1. Caring for the Global Cultural Heritage
Chapter 13
Caring for the Global Cultural Heritage

2. Outline Archaeological Science: Pure or Applied?
What is Cultural Resource Management?
International Efforts to Protect Cultural Resources
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990
Who Owns the Past?
Seeking Common Ground

3. Archaeological Science: Pure or Applied?
Archaeology is not just about the dead, but also about the living.
Anthropology is conventionally perceived as a pure science, as the systematic pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.
But anthropologists have long attempted to apply their findings to practical ends—that is, to do applied science.
Ruth Benedict joined the Bureau of Overseas Intelligence of the U.S. War Department in WWII.
Human Terrain Teams in Iraq and Afghanistan.

4. Applied Archaeology
Applied anthropologists evaluate domestic social programs, improve corporate working conditions, develop culturally appropriate methods of delivering health care or agricultural assistance programs and devise and implement international development programs.
Brings the techniques of archaeology to nontraditional venues.
Applies our knowledge of the human past to concrete economic or social problems.

5. The Garbage Project
Rathje’s Garbage Project began in Tucson, AZ, an urban community whose population at the time was slightly over 360,000.
Garbage was picked up from randomly selected households, and a sampling design ensured that different socioeconomic neighborhoods were included.

6. The Garbage Project
The project has involved hundreds of students and 60 participating organizations, recording more than 2 million items from 15,000 household refuse samples from some 125 tons of garbage.

7. The Garbage Project: Myths about Landfills
The Garbage Project used archaeological methods to explore nine landfills across the United States, recovering about 12 metric tons of debris deposited between 1952 and 1989.
Paper takes up 40 to 50 percent of the volume in American landfills.
The rest consists of construction debris, metals, plastics, other materials, food and yard waste, and glass.

8. Forensic Archaeology
Uses established archaeological techniques to assist law enforcement agencies.
Provide training in the recovery analysis of material remains generating firsthand evidence to be presented in courts of law.

9. Archaeology of Mass Disasters
Archaeologists are increasingly involved with international investigations.
The violence in Rwanda began in April 1994, an ethnic war broke out between the Hutus and Tutsis, and within months more than 500,000 people were slaughtered.
The archeologists recovered several hundred sets of remains using these procedures, making this one of the largest exhumations ever conducted in the investigation of human rights violations.
Mass graves in Iraq contain more than 300,000 bodies of people whose deaths Saddam Hussein allegedly ordered.

10. Archaeology and the World Trade Center
The massive rubble pile was the world’s largest crime scene.
Manual search for victims, personal effects.
Brooklyn College organized an archaeological team.

11. Cultural Resource Management
Archaeologists also have a critical role in helping to conserve the world’s cultural heritage.
Cultural Resource management (CRM) the brand of archaeology related to compliance with legislation that protects cultural resource.
Threats to America’s cultural heritage come from those who loot archaeological sites and from relentless development across the country.
The federal government has passed laws to protect archaeological sites, historic buildings, and landscapes.
The Antiquities Act
The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA)
The Archaeological Resources Protection Act

12. International Efforts to Protect Cultural Resources
Illegal trafficking in antiquities may be second only to the drug trade in international crime.
A well known example is the Rosetta Stone:
A black basalt stone tablet found in 1799 that bears an inscription in two forms of ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian.
By working from the Greek texts, scholars were able to decipher the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Napoleon took the Rosetta Stone from Egypt as part of the spoils of war.

13. UNESCO Convention of 1970
Requires that signers create legislation and the administration to:
Regulate import and export of cultural objects.
Forbid museums from acquiring illegally exported cultural objects.
Establish ways to inform other nations when illegally exported objects are found within a country’s borders.
Return of cultural objects stolen from public institutions.
Establish a register of art dealers and require them to register.

14. 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
Often seen as human rights rather than archaeological legislation.
Protects Indian graves on federal and tribal lands.
Recognizes tribal authority over treatment of unmarked graves.
Prohibits the commercial selling of native dead bodies.

15. 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
Requires an inventory and repatriation of human remains held by the federal government and institutions that receive federal funding.
Requires these institutions to return inappropriately acquired sacred objects and other important communally owned property to native owners.
Set up a process to determine ownership of human remains found on federal and tribal property after November 16, 1990.

16. Is Kennewick Native American?
Cultural affiliation requires that we establish an identifiable earlier group.
With only one burial and no grave goods, it is impossible for archaeologists to identify Kennewick’s social group.
Kennewick cannot meet the requirement of cultural or tribal affiliation under the law.
Kennewick and other cases like it, will continue to challenge archaeology and Native Americans alike.

17. Who Owns the Past?
The authority of archaeology is increasingly being questioned.
Who has the right to acquire the data of the past? Who gets to analyze it?
A spiritual site: the Bighorn Medicine Wheels- a protected holy, Native American site.

18. Nazi Archaeology: The Danger of Owning the Past
Gustaf Kossinna did not live to see Hitler’s ascension to power in 1933, but his work was inspiration to the Nazi elite.
His work was intended to help the Germans rebuild their country after the First World War.
He argues that waves of Germanic people had emanated from a northern European core area.
Interest in prehistory went to the highest levels of Nazi political power.
Archaeologists looted museums and libraries in conquered lands in the search for artifacts that would demonstrate Germany’s ancestral claim on virtually all Europe and its finds were misinterpreted to support Aryan superiority.

19. Why We Do Archaeology Affects How We Do Archaeology
History tells us how we became the people we are today.
History contains important lessons about eh nature of humans and cultural change.
Archaeologists continue to debate and discuss the past with various groups outside archaeology.
Research programs that incorporate the perspectives and participation of others. A considered dialogue is beneficial because it continuously reminds us of why we do archaeology.

20. Seeking Common Ground
American archaeologists have developed research programs that incorporate the perspectives of Indians and other descendant communities.
The society for American Archaeology annually awards scholarships to Native American students.
The growth of archaeological programs produced new career opportunities for native people.

21. Related Videos
Forensic Archaeology at the University of Leicester-
CNN: Archaeology unearths a ship at WTC site-
Kennewick Man & European in Ancient America-

22. Quick Quiz

23. 1. The biggest threats to America’s cultural heritage come from those who loot archaeological sites and from relentless development across the country.
True
False

24. Answer: A
The biggest threats to America’s cultural heritage come from those who loot archaeological sites and from relentless development across the country.

25. 2. _____ ______ _____ projects account for about 90 percent of the field archaeology conducted today in United States.

26. Answer: Cultural Resource Management
Cultural Resource Management projects account for about 90 percent of the field archaeology conducted today in United States.

27. 3. Which act requires an inventory and repatriation of human remains held by the federal government and institutions that receive federal funding?
1966 National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA)
UNESCO Convention of 1970
1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act
1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act

28. Answer: D
The 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act requires an inventory and repatriation of human remains held by the federal government and institutions that receive federal funding.

29. Kennewick cannot meet the requirement of cultural or tribal affiliation under the law.
True
False

30. Answer: A
Cultural affiliation requires that we establish an identifiable earlier group, therefore with only one burial and no grave goods, it is impossible for archaeologists to identify Kennewick’s social group.Kennewick cannot meet the requirement of cultural or tribal affiliation under the law.