line of debate to a point, but not what I'm interested in here. What I am interested in is what we use to make the distinction between prehistoric and historic sites, why the three check boxes aren't maybe the best way to reflect the archaeological record, and what's they ultimately mean.
For starters, when we record a site, the way that we identify which of the three boxes to check is be evaluating what materials are present within the site. If it is filled with flaked stone tools, ground stone tools, and no evidence of metal, glass, or European-style tools or structures, it gets labelled "prehistoric"; if it contains things such as milled wood, metal, glass, paper, etc, then we label it "historic" (and, obviously, if it contains elements from both categories, then we label it "both").
Here's the problem: The prehistoric/historic dividing line in California (and much of the world, in fact) is murky at best, and nonexistent at worse. The introduction of written records to California came with the Europeans. The problem, of course, is determining when you should place this. Should it be with the early voyages in the 1540s? Should it be with the founding of the missions in the 1760s through the 1820s? Should it be with the establishment of Euro-American settlements in even the more remote parts of the state in the 1890s and 1910s?
The practice that we have been in is to ignore all of these potential dates and look insteadm as described above, just at what's present in the site. The problem here is that this results in sites that were occupied by people well-documented in the historical record being labelled "prehistoric", which is just plain factually incorrect. There are other, more correct, labels available: ethnohistoric, protohistoric, etc. All of which are in active use in research archaeology, but not available as a check box on the documents that we are required to use.
What's more, there's a tendency to associate "prehistoric" sites with Native Americans, and "historic" sites with everyone else (Euro-Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, etc.). But this really isn't correct, either, as Native Americans did adopt many of the materials from the newly-arrived groups, and so it is not uncommon to find a Native American site from the late 19th or early 20th century that is comprised of a wood-frame house and glass and metal detritus, similar to the non-Native homes of the day. There would be differences in the material patterning of the site, just as there are differences between the sites of Italian immigrants vs. German immigrants, but it would still end up being given the "Historic" label (maybe a "both" label if things such as ground stone were found on-site, but the ground stone would often be assumed to have pre-dated the rest of the material, even thought it didn't necessarily), and unless there was a clear record that the home belonged to a Native American, there would typically be little effort made to determine to whom it belonged.
Up to this point, this has probably all seemed like pointless ranting about something that is unimportant. So, I'll try to explain why this actually does matter.
Under current practice and regulations, Native Americans have a more significant role when a "prehistoric" site is found than when a "historic" site is found. The reasoning seems pretty clear - the prehistoric site belongs to their cultural lineage, whereas the historic site is seen as belonging to the post-European cultural lineage. But the problem is that, as describe dabove, many historic sites are Native American sites, and so it seems rather bizarrely inconsistent to only consult with them on prehistoric sites when they may have relevant information on historic sites as well.
Now, many of my colleagues will point out that sufficient background research will identify historic-era sites that are the homes of Native American individuals and families. This is generally true, but because of the nature of late 19th/early 20th century racial politics, it's not uncommon for ownership information or ethnicity identification to not be readily apparent in this historic record.
The reality is that the division of prehistoric and historic, while it annoys my inner fact-checker, does work the majority of the time. But that doesn't stop me from wondering how often we get it wrong, or when it is going to bite some (or maybe all) of us in the ass.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
When Terminology Irritates People
A few days ago I stood in a construction trailer while another archaeologist, my superior at the company for which I work, explained the process of testing an archaeological site for eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places. In order for a site to be eligible, it must be relatively intact (or, in regulatory terms, "maintain integrity") and also "have significance", that is, it must meet one of the criteria for listing on the register (see here for a description). Because the regulatory language states that the site must "have significance", archaeologists often refer to this process as significance testing, and often refer to register eligible sites as significant.
As my superior was explaining this process to the project engineer, I looked over at the Native American liaison for the project, herself a member of a local tribal council, who whispered to me "I hate the term 'significance'."
Later that day, as I dug holes in the site, the Native American liaison came by to see how we were doing. She and I got to talking, and the subject of regulatory terminology came up. While she acknowledged that the term significance was used because it has a specific regulatory meaning, she felt that it was a term loaded with other meanings, and therefore she found it upsetting. As she put it, just because a site doesn't have research potential for archaeologists doesn't mean that it is insignificant for Native Americans, and the use of the term implied this, whether or not that is intended.
I think that she's right. While the term has a specific regulatory meaning, it is often used in contexts and discussions where only a small portion of the participants are familiar with the regulations, and therefore it is likely to be understood more broadly than it's regulatory meaning. What's more, we have a perfectly acceptable (and arguably more appropriate) term that we can use: register eligible. In the end, when we describe a site as significant, what we are actually saying is that it is eligible for the register. This being the case, why not simply say "register eligible" and be both more precise and less likely to upset or offend the Native American community.
Don't get me wrong, I am usually annoyed by people who demand that perfectly legitimate terms be used in order to avoid offense. But, in this case, the nature of the offense is due to the term being understood by it's normal rather than specialized meaning, and there is a more precise and arguably better substitute. Personally, I think that I will change the way in which I speak.
As my superior was explaining this process to the project engineer, I looked over at the Native American liaison for the project, herself a member of a local tribal council, who whispered to me "I hate the term 'significance'."
Later that day, as I dug holes in the site, the Native American liaison came by to see how we were doing. She and I got to talking, and the subject of regulatory terminology came up. While she acknowledged that the term significance was used because it has a specific regulatory meaning, she felt that it was a term loaded with other meanings, and therefore she found it upsetting. As she put it, just because a site doesn't have research potential for archaeologists doesn't mean that it is insignificant for Native Americans, and the use of the term implied this, whether or not that is intended.
I think that she's right. While the term has a specific regulatory meaning, it is often used in contexts and discussions where only a small portion of the participants are familiar with the regulations, and therefore it is likely to be understood more broadly than it's regulatory meaning. What's more, we have a perfectly acceptable (and arguably more appropriate) term that we can use: register eligible. In the end, when we describe a site as significant, what we are actually saying is that it is eligible for the register. This being the case, why not simply say "register eligible" and be both more precise and less likely to upset or offend the Native American community.
Don't get me wrong, I am usually annoyed by people who demand that perfectly legitimate terms be used in order to avoid offense. But, in this case, the nature of the offense is due to the term being understood by it's normal rather than specialized meaning, and there is a more precise and arguably better substitute. Personally, I think that I will change the way in which I speak.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Ethics, Bone, and Native Consultation
I recently was on a site where we found fragments of bone. It was not clear in the field whether they belonged to a human or an animal, and our permits prohibited collection of materials from the site, so I couldn't take them back to the lab for identification. The easiest thing to do would be to take detailed photos of the fragments and to compare those photos to materials that we had at the lab to make a determination. There was a potential problem, though. Many Native American groups and individuals frown on having human remains photographed, and I didn't know how our Native American monitor (or one of my crew members who was Native American) would feel about having the bone photographed. So, I requested permission, which was granted, and I took the photos.
Some of my fellow archaeologists and many of my fellow science-lovers will be upset that I asked permission rather than simply taking the photos. When I have discussed this sort of thing with people in the past, I typically get a "but you were giving in to mysticism! You weren't practicing SCIENCE!" reaction, followed by half-wit accusations of everything from "intellectual dishonesty" to "moral relativism".
