University of Iowa
Department of Anthropology
Archaeology "locks Indians in the past."
A major part of understanding diversity of American Indians is to look at cultural developments from a time that archaeologists call "prehistoric," that is before Europeans came to examine Indian pasts and to tell the story as evidenced from the material remains that people left behind as their cultures changed through time.
This has a profound impact on the way we view Indians, and the way we transmit that view to the public.
It has a long history, going back to the accounts written by some of the first white explorers, tying Indians into the realm of natural history, rather than history.
Let's look at what many Indian people think about the pasts written about their people by archaeologists.
As with many historical accounts, the accounts of prehistory are written by white scholars, the "conquerors" as it were.
Please note well that archaeological stories are not Indian stories of their own pasts.
At the same time, recognize that this does not invalidate the stories archaeologists tell.
The stories often do not even deal with the same things, though they may overlap.
Archaeology is a western discipline using western approaches to knowing, western ideas of time and western notions of logic.
Vine Deloria, Jr.'s Red Earth, White Lies, Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact, published in 1995, gives a "history" of the approaches.
It is a construction of pasts based on material evidences discovered and interpreted by archaeologists.
It contains discussions of objects and their use of tools, but it is not always about people.
Please note that although one can make an assumption that there was but one series of events that make up a past, there can be multiple experiences and interpretations and meanings can be very different.
Emic vs etic constructions, ideal vs. real, intentional vs. implicational views of the past are important differences, and often troubling.
Processual archaeology and positivism exacerbated the problem.
Archaeological vs. Indian Views of "the" past
Without burdening you with jargon and theory, it is important to recognize that archaeological and Indian views of time and past are different.
Simplification does neither great justice, but summarized:
Archaeological time is linear, broken into segments (such as phases, periods, ages). Indian time is cyclical, without breaks.
Archaeologists discover the past through excavation and analysis. Indians know the past through oral tradition.
For archaeologists, the past is the key to the future. For Indians, the past is the present, is the future, is the past.
For archaeologists, time has many possible paths into the future, influenced by our pasts. For Indians, time is repeated, with different actors and locales, but follows a sequence of "god-given," natural law. Stories about it provide exemplars for present behavior.
For Indians to accept archaeologically created pasts would be to deny that the pasts discussed in oral tradition are true. They would thus be accepting a past developed by whites, and it would be another step toward loss of cultural identity.
Take this statement by Cecil Antone of the Gila River tribes at a meeting on reburial:
"My ancestors, relatives, grandmother so on down the line, they tell you about the history of our people and it's passed on and basically, what I'm trying to say, I guess, is that archaeology don't mean nothing. We just accept it, not accept archaeology, but accept the way our past has been established and just keep on trying to live the same old style, however old it is."
Other concerns about archaeology
There is also concern about how archaeologists go about understanding the past.
We'll come back to this, but one concern is that archaeology dehumanizes the past.
The focus on objects, not people is a crucial concern.
Excavations of graves and treatment of human remains is a core issue.
This is not to say that Indian people don't believe that they can learn anything from archaeology.
Rather, they recognize that artifacts and archaeology are not all there is to Indian pasts.
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larry-zimmerman@uiowa.edu
University of Iowa Anthropology
09.25.98