LOST AND FOUND: NAGPRA, Scattered Relics, and Restorative Methodologies

Abstract

This research examines the disarticulation of Native American funerary assemblages in museum collections and highlights the challenges of identifying them for inventories mandated by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990. Indigenous objects and human remains from burial sites were routinely subjected to collecting and sorting procedures that stripped them of meaning and context. NAGPRA does not, however, require museums to reassemble sites or locate related materials housed in other institutions. As a result, associated funerary objects and human remains can easily be ‘‘lost’’ in collections and tribal representatives may be unable to find them. This paper samples the evidence from the Middle Connecticut River Valley to illustrate how items were routinely excavated and categorized and proposes a few restorative methodologies for their recovery. [Keywords: NAGPRA, Native American, funerary objects, museum collections, human remains]