Here's the deal. I spend a fair amount of time working with Native Americans. Most of the time this work is rewarding, sometimes it is frustrating. One thing that has occurred through these interactions is that I have learned to respect the individuals with whom I am working, regardless of the different places we may occupy in relation to archaeological sites. This is important for two reasons - the first is that, regardless of the rhetoric that often surrounds these issues, the research done by archaeologists can and does have a very real impact on the lives of the descendants of the people whom we study. This is so because the laws governing how government agencies manage and/or avoid resources important to native peoples are based in large part on what is known about them through the anthropological disciplines, including archaeology and ethnography. In fact, the principle criterion under which archaeological sites are protected under federal law states that they may be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places if they can be shown to possess the potential to yield data important to the study of prehistory or history, which places the fate of these sites in the purview of archaeologists. This being the case, those of us who work with these regulations have to choose to either ignore the Native Americans who may have a legitimate stake in the fate of these sites, or to consider them when we work with these sites in order to find out if we can translate their concerns into something that the regulations can understand*. I believe that we have an ethical duty to do the latter.
The second reason is more pragmatic. We are required to work with Native Americans. We can choose to try to work with them, we can choose to work against them, or we can choose to capitulate. If we capitulate, abandon our own views and positions, then we give up being archaeologists and become nonentities, losing the respect of those we work with, including the Native Americans. If we work against them then we create unnecessary friction, we will make our own lives miserable, and likely create situations where nobody will wish to work with us. If we work with them, then we can find ways to achieve our goals while not alienating the Native Americans with whom we work. This was a perfect case - we had to determine if the bone was human, and had I simply started snapping photos, I would likely have alienated the monitor who was with me. By asking first, I assured that I wouldn't alienate her, and I signaled that I was willing to work out another solution if that one had been unacceptable. The majority of the time, if you ask first, you will get permission, and if you don't the person with whom you are working will work with you to find a solution that gets the information that you need but with which they feel comfortable.
There is one last reason why I asked before I took photographs. I'm not a dick. In the end, whether or not I feel that there is anything morally, ethically, or spiritually wrong with taking photos of bone, I do think that there is something wrong with unnecessarily upsetting somebody. It doesn't matter whether or not I agree or even understand why taking pictures of human remains (or digging up burials, or mapping rock art, etc.) will upset somebody, what matters is that it does upset them and they have a legitimate stake in how these materials are treated. If I am to be a decent human being, then I need to consider that when I take my actions. I may still have to sometimes do things that they will not like, but there is no reason to do so unnecessarily when simply showing some basic respect will ease their mind.
In the end, once the data is gathered, I will process it in accordance with my training and background. I will produce an archaeological report where the information gathered is put into a context that fits with what science has uncovered about the human past. I often hear people talk about Native American groups as being akin to Christian Young Earth Creationists, but this comparison is both facile and false. Unlike the creationists, most Native Americans don't try to tell archaeologists to hide or falsify data, they don't accuse the archaeologists of being in league with demons and out to corrupt humanity. They generally don't try to force school boards to adopt pseudo-scientific curricula in order to further their own agenda. My experience has been that most of them don't even object to the conclusions that archaeologists reach (though there are some very vocal exceptions). Generally, they simply want to be consulted, to be part of the process, and to be listened to.
Really, it's not much to ask for.
*We are often, perhaps typically, unsuccessful, but I still feel that it is important to try.
Some of my fellow archaeologists and many of my fellow science-lovers will be upset that I asked permission rather than simply taking the photos. When I have discussed this sort of thing with people in the past, I typically get a "but you were giving in to mysticism! You weren't practicing SCIENCE!" reaction, followed by half-wit accusations of everything from "intellectual dishonesty" to "moral relativism".
Here's the deal. I spend a fair amount of time working with Native Americans. Most of the time this work is rewarding, sometimes it is frustrating. One thing that has occurred through these interactions is that I have learned to respect the individuals with whom I am working, regardless of the different places we may occupy in relation to archaeological sites. This is important for two reasons - the first is that, regardless of the rhetoric that often surrounds these issues, the research done by archaeologists can and does have a very real impact on the lives of the descendants of the people whom we study. This is so because the laws governing how government agencies manage and/or avoid resources important to native peoples are based in large part on what is known about them through the anthropological disciplines, including archaeology and ethnography. In fact, the principle criterion under which archaeological sites are protected under federal law states that they may be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places if they can be shown to possess the potential to yield data important to the study of prehistory or history, which places the fate of these sites in the purview of archaeologists. This being the case, those of us who work with these regulations have to choose to either ignore the Native Americans who may have a legitimate stake in the fate of these sites, or to consider them when we work with these sites in order to find out if we can translate their concerns into something that the regulations can understand*. I believe that we have an ethical duty to do the latter.
The second reason is more pragmatic. We are required to work with Native Americans. We can choose to try to work with them, we can choose to work against them, or we can choose to capitulate. If we capitulate, abandon our own views and positions, then we give up being archaeologists and become nonentities, losing the respect of those we work with, including the Native Americans. If we work against them then we create unnecessary friction, we will make our own lives miserable, and likely create situations where nobody will wish to work with us. If we work with them, then we can find ways to achieve our goals while not alienating the Native Americans with whom we work. This was a perfect case - we had to determine if the bone was human, and had I simply started snapping photos, I would likely have alienated the monitor who was with me. By asking first, I assured that I wouldn't alienate her, and I signaled that I was willing to work out another solution if that one had been unacceptable. The majority of the time, if you ask first, you will get permission, and if you don't the person with whom you are working will work with you to find a solution that gets the information that you need but with which they feel comfortable.
There is one last reason why I asked before I took photographs. I'm not a dick. In the end, whether or not I feel that there is anything morally, ethically, or spiritually wrong with taking photos of bone, I do think that there is something wrong with unnecessarily upsetting somebody. It doesn't matter whether or not I agree or even understand why taking pictures of human remains (or digging up burials, or mapping rock art, etc.) will upset somebody, what matters is that it does upset them and they have a legitimate stake in how these materials are treated. If I am to be a decent human being, then I need to consider that when I take my actions. I may still have to sometimes do things that they will not like, but there is no reason to do so unnecessarily when simply showing some basic respect will ease their mind.
In the end, once the data is gathered, I will process it in accordance with my training and background. I will produce an archaeological report where the information gathered is put into a context that fits with what science has uncovered about the human past. I often hear people talk about Native American groups as being akin to Christian Young Earth Creationists, but this comparison is both facile and false. Unlike the creationists, most Native Americans don't try to tell archaeologists to hide or falsify data, they don't accuse the archaeologists of being in league with demons and out to corrupt humanity. They generally don't try to force school boards to adopt pseudo-scientific curricula in order to further their own agenda. My experience has been that most of them don't even object to the conclusions that archaeologists reach (though there are some very vocal exceptions). Generally, they simply want to be consulted, to be part of the process, and to be listened to.
Really, it's not much to ask for.
*We are often, perhaps typically, unsuccessful, but I still feel that it is important to try.
Monday, April 26, 2010
the Riverside Debacle
Native American consultation is a regular aspect of my work, and is a fact of life for anyone on my career path. I have had a wide range of experiences, everything from being told that I am a grave robber (ironically at a time when I was trying to persuade my client not to force a site to be dug into) to having the privilege of sitting in on elder's council meetings to hear what they have to say. On the whole, my experiences have been positive - CRM archaeologists such as myself prefer preservation over excavation, which means that we are usually, if not on the same frequency, at least in the same part of the radio spectrum as the Native Americans with whom we work. I know many people who can tell horror stories, and I even have a few myself, but most of my interactions have been professional and clearly oriented towards trying to make sure that everyone gets what they need.
And then, in 2006, there was Riverside County.
Riverside County, in southeastern California, had hired a new county planner. This planner either decided to do outreach to the Native American community, or was receptive when they came to him - I have never been able to get a definitive answer either way. Regardless, it was decided that archaeologists working in Riverside County or planning to work in the county would be required to attend a training/sensitivity workshop at a reservation within the county.
