The Future of Archaeology is Indigenous (2) 8m 2s - end

Tribal cultural resources,
at least to many archeologists,

are the same thing,
and there's a lot of overlap.

Their sites, their features,
their objects,

those are the artifacts.

There's absolute overlap
between the two.

But the one thing that
is included in Assembly Bill 52

are these other special objects,

sacred places, ceremonial sites.

Maybe it's a special oak tree.

I mean, in our own backyard over here,

we have the original oak tree.

For many tribes, it is the oak tree
that bred all the oaks

that fed these people
for tens of thousands of years.

It's an important place.

Is it just a tree?

Um, to some people, maybe,

but not
to the indigenous people of this place.

There's a gypsum mine not too far away.

There's all kinds of sacred stories
that go with that.

Is it an archeological artifact?

Is it paleontological?

No, but it is a TCR,

it is a tribal cultural resources
in that way.

And that has made things
with agencies really complex.

Agencies are cities and municipalities

and counties and states
and federal governments,

now have to interact
with tribes directly.

It's not just the archeology companies,

it's not just
the paleontological companies,

it's tribes having to deal with this.

And it's become kind of a quagmire
in some ways.

How to deal with this brand new law

to include these sort of other things?

Well, traditional people, tribal people

have their own traditional knowledge,

and with that traditional knowledge,
as oral traditions,

talk about these places,
they're really well documented.

We know where they are
and we can talk about them,

even though
they're not archeological sites.

Well, this had a huge impact

on how archeology
gets done here in California.

Back in the day, you'd go on a project,
they're excavating,

they're digging a trench,
they're doing whatever.

There's always an archeologist
watching the soil

to make sure not an important resource

didn't get accidentally dug up.

Soil covers a site,

you remove two meters of soil,
and there's an archeological site.

An archeologist was there all the time.

Paleontologists were often there,
biologists were often there.

That doesn't happen anymore, a lot
of those folks

aren't there anymore.

And as a result of AB 52,

that mistrust
that once existed between tribes

has gotten even worse, because tribes

haven't trusted archeologists
for a very long time,

and it's very common to hear,
amongst native people,

talk about archeologists as grave robbers.

There's a reason why
they were shooting bows and arrows

after he took this thing.

You know, this isn't archeology,
this really is

desecration of a sacred space,
they were mad.

Don't get me wrong,
the movies are fun, I like them,

but, you know, he's not an archeologist.

He kind of is a grave robber.

But that's another story.

Um, nowadays, what's happening

as a result of AB 52
is that the archeologists

aren't even being invited
to those projects.

They remain on call

as sort of like, uh, on standby,

because AB 52 demands,

as tribal people, that we are there,
we are in the audience--

we are not in the audience,
we are in the the trenches,

quite literally sometimes,
and that's great,

because we bring traditional knowledge
to look for TCRs,

but we-- many tribal people
are not trained as archeologists.

We're there to present
our traditional knowledge in those cases.

And when we do find something,

then we actually kind of
have to hand it over

to the archeologist,
because the archeologist

has to come and make a determination

whether something important
has been found.

Well, to archeologists, yeah,

that's kind of a cool thing,
but it's not significant.

That's a term that archeologists use:

it's not a significant object.

Well, the reason why it's
not significant is because a big trench

or a scraper or a front end loader
or whatever

moved all the soil around.

We no longer know
where that object comes from.

It's a really cool point,
it's going to go in a box

and go in some warehouse somewhere,

but it does not
provide essential information

to better our understanding
of the prehistory

of that particular place.

To use legal jargon,
that's what it describes.

So from an archeological standpoint,
it's not significant.

From a TCR standpoint,
from a tribal standpoint, however,

again, this is a living extension
of the people of the past.

There really is this idea
that whoever made that

is somebody living today's ancestor,

and therefore it
has a biotic essence to it.

And that has now
made the kind of conflict

between archeologists and native people

even more complex
and really hard to deal with sometimes.

Some of these archeology companies
actually go so far

as to try to get around AB 52
by hiring tribal people.

And I'm great-- my cousins
and brothers and sisters

are getting hired to do some work,

but that's not the spirit of AB 52.

AB 52 is about
a government-to-government relationship

between agencies, and California
and Native American tribes.

You have to be a member
of a tribal government

to have these interactions
with agencies.

And just because you happen
to be native on a site

doesn't give you that ability
to make those calls.

A tribal representative
needs to be out there

to recognize those objects, those,

you know, plants growing together.

An archeologist might look
at these plants and say, oh, yeah,

it's just a bunch of weeds, yeah,
they're native plants, maybe.

But to indigenous eyes,
that's a living medicine cabinet.

There's all kinds of these types
of TCRs on projects,

and that's really changing
the way archeology gets done.

That takes us back to here,

back to the beginning of my talk here.

What is indigenous archeology,

and how is it really changing?

Well, again,
looking at it through these eyes,

looking through a different set of eyes,

it has brought
about a completely different methodology

to go study archeology.

People bring their traditional ideas,
traditional culture,

their traditional knowledge,

their culture altogether,
to look for these objects.

Well, we can train these folks
to do archeological work,

we can bring about those methodologies
for them to help that.

It's harder to do, not impossible,

but it's a little trickier
to do for sure.

So in the world of archeology,

things are starting to really change,

and we're starting to see that

we can train archeologists
to do that work.

We're on the front lines anyway.

You know, 30 years ago,
when we used to sit around

and talk about what we wanted
to do with this brand new thing

called indigenous archeology,
and it was really few of us.

I mean, at every major conference,

it was basically the same
five of us together

that would talk about this stuff.

And we'd gone to different academic careers

or Forest Service or whatever,

and that just kind of went away.

You know, the great idea of archeologists

controlling their own resources

kind of went away.

But here in California,
we actually have a chance

to really make that a reality.

It makes sense to me,
that the ancestors--

from the descendants of the ancestors
that are being excavated,

have the most to gain,
the most to learn,

from that interpretation.

It makes sense to me
that their interpretation might make

that understanding of what people
were like more accurate.

If we're really going to try
to do anthropology with archeology,

then why not use the people
who still maintain these cultures

and traditions and languages, etc.,

to help with those interpretations?

In some cases, why not,
we just train these folks

to do their own archeological work.

And there's been some great successes.

I mean, I've got to brag,
the Navajo Nation

has the largest
cultural resource program ever.

We have 17 million acres to deal with.

The Hopi have a good one,
the Zunis, Grand Ronde up north.

There's many tribes that have done this,

but no one has ever tried it
on a large scale,

especially here in California.

Well, because agencies now require us
to be there,

maybe it's time we just
can switch hats on occasion.

We're willing
to share traditional knowledge,

but also we can be trained

to do the archeological work
for sure as well.

So what I've been saying,
and we've been saying all along,

is that maybe the future of archeology
really is indigenous.

So thank you.

[applause]