Many of my colleagues were displeased with this. To give a bit of background, there have been a number of federal and state laws passed that have required interaction between archaeologists and Native Americans. the best known is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, better known as NAGPRA, which requires both that Native Americans be consulted when graves, burial goods, or certain religious items associated with federal properties or projects might disturbed, and that federal facilities inventory their collections and work at repatriating human remains and funerary and religious items*. Federal and (at least in California) state agencies are also required to communicate with Native American groups regarding activities that might disturb archaeological sites or the vaguely-name (and even more vaguely-defined) Traditional Cultural Properties (TCP).
In the wake of these laws, it has become more common for municipal and county governments to make an effort to interact with the Native American community. In fact, California's Senate Bill 18 requires that such be done when General Plans and Specific Plans are being created and/or revised.
So, in the wake of all of this, the government of Riverside County decided that they wanted to increase their cooperation with Native Americans within the County. To this end, they made a requirement that archaeologists working within Riverside County would be required to attend a training session with the Native Americans. Okay, so far, so good. This seemed like a pretty good idea to me, and like something that was, frankly, long overdue.
The problem is that the execution was rather poor.
For starters, in the days leading up to the meeting, the county sent out multiple contradictory statements saying that A) only project managers would be required to attend, B)Oh, sorry, scratch that, all field supervisors are required to attend, C)yeah, 'bout that, actually, everyone who might possibly ever be in the field in any position is required to attend, D) You know, actually, just the field supervisors after all, and finally E) only one archaeologist per company is required to attend**.
The meeting was held in a conference room at a reservation casino hotel. The hotel was a gorgeous place, and I had no complaints about the accommodations - both larger and more comfortable than my apartment, which was actually quite large and comfortable. And the evening before the session was quite pleasant, one of my co-workers enjoying the casino (and doing quite well at the blackjack tables) and me in my room reading.
The trouble started the next morning.
At the entrance to the conference room we obtained our name tags and spiral-bound books (common items at any sort of workshop or seminar). Upon entering the room, we found that all of the archaeologists were to sit on folding chairs behind long tables, while the county and Native American representatives all occupied a raised platform at one end of the room.
Now the raised platform may not sound like too big of a deal, but I have been to many seminars and workshops, and I can tell you that it is unusual in my line of work. In rooms such as the one into which we had been herded, there is nothing preventing someone even int he back of the room from seeing the speakers at the front if they are on the floor like the rest of us. The use of the raised platform sends a message, whether intentional or not, that we were not there to talk or interact, but to be scolded. We were all put on-guard from the get-go.
The first part of the day, leading up to lunch, was, despite the poor choice in room set-up, actually quite useful and productive. It essentially consisted of archaeologist (and cultural resource policy wonk) Tom King lecturing, and then interacting with the audience, on the areas of cultural resources law that pertain to Native American consultation. It was interesting and extremely valuable to those of us who were participating.
Then we broke for lunch. And then the second half occurred.
The second half consisted of a representative from Riverside County laying out the new guidelines and regulations for work in Riverside County, the Native American representatives scolding the archaeologists, and the archaeologists responding to the scolding. All of it was bad. Let's break it down:
New Regulations and Guidelines: According to the county planner explaining these guidelines, all artifacts found during work would be turned over to the tribes, regardless of whether they were on public or private lands, and all entities performing work on county lands, including federal agencies, would be bound by this requirement. Moreover, no research would be allowed without express consent of the tribes, and representatives from some of the tribes, though it must be stressed not all of the tribes, stated that they would not give consent for research under any circumstances.
Now, a lot of people will argue that it is ethical to side with the tribes and to turn all of the artifacts over to the tribes. I don't entirely agree, but I will concede that it is a fair position to take. The problem, however, is that it doesn't work within the law.
If materials are found on private land, they are considered the property of the landowner (there are some exceptions, but as a general rule, this holds). It can be argued that from a moral standpoint prehistoric materials should be considered the property of the tribes, and there is a valid argument to be made for that position. But from a legal standpoint, this doesn't work. For the government to claim otherwise may constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. So, the county was begging for a lawsuit on this one.
Moreover, while private citizens may be cowed by the County's rules, it is unlikely that the federal government is going to care. I would love to be in the room when this county planner decides to dictate to a federal representative what the Department of Defense is going to do.
Then there's the issue of research. Good arguments can be made on either side for the importance of research vs. the rights of the tribes to prohibit research. However, the problem here comes from the fact that sites are only protected if they are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places or the California Register of Historic Resources. In order to be eligible, they have to meet one of the four eligibility criteria, and the only criterion that applies to the vast majority of archaeological sites is federal Criterion D and state Criterion 4 - that the site has yielded or is likely to yield information important to the study of history or prehistory. In other words, it is eligible if it has potential to be important to research.
When research isn't allowed, this puts everything into a grey area. The site still has the characteristics that would make it valuable for research, but research will not be allowed, which practically negates research potential. In other words, it can be effectively answered that the site has lost research potential and therefore is no longer eligible for the registers, and is therefore no longer protected. I don't know how such an argument would go over in court or with an agency, but in attempting to protect sites from archaeologists, they may very well have created the conditions under which the sites can be destroyed by development.
so, there is a significant chance of a lawsuit, and a good chance that any archaeologist working in the area would get caught up in one. So, this was a problem.
The Scolding: Nobody likes being scolded. In fact, it is one of the fastest ways to make your audience tune you out. It doesn't matter how legitimate your claim or how just your cause, this is simply a bad way to try to persuade someone. So, as you can imagine, having a group of people on a raised platform lecture us about our alleged sins didn't exactly lead to us feeling either contrite or inclined to be helpful.
In addition to the basic communication problems that this created, there was a further content problem. Most of the scolding was over things that had been done by research archaeologists. Not just that, but research archaeologists of the past, for the most part.
A little background information may be in order here. People in my line of work act as consultants to help our clients keep in line with the historic preservation laws. We identify sites, and the agencies with which we work have policies that advocate for avoiding sites, so there is regulatory support for preservation of sites rather than excavation. When we do have to excavate, we know that we will be at a time and funding disadvantage, so we prefer not to excavate when it can be avoided. We are, by both our professional ethics and our training (and many of us by our natures) conservationists, and we would rather not have to excavate a site, and by excavating it damage or destroy it.
Research archaeologists, by contrast, are driven by research questions rather than policy goals. They will, therefore, excavate a site if necessary to answer a research question, and are not necessarily going to be conservationists. However, over the last several decades, an increasingly larger number of research archaeologists have come to the realization that excavation is eliminating sites, and therefore we may be better off using existing excavated collections for research and excavating only as often and only as much as is strictly necessary for a research project.
So, when we were scolded for our "grave robbing" and our "unfettered excavation for no reason than our own personal curiosity", we were being scolded for things that most of the people in that are in fact innocent of. Again, we were conservationists, so we are the natural allies of people who want to preserve sites***. Hell, I know that at least one person in that room had even thrown himself in front of a bulldozer to prevent a site from being destroyed. So, we were being scolded for something that we don't even do, and being accused of destroying sites when it was the new rules from the county that were likely to actually result in the loss of sites.
I should state that most of this scolding came from a few members of the tribal groups represented. The representatives of the other groups showed a better handle on how to talk with and work with archaeologists, as well as the nature of the law (whether or not they agreed with it). However, they were not as vocal nor as forceful as the ones who were throwing accusations, and as such the more negative members set the tone.
One representative even said "you archaeologists have been working for years, and if you've actually learned anything, I haven't heard of it!" It took a good deal of effort to bite my tongue and not yell "yeah, we sneaky bastards cleverly hide our results in published books!" There was a legitimate point here - archaeologists aren't as good as we should be about communicating what we do, especially not to the descendants of the people who we study. We are at fault for a lot of that. At the same time, to say that we haven't learned anything is an astoundingly ignorant statement. She seemed to think that she was putting us in our place when, in fact, she was convincing us that she was someone who wasn't worth listening to.
The Archaeologists Strike Back: So, as you can imagine, the archaeologists were pretty riled up. Some of us tried to point out legitimate issues - that we are preservationists, that we don't dig up sites for our own curiosity but only as a last-ditch effort to protect something from destruction, and that the proposed new rules were likely to endanger sites rather than protect them - but others decided to scold back, achieving nothing but exacerbating an already bad situation.
There was one fellow who began shouting that the Native American representatives in the room weren't even from the groups they claimed to be from. I can not confirm or refute his claim, but I can say that, from a legal standpoint, it's irrelevant, these groups have been legally recognized and we have to work with them. All that his comments did was piss off people with whom we needed to find some sort of common ground.
Other people made statements that sounded good, but seemed to irritate the Native Americans present. For example, one fellow stood up and announced that the archaeological sites were part of our common human heritage, and were shared by everyone. this is a strictly philosophical point of view, and one that I agree with, but after a couple of hours of an "Us vs. You" routine, this did nothing but piss off the other side.
So, while we archaeologists were led into a bad situation, we didn't necessarily acquit ourselves well once we were in the mess.
When the day was done, my coworker and I left Riverside County with the conviction that working there would be a recipe for disaster. The Society for California Archaeology decided to issue a response, but it is no longer easily found. I have not heard of any lawsuits out of the county, so I would assume that matters simmered down.
In the end, though, this was a perfect example of what not to do. The county planner was clearly ignorant of the law, being motivated, as far as could be told, by ideology without regards to reality. The Native Americans were by no means a monolithic group - many of the tribal Representatives made good observations and showed a solid understanding of the situation - but there was no clear leadership amongst them, and as such those who were the most passionate (which were often the ones who knew the least about what archaeologists actually do, based on their statements) were allowed to set the tone, preventing cooperation and creating needless conflict. the archaeologists, rather than being calm and trying to sort out the valid criticisms, and there were valid criticisms voiced, became defensive and went on the counter-attack.
Nobody came out smelling of roses, and it was a truly bas situation all the way around.
*Failure to accomplish this task on the part of many facilities doesn't change the fact that there is a legal obligation to do so.
**Meaning that a company like my employer at the time - a large multi-national engineering and environmental compliance firm - could get away with sending one of many archaeologists, while a smaller company would have to send one of very few archaeologists. Yay for disparity!
***Though, admittedly, the fact that the regulations do protect sites for research potential does introduce a tension into any potential relationship. Nonetheless, we can, and try to, help in preservation.
And then, in 2006, there was Riverside County.
Riverside County, in southeastern California, had hired a new county planner. This planner either decided to do outreach to the Native American community, or was receptive when they came to him - I have never been able to get a definitive answer either way. Regardless, it was decided that archaeologists working in Riverside County or planning to work in the county would be required to attend a training/sensitivity workshop at a reservation within the county.
Many of my colleagues were displeased with this. To give a bit of background, there have been a number of federal and state laws passed that have required interaction between archaeologists and Native Americans. the best known is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, better known as NAGPRA, which requires both that Native Americans be consulted when graves, burial goods, or certain religious items associated with federal properties or projects might disturbed, and that federal facilities inventory their collections and work at repatriating human remains and funerary and religious items*. Federal and (at least in California) state agencies are also required to communicate with Native American groups regarding activities that might disturb archaeological sites or the vaguely-name (and even more vaguely-defined) Traditional Cultural Properties (TCP).
In the wake of these laws, it has become more common for municipal and county governments to make an effort to interact with the Native American community. In fact, California's Senate Bill 18 requires that such be done when General Plans and Specific Plans are being created and/or revised.
So, in the wake of all of this, the government of Riverside County decided that they wanted to increase their cooperation with Native Americans within the County. To this end, they made a requirement that archaeologists working within Riverside County would be required to attend a training session with the Native Americans. Okay, so far, so good. This seemed like a pretty good idea to me, and like something that was, frankly, long overdue.
The problem is that the execution was rather poor.
For starters, in the days leading up to the meeting, the county sent out multiple contradictory statements saying that A) only project managers would be required to attend, B)Oh, sorry, scratch that, all field supervisors are required to attend, C)yeah, 'bout that, actually, everyone who might possibly ever be in the field in any position is required to attend, D) You know, actually, just the field supervisors after all, and finally E) only one archaeologist per company is required to attend**.
The meeting was held in a conference room at a reservation casino hotel. The hotel was a gorgeous place, and I had no complaints about the accommodations - both larger and more comfortable than my apartment, which was actually quite large and comfortable. And the evening before the session was quite pleasant, one of my co-workers enjoying the casino (and doing quite well at the blackjack tables) and me in my room reading.
The trouble started the next morning.
At the entrance to the conference room we obtained our name tags and spiral-bound books (common items at any sort of workshop or seminar). Upon entering the room, we found that all of the archaeologists were to sit on folding chairs behind long tables, while the county and Native American representatives all occupied a raised platform at one end of the room.
Now the raised platform may not sound like too big of a deal, but I have been to many seminars and workshops, and I can tell you that it is unusual in my line of work. In rooms such as the one into which we had been herded, there is nothing preventing someone even int he back of the room from seeing the speakers at the front if they are on the floor like the rest of us. The use of the raised platform sends a message, whether intentional or not, that we were not there to talk or interact, but to be scolded. We were all put on-guard from the get-go.
The first part of the day, leading up to lunch, was, despite the poor choice in room set-up, actually quite useful and productive. It essentially consisted of archaeologist (and cultural resource policy wonk) Tom King lecturing, and then interacting with the audience, on the areas of cultural resources law that pertain to Native American consultation. It was interesting and extremely valuable to those of us who were participating.
Then we broke for lunch. And then the second half occurred.
The second half consisted of a representative from Riverside County laying out the new guidelines and regulations for work in Riverside County, the Native American representatives scolding the archaeologists, and the archaeologists responding to the scolding. All of it was bad. Let's break it down:
New Regulations and Guidelines: According to the county planner explaining these guidelines, all artifacts found during work would be turned over to the tribes, regardless of whether they were on public or private lands, and all entities performing work on county lands, including federal agencies, would be bound by this requirement. Moreover, no research would be allowed without express consent of the tribes, and representatives from some of the tribes, though it must be stressed not all of the tribes, stated that they would not give consent for research under any circumstances.
Now, a lot of people will argue that it is ethical to side with the tribes and to turn all of the artifacts over to the tribes. I don't entirely agree, but I will concede that it is a fair position to take. The problem, however, is that it doesn't work within the law.
If materials are found on private land, they are considered the property of the landowner (there are some exceptions, but as a general rule, this holds). It can be argued that from a moral standpoint prehistoric materials should be considered the property of the tribes, and there is a valid argument to be made for that position. But from a legal standpoint, this doesn't work. For the government to claim otherwise may constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. So, the county was begging for a lawsuit on this one.
Moreover, while private citizens may be cowed by the County's rules, it is unlikely that the federal government is going to care. I would love to be in the room when this county planner decides to dictate to a federal representative what the Department of Defense is going to do.
Then there's the issue of research. Good arguments can be made on either side for the importance of research vs. the rights of the tribes to prohibit research. However, the problem here comes from the fact that sites are only protected if they are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places or the California Register of Historic Resources. In order to be eligible, they have to meet one of the four eligibility criteria, and the only criterion that applies to the vast majority of archaeological sites is federal Criterion D and state Criterion 4 - that the site has yielded or is likely to yield information important to the study of history or prehistory. In other words, it is eligible if it has potential to be important to research.
When research isn't allowed, this puts everything into a grey area. The site still has the characteristics that would make it valuable for research, but research will not be allowed, which practically negates research potential. In other words, it can be effectively answered that the site has lost research potential and therefore is no longer eligible for the registers, and is therefore no longer protected. I don't know how such an argument would go over in court or with an agency, but in attempting to protect sites from archaeologists, they may very well have created the conditions under which the sites can be destroyed by development.
so, there is a significant chance of a lawsuit, and a good chance that any archaeologist working in the area would get caught up in one. So, this was a problem.
The Scolding: Nobody likes being scolded. In fact, it is one of the fastest ways to make your audience tune you out. It doesn't matter how legitimate your claim or how just your cause, this is simply a bad way to try to persuade someone. So, as you can imagine, having a group of people on a raised platform lecture us about our alleged sins didn't exactly lead to us feeling either contrite or inclined to be helpful.
In addition to the basic communication problems that this created, there was a further content problem. Most of the scolding was over things that had been done by research archaeologists. Not just that, but research archaeologists of the past, for the most part.
A little background information may be in order here. People in my line of work act as consultants to help our clients keep in line with the historic preservation laws. We identify sites, and the agencies with which we work have policies that advocate for avoiding sites, so there is regulatory support for preservation of sites rather than excavation. When we do have to excavate, we know that we will be at a time and funding disadvantage, so we prefer not to excavate when it can be avoided. We are, by both our professional ethics and our training (and many of us by our natures) conservationists, and we would rather not have to excavate a site, and by excavating it damage or destroy it.
Research archaeologists, by contrast, are driven by research questions rather than policy goals. They will, therefore, excavate a site if necessary to answer a research question, and are not necessarily going to be conservationists. However, over the last several decades, an increasingly larger number of research archaeologists have come to the realization that excavation is eliminating sites, and therefore we may be better off using existing excavated collections for research and excavating only as often and only as much as is strictly necessary for a research project.
So, when we were scolded for our "grave robbing" and our "unfettered excavation for no reason than our own personal curiosity", we were being scolded for things that most of the people in that are in fact innocent of. Again, we were conservationists, so we are the natural allies of people who want to preserve sites***. Hell, I know that at least one person in that room had even thrown himself in front of a bulldozer to prevent a site from being destroyed. So, we were being scolded for something that we don't even do, and being accused of destroying sites when it was the new rules from the county that were likely to actually result in the loss of sites.
I should state that most of this scolding came from a few members of the tribal groups represented. The representatives of the other groups showed a better handle on how to talk with and work with archaeologists, as well as the nature of the law (whether or not they agreed with it). However, they were not as vocal nor as forceful as the ones who were throwing accusations, and as such the more negative members set the tone.
One representative even said "you archaeologists have been working for years, and if you've actually learned anything, I haven't heard of it!" It took a good deal of effort to bite my tongue and not yell "yeah, we sneaky bastards cleverly hide our results in published books!" There was a legitimate point here - archaeologists aren't as good as we should be about communicating what we do, especially not to the descendants of the people who we study. We are at fault for a lot of that. At the same time, to say that we haven't learned anything is an astoundingly ignorant statement. She seemed to think that she was putting us in our place when, in fact, she was convincing us that she was someone who wasn't worth listening to.
The Archaeologists Strike Back: So, as you can imagine, the archaeologists were pretty riled up. Some of us tried to point out legitimate issues - that we are preservationists, that we don't dig up sites for our own curiosity but only as a last-ditch effort to protect something from destruction, and that the proposed new rules were likely to endanger sites rather than protect them - but others decided to scold back, achieving nothing but exacerbating an already bad situation.
There was one fellow who began shouting that the Native American representatives in the room weren't even from the groups they claimed to be from. I can not confirm or refute his claim, but I can say that, from a legal standpoint, it's irrelevant, these groups have been legally recognized and we have to work with them. All that his comments did was piss off people with whom we needed to find some sort of common ground.
Other people made statements that sounded good, but seemed to irritate the Native Americans present. For example, one fellow stood up and announced that the archaeological sites were part of our common human heritage, and were shared by everyone. this is a strictly philosophical point of view, and one that I agree with, but after a couple of hours of an "Us vs. You" routine, this did nothing but piss off the other side.
So, while we archaeologists were led into a bad situation, we didn't necessarily acquit ourselves well once we were in the mess.
When the day was done, my coworker and I left Riverside County with the conviction that working there would be a recipe for disaster. The Society for California Archaeology decided to issue a response, but it is no longer easily found. I have not heard of any lawsuits out of the county, so I would assume that matters simmered down.
In the end, though, this was a perfect example of what not to do. The county planner was clearly ignorant of the law, being motivated, as far as could be told, by ideology without regards to reality. The Native Americans were by no means a monolithic group - many of the tribal Representatives made good observations and showed a solid understanding of the situation - but there was no clear leadership amongst them, and as such those who were the most passionate (which were often the ones who knew the least about what archaeologists actually do, based on their statements) were allowed to set the tone, preventing cooperation and creating needless conflict. the archaeologists, rather than being calm and trying to sort out the valid criticisms, and there were valid criticisms voiced, became defensive and went on the counter-attack.
Nobody came out smelling of roses, and it was a truly bas situation all the way around.
*Failure to accomplish this task on the part of many facilities doesn't change the fact that there is a legal obligation to do so.
**Meaning that a company like my employer at the time - a large multi-national engineering and environmental compliance firm - could get away with sending one of many archaeologists, while a smaller company would have to send one of very few archaeologists. Yay for disparity!
***Though, admittedly, the fact that the regulations do protect sites for research potential does introduce a tension into any potential relationship. Nonetheless, we can, and try to, help in preservation.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Chumash Death Magic Cave Adventure
When I first moved to Santa Barbara, I volunteered with the archaeologists at the Presidio of Santa Barbara – an open-air museum that represented the reconstructed remains of the Spanish fort that had been constructed to provide protection to the Mission located nearby. These folks worked not only at the Presidio, but would do other archaeology-related jobs around the county. This included surveys at Mission La Purisima in Lompoc (on the north side of the county), small projects around the county, and work at a rock art site known as the Chumash Painted Cave.
The painted caves appear to have been a ritual site, possibly for a religious elite group known as the ‘Antap Cult that existed within Chumash society prior to the arrival of Europeans. The ‘Antap served a number of purposes, from ritual functions to holders of political power (it appears that you couldn’t become a chief or other elite unless you were a member of the ‘Antap). After the Spanish largely decimated local religion, the ‘Antap began to be viewed differently by most Chumash people - based on Chumash stories gathered during the late 19th and early 20th century, it looks like the ‘Antap had ceased to be seen as ritual and political officers and come to be seen as boogey-man like creatures (a view that may have been fostered by a tendency for the late prehistoric ‘Antap members to encourage a view of themselves as magically powerful and to be feared by the general populace). Therefore, it is no surprise that Painted Cave is sometimes referred to as a place of “death magic”.
Needless to say, I was excited when I was asked to take part in the field work for a project aimed at protecting the rock art in Painted Cave – after all, it’s not everyday that one gets to hang out in a place of powerful death magic.
The purpose of the project was to determine how long the rock art was likely to remain on the stone. The cave was located within a sandstone formation, and the stone within the cave was exfoliating, creating a floor-cover of sand inside of the cave. The exfoliation was degrading the rock art, but was also causing further degradation – when the wind whips up it lifts the sand off of the floor and blows it through the cave, acting as a low-grade sand paper and removing paint from the walls. So, it was important both to remove the existing sand from the floor of the cave, and to measure the rate at which new sand is appearing in the cave. To this end, we opened the gate*and entered the cave. We used shop vacuum that had been fitted with archaeological screens to remove sand and recover any artifacts that might be on the floor of the cave. We also placed small ceramic cylinders at various locations throughout the cave in order to measure the rate of sand accumulation.
While cleaning out the cave, we kept finding “offerings” of plant bundles – primarily sage. While some of these were probably from local Chumash people, based on what we were seeing, I suspect that many of them were left by local New-Age folks who were seeking to commune with nature spirits**. We also were able to get a close look at the 19th century graffiti that had been created inside of the cave (the cave was allegedly used by Pony Express riders, and is known to have been used as a camping location by locals since the mid-19th century). While the rock art was stunning, the 19th century graffiti – comprised primarily of people’s names and the year, references to local events, and the like – was really interesting as well. In both cases, there was this amazing sense that I was seeing something that had been done by people now long dead, and yet their handiwork remained.
I ended up placing a cylinder inside of a crevice in the back of the cave. Not realizing that my arms were longer than everyone else’s, I placed it in an area where I figured that I’d be able to reach in and adjust the cylinder. After I had stopped volunteering, I discovered that the other archaeologists had to buy a toy “robot arm” in order to reach the cylinder. Score one for the tall guy!
After I had placed the cylinder, I got up to leave the cave, slipped on the sand, and nearly bashed my head on a rock overhang. Now, I’ll leave it to others to determine which would have been worse – my bashing my head open and getting my fool self killed, or me hitting sensitive rock art with my head and possibly damaging it. Regardless, I managed to catch myself before I hit the rock, and was spared either problem.
Since then, I have worked on a number of projects in which rock art was present – and while I have seen some cool stuff, I have never seen anything that quite matches the Painted Cave in terms of just plain cool artwork. Here’s a photo:
*There has been a gate, taken from an old bank vault, in front of painted cave since the 1920’s. There are numerous caves with rock art in them in these mountains, and occasionally I will meet someone who swears up and down that they used to hang out inside the cave. As far as I can tell, these folks were in another cave, and are mistaking it for the one actually named Chumash Painted Cave. Of course, you try to tell someone that and they will insist that you don’t know the history of the area, despite the evidence that it is them who is confused.
**No, I’m not making that up or exaggerating. For a variety of reasons, a segment of the New Age movement has adopted a pet belief that the native peoples of the Americas have a super-human tie to nature spirits, and therefore tend to carry out stereotyped behaviors patterned on misunderstandings of some ethnographic-period rituals. In my experience, this tends to really irritate the modern members of the Native American community, who, rightfully, see this is being more about the New Age folks wanting a mystical past culture to look up to rather than them seeing the Native American community as the gathering of people that it really is – and this often makes attempts to get ahead in mundane but important matters very difficult for the Native American community.
The painted caves appear to have been a ritual site, possibly for a religious elite group known as the ‘Antap Cult that existed within Chumash society prior to the arrival of Europeans. The ‘Antap served a number of purposes, from ritual functions to holders of political power (it appears that you couldn’t become a chief or other elite unless you were a member of the ‘Antap). After the Spanish largely decimated local religion, the ‘Antap began to be viewed differently by most Chumash people - based on Chumash stories gathered during the late 19th and early 20th century, it looks like the ‘Antap had ceased to be seen as ritual and political officers and come to be seen as boogey-man like creatures (a view that may have been fostered by a tendency for the late prehistoric ‘Antap members to encourage a view of themselves as magically powerful and to be feared by the general populace). Therefore, it is no surprise that Painted Cave is sometimes referred to as a place of “death magic”.
Needless to say, I was excited when I was asked to take part in the field work for a project aimed at protecting the rock art in Painted Cave – after all, it’s not everyday that one gets to hang out in a place of powerful death magic.
The purpose of the project was to determine how long the rock art was likely to remain on the stone. The cave was located within a sandstone formation, and the stone within the cave was exfoliating, creating a floor-cover of sand inside of the cave. The exfoliation was degrading the rock art, but was also causing further degradation – when the wind whips up it lifts the sand off of the floor and blows it through the cave, acting as a low-grade sand paper and removing paint from the walls. So, it was important both to remove the existing sand from the floor of the cave, and to measure the rate at which new sand is appearing in the cave. To this end, we opened the gate*and entered the cave. We used shop vacuum that had been fitted with archaeological screens to remove sand and recover any artifacts that might be on the floor of the cave. We also placed small ceramic cylinders at various locations throughout the cave in order to measure the rate of sand accumulation.
While cleaning out the cave, we kept finding “offerings” of plant bundles – primarily sage. While some of these were probably from local Chumash people, based on what we were seeing, I suspect that many of them were left by local New-Age folks who were seeking to commune with nature spirits**. We also were able to get a close look at the 19th century graffiti that had been created inside of the cave (the cave was allegedly used by Pony Express riders, and is known to have been used as a camping location by locals since the mid-19th century). While the rock art was stunning, the 19th century graffiti – comprised primarily of people’s names and the year, references to local events, and the like – was really interesting as well. In both cases, there was this amazing sense that I was seeing something that had been done by people now long dead, and yet their handiwork remained.
I ended up placing a cylinder inside of a crevice in the back of the cave. Not realizing that my arms were longer than everyone else’s, I placed it in an area where I figured that I’d be able to reach in and adjust the cylinder. After I had stopped volunteering, I discovered that the other archaeologists had to buy a toy “robot arm” in order to reach the cylinder. Score one for the tall guy!
After I had placed the cylinder, I got up to leave the cave, slipped on the sand, and nearly bashed my head on a rock overhang. Now, I’ll leave it to others to determine which would have been worse – my bashing my head open and getting my fool self killed, or me hitting sensitive rock art with my head and possibly damaging it. Regardless, I managed to catch myself before I hit the rock, and was spared either problem.
Since then, I have worked on a number of projects in which rock art was present – and while I have seen some cool stuff, I have never seen anything that quite matches the Painted Cave in terms of just plain cool artwork. Here’s a photo:
*There has been a gate, taken from an old bank vault, in front of painted cave since the 1920’s. There are numerous caves with rock art in them in these mountains, and occasionally I will meet someone who swears up and down that they used to hang out inside the cave. As far as I can tell, these folks were in another cave, and are mistaking it for the one actually named Chumash Painted Cave. Of course, you try to tell someone that and they will insist that you don’t know the history of the area, despite the evidence that it is them who is confused.
**No, I’m not making that up or exaggerating. For a variety of reasons, a segment of the New Age movement has adopted a pet belief that the native peoples of the Americas have a super-human tie to nature spirits, and therefore tend to carry out stereotyped behaviors patterned on misunderstandings of some ethnographic-period rituals. In my experience, this tends to really irritate the modern members of the Native American community, who, rightfully, see this is being more about the New Age folks wanting a mystical past culture to look up to rather than them seeing the Native American community as the gathering of people that it really is – and this often makes attempts to get ahead in mundane but important matters very difficult for the Native American community.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Whirlybird
Recently, I went back out to Hell Hole Reservoir, this time with a group of representatives from the Native American organizations* on whose ancestral land the project that our client proposes is taking place. I was anxious before we headed out – there were several representatives of several different native organizations present, and my experience in the past is that where there are several organizations represented, each tends to view the others as interlopers and at best tension is created, at worst, the situation can become explosive and even violent (in Southern California, these situations sometimes turned into fist fights).
I needn’t have worried. While all of the individuals had their own interests and priorities, all worked well together, and seemed to respect each other. That was good…very good. Indeed, one fellow began asking questions that seemed to be aimed at provoking the others, but it quickly became apparent to everyone that he wasn’t trying to upset them, but rather to help them understand the sorts of questions that they would have to be prepared for, as these would come from the regulatory agencies. So, the one who seemed like a troublesome individual at first ended up being extremely valuable.
The other thing that had me anxious, again based on past experience, is that often when native groups do get along, it is because they have what they view as a common enemy, and often that is the archaeologist. Indeed, it was not beyond question that the whole trip could have turned into a game of “whack-a-anthropologist.” Again, though, I needn’t have worried. While it was a given that we weren’t always going to see eye-to-eye, it was understood that we all had our priorities where they were for valid reasons, and everyone worked well together as a result. All in all, it was a good trip.
I had to duck out of the second day of the trip, however, as I needed to complete some archaeological surveys at remote locations. These locations were so remote that they could not be reached by car or by hiking – we were to be flown out to the locations by helicopter.
I am the son of an aircraft mechanic. Specifically, I am the son of a helicopter mechanic. This being the case, it is rather remarkable that I had not flown in any form of aircraft until I was 25. And I did not fly in a helicopter – the aircraft that my father has spent so much of his life working on – until I was 32.
On that morning, I stood near the landing pad, itself on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the helicopter to arrive. Due to the odd acoustics of the mountains, the sound of the helicopter would appear and then vanish, and sometimes sound like something other than what it was. After about five minutes of listening to this weird chimerical sound, the helicopter finally arrived.
The pilot, a fellow named Scott, gave us a quick safety briefing – essentially amounting to three basic rules:
1. Don’t fall out of the helicopter while it is flying.
2. Don’t get hit by the helicopter’s blades when it’s on the ground.
3. The results of failure to follow rules #1 and/or #2 will be worse for you than for the pilot.
With this nut o’ wisdom gained, we were off.
We entered the helicopter and strapped in, the odd 4-part seat belt with spring-loaded buckle (for quick removal) seeming unfamiliar but not uncomfortable. The pilot increased the engine throttle, and the blades above us began to turn faster. After a moment, we were leaving the ground.
This felt wrong. In an airplane, the lift comes from the wings at the side, and so it feels as if you are being pushed off of the ground. In a helicopter, the lift comes from the rotors at the top, so it feels like you are being lifted up by a skyhook – a rather disconcerting feeling, really. As we rose up, I felt my heart beat a bit faster, but I was okay. I looked through the windows at my feet (a rather odd feature of helicopters, but one that makes sense, is the windows at the feet of the people in the front), and saw the ground drop away. After a moment, I began to get used to this, and then the helicopter began to move forward.
Do you remember a few paragraphs ago, where I mentioned that the landing pad had been built on the edge of a cliff? Ummm…yeah…well…
As the helicopter moved forward, we suddenly went from being 20 feet above the ground to being close to 500 feet above the ground. My stomach dropped into my pelvis while my heart simultaneously lodged in my throat in a failed attempt to invade my skull. I looked down into the canyon below us for a moment, before I realized that I’d probably be better off looking forward. As there were no arm rests, I took to clamping my very white knuckles over my knees.
Despite my best efforts, I kept sneaking peaks down into the canyon below, and thinking such cheerful thoughts as “you know, if the helicopter suddenly stopped working, we’d just plummet to our deaths, and from this height, that’d take a bit of time, and we’d be conscious of our impending doom the entire way down…OHMYFUCKINGODPUTTHISTHINGBACKONTHEGROUND!”
The pilot looked over to me as I quietly whimpered into the comm. System (oh yeah, that’s another thing, the helicopter is so loud that everyone inside wears a microphone and ear phones so that we can communicate) and asked “You doing okay?”
I held back the urge to scream “You madman! Do you not see that this mode of flight is an abomination, offensive to the very gods themselves? Did you learn nothing from the tales of Daedalus or Phaeton? Put this foul whirlybird back on the ground before you incur the wrath of lord Apollo himself!” and instead simply stated a quiet and unconvincing “yes.”
“Okay” he replied in a cheerful tone of voice, meanwhile increasing our speed and moving us out over the reservoir.
After a few minutes of the twenty minute ride, I calmed down, and actually began to enjoy myself. The view of the project area was amazing, and there was a joy to be had in watching the mountain ridges and peaks pass below us as we glided along. Finally, we came to our destination…sort of.
Looking down at the landing spot, it bore a resemblance to the air photos, but didn’t look quite like it. Also, it was marshy – Scott had to keep the helicopter from sinking into the mud when we finally touched down. At his suggestion, I jumped out of the cockpit and went to the luggage hatch to grab my maps out, sinking to my ankles in mud and stagnant water everytime I took a step. I reached the luggage hatch, and pulled my maps out, and then slogged back to the cockpit, splatter mud on the lower windows as I landed back in my seat.
I handed the maps to the pilot, and watched with a mix of amusement and irritation as his face took on a horrified expression. He then began pushing buttons on his GPS unit, and went from horror to confusion, and then resignation.
“They gave me the wrong coordinates! This site is ten miles to the southeast!”
And with that, we ascended again for another 20-minute helicopter ride. This next ride was much easier on me, and I didn’t experience any of the anxiety. Finally, we descended into a meadow, this time it was clearly the right location, the field technician and I got out and retrieved our equipment, and the helicopter left.
We spent the next three hours performing our surveys, finally finishing just as we heard the blades of the helicopter violently splitting the air somewhere to the west of us. After a few minutes, the helicopter descended, we stowed our equipment in the cargo hatch, climbed inside the cockpit, and we were off again. Once again, the liftoff and flight was actually enjoyable, and the fifteen minute flight to the next location as over too soon – though the landing was a bit nerve wracking as we had to do a near-vertical descent due to the density of the trees surrounding the landing site. Once again, we pulled our equipment out and set to work as the helicopter flew away.
A few hours later, we had completed our surveys and were preparing for a bit of a rest when we heard the helicopter once again coming our way. As soon as it landed, we put our equipment back in the storage compartment, climbed in, and were unnerved by the fact that the helicopter didn’t seem to want to lift off. The helicopter has a maximum height of 6,000 feet, and the mountain was approximately 5,500 feet up, resulting in a hard climb for the aircraft. After a few moments that were tense for me, though the pilot didn’t seem to mind too terribly much, we were off and moving – though we barely cleared the trees at the end of the meadow.
I don’t know if it was the change in temperature, in wind currents, or what, but the ride back to the landing pad was much more turbulent than any other ride that day. We kept feeling the helicopter dip as we rode towards the landing pad – and each time, I found my tension rising, until, for the first time since that morning, I was simultaneously figuring out how long it would take use to fall, and what type of death we’d be likely to face if the helicopter suddenly stopped functioning.
Thankfully, this trip was also the shortest one of the day, and we were soon back on the ground. The field tech and I exited the helicopter, retrieved our equipment for the last time, and headed towards the truck, our knees shaking the entire time. We put our gear in the back of the truck, and then climbed in. As we sat down, we both looked at each other, and the tech said what we both were thinking:
“Well, I can now say I’ve flown in a helicopter. And I am in no hurry to do it again.”
So say we all.
*The usual term used for these organizations is “tribes”, but I avoid using it except in regulatory and legal contexts where the term is used in regulations and guidelines. With the Possible exception of the Yokuts, the social organization of Native Californians before Europeans arrived was at the level of the band, lineage, or village (or possibly chiefdom), not at the much larger level of the tribe. In fact, most Californian anthropologists refer to organization here as “tribelets” – as it was generally more sophisticated than a band, but didn’t incorporate as many people or as large a geographic area as a tribe.
I needn’t have worried. While all of the individuals had their own interests and priorities, all worked well together, and seemed to respect each other. That was good…very good. Indeed, one fellow began asking questions that seemed to be aimed at provoking the others, but it quickly became apparent to everyone that he wasn’t trying to upset them, but rather to help them understand the sorts of questions that they would have to be prepared for, as these would come from the regulatory agencies. So, the one who seemed like a troublesome individual at first ended up being extremely valuable.
The other thing that had me anxious, again based on past experience, is that often when native groups do get along, it is because they have what they view as a common enemy, and often that is the archaeologist. Indeed, it was not beyond question that the whole trip could have turned into a game of “whack-a-anthropologist.” Again, though, I needn’t have worried. While it was a given that we weren’t always going to see eye-to-eye, it was understood that we all had our priorities where they were for valid reasons, and everyone worked well together as a result. All in all, it was a good trip.
I had to duck out of the second day of the trip, however, as I needed to complete some archaeological surveys at remote locations. These locations were so remote that they could not be reached by car or by hiking – we were to be flown out to the locations by helicopter.
I am the son of an aircraft mechanic. Specifically, I am the son of a helicopter mechanic. This being the case, it is rather remarkable that I had not flown in any form of aircraft until I was 25. And I did not fly in a helicopter – the aircraft that my father has spent so much of his life working on – until I was 32.
On that morning, I stood near the landing pad, itself on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the helicopter to arrive. Due to the odd acoustics of the mountains, the sound of the helicopter would appear and then vanish, and sometimes sound like something other than what it was. After about five minutes of listening to this weird chimerical sound, the helicopter finally arrived.
The pilot, a fellow named Scott, gave us a quick safety briefing – essentially amounting to three basic rules:
1. Don’t fall out of the helicopter while it is flying.
2. Don’t get hit by the helicopter’s blades when it’s on the ground.
3. The results of failure to follow rules #1 and/or #2 will be worse for you than for the pilot.
With this nut o’ wisdom gained, we were off.
We entered the helicopter and strapped in, the odd 4-part seat belt with spring-loaded buckle (for quick removal) seeming unfamiliar but not uncomfortable. The pilot increased the engine throttle, and the blades above us began to turn faster. After a moment, we were leaving the ground.
This felt wrong. In an airplane, the lift comes from the wings at the side, and so it feels as if you are being pushed off of the ground. In a helicopter, the lift comes from the rotors at the top, so it feels like you are being lifted up by a skyhook – a rather disconcerting feeling, really. As we rose up, I felt my heart beat a bit faster, but I was okay. I looked through the windows at my feet (a rather odd feature of helicopters, but one that makes sense, is the windows at the feet of the people in the front), and saw the ground drop away. After a moment, I began to get used to this, and then the helicopter began to move forward.
Do you remember a few paragraphs ago, where I mentioned that the landing pad had been built on the edge of a cliff? Ummm…yeah…well…
As the helicopter moved forward, we suddenly went from being 20 feet above the ground to being close to 500 feet above the ground. My stomach dropped into my pelvis while my heart simultaneously lodged in my throat in a failed attempt to invade my skull. I looked down into the canyon below us for a moment, before I realized that I’d probably be better off looking forward. As there were no arm rests, I took to clamping my very white knuckles over my knees.
Despite my best efforts, I kept sneaking peaks down into the canyon below, and thinking such cheerful thoughts as “you know, if the helicopter suddenly stopped working, we’d just plummet to our deaths, and from this height, that’d take a bit of time, and we’d be conscious of our impending doom the entire way down…OHMYFUCKINGODPUTTHISTHINGBACKONTHEGROUND!”
The pilot looked over to me as I quietly whimpered into the comm. System (oh yeah, that’s another thing, the helicopter is so loud that everyone inside wears a microphone and ear phones so that we can communicate) and asked “You doing okay?”
I held back the urge to scream “You madman! Do you not see that this mode of flight is an abomination, offensive to the very gods themselves? Did you learn nothing from the tales of Daedalus or Phaeton? Put this foul whirlybird back on the ground before you incur the wrath of lord Apollo himself!” and instead simply stated a quiet and unconvincing “yes.”
“Okay” he replied in a cheerful tone of voice, meanwhile increasing our speed and moving us out over the reservoir.
After a few minutes of the twenty minute ride, I calmed down, and actually began to enjoy myself. The view of the project area was amazing, and there was a joy to be had in watching the mountain ridges and peaks pass below us as we glided along. Finally, we came to our destination…sort of.
Looking down at the landing spot, it bore a resemblance to the air photos, but didn’t look quite like it. Also, it was marshy – Scott had to keep the helicopter from sinking into the mud when we finally touched down. At his suggestion, I jumped out of the cockpit and went to the luggage hatch to grab my maps out, sinking to my ankles in mud and stagnant water everytime I took a step. I reached the luggage hatch, and pulled my maps out, and then slogged back to the cockpit, splatter mud on the lower windows as I landed back in my seat.
I handed the maps to the pilot, and watched with a mix of amusement and irritation as his face took on a horrified expression. He then began pushing buttons on his GPS unit, and went from horror to confusion, and then resignation.
“They gave me the wrong coordinates! This site is ten miles to the southeast!”
And with that, we ascended again for another 20-minute helicopter ride. This next ride was much easier on me, and I didn’t experience any of the anxiety. Finally, we descended into a meadow, this time it was clearly the right location, the field technician and I got out and retrieved our equipment, and the helicopter left.
We spent the next three hours performing our surveys, finally finishing just as we heard the blades of the helicopter violently splitting the air somewhere to the west of us. After a few minutes, the helicopter descended, we stowed our equipment in the cargo hatch, climbed inside the cockpit, and we were off again. Once again, the liftoff and flight was actually enjoyable, and the fifteen minute flight to the next location as over too soon – though the landing was a bit nerve wracking as we had to do a near-vertical descent due to the density of the trees surrounding the landing site. Once again, we pulled our equipment out and set to work as the helicopter flew away.
A few hours later, we had completed our surveys and were preparing for a bit of a rest when we heard the helicopter once again coming our way. As soon as it landed, we put our equipment back in the storage compartment, climbed in, and were unnerved by the fact that the helicopter didn’t seem to want to lift off. The helicopter has a maximum height of 6,000 feet, and the mountain was approximately 5,500 feet up, resulting in a hard climb for the aircraft. After a few moments that were tense for me, though the pilot didn’t seem to mind too terribly much, we were off and moving – though we barely cleared the trees at the end of the meadow.
I don’t know if it was the change in temperature, in wind currents, or what, but the ride back to the landing pad was much more turbulent than any other ride that day. We kept feeling the helicopter dip as we rode towards the landing pad – and each time, I found my tension rising, until, for the first time since that morning, I was simultaneously figuring out how long it would take use to fall, and what type of death we’d be likely to face if the helicopter suddenly stopped functioning.
Thankfully, this trip was also the shortest one of the day, and we were soon back on the ground. The field tech and I exited the helicopter, retrieved our equipment for the last time, and headed towards the truck, our knees shaking the entire time. We put our gear in the back of the truck, and then climbed in. As we sat down, we both looked at each other, and the tech said what we both were thinking:
“Well, I can now say I’ve flown in a helicopter. And I am in no hurry to do it again.”
So say we all.
*The usual term used for these organizations is “tribes”, but I avoid using it except in regulatory and legal contexts where the term is used in regulations and guidelines. With the Possible exception of the Yokuts, the social organization of Native Californians before Europeans arrived was at the level of the band, lineage, or village (or possibly chiefdom), not at the much larger level of the tribe. In fact, most Californian anthropologists refer to organization here as “tribelets” – as it was generally more sophisticated than a band, but didn’t incorporate as many people or as large a geographic area as a tribe.
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