The Squaxin Island Tribe live in the State of Washington.
Elders of the group decided that an accurate history of their people needed to be recorded and taught.
A tribal member enrolled in archaeology courses at a local college to learn the required skills in archaeology.
Excavations at Mud Bay in south Puget Sound are directed by a member of the tribe and a college professor.
The excavations are run as a field school for training archaeology students and tribal members in field and laboratory methods.
The site is located directly on the coastline and is dominated by a 100 m (300') long shell midden.
Many other items were found at the location.
Public support of archaeology is an essential component of success in saving the past for everyone.
Archaeology uses both private and public funding to finance research.
An informed and interested public is an important goal of archaeology.
The Relevancy of Archaeology
The importance of archaeology to the present and the future is inestimable.
Knowing and understanding the past is essential to any comprehension of the future.
Archaeological remains around the globe are part of our threatened environment.
Archaeology continually documents the diversity of our human past.
Archaeology also serves to document many of the environmental changes and problems that humans have faced over the millennia.
Archaeology records the climate changes and natural catastrophes and provides some insight on their incidence and severity.
Archaeology tells us what the human environment was like in the past and how changes have affected human societies.
Archaeologists have helped to develop places of great interest to tourists, bringing much needed moneys to parts of the developing world.
Ecotourism is a growing aspect of globalization and archaeology provides one of its attractive cornerstones.
Example: Raised Fields of Tiwanaku
The empire of Tiwanaku was one of the largest from the highlands of South America between AD 500 and 950.
The ancient city of Tiwanaku was an enormous ceremonial center of compounds and structures.
Dwellings surrounded the site, with perhaps 40,000 people.
This capital was located along the shore of the highest navigable lake in the world, Lake Titicaca at an elevation of 3,810 m (12,580 feet).
The key to the success of Tiwanaku lay in the engineering of a vast zone of swamps along the edge of the lake into richly productive farmland.
The swamps were turned into fields by the construction a series of canals 5 to 10 meters apart and a meter or two in depth.
The soil from the ditches was piled up onto the land in between to create raised fields.
The fields were very productive, and fed a population of perhaps 120,000 people in the region.
Following the collapse of the Tiwanaku Empire by AD 1000, these fields were abandoned, the canals silted up, and the land returned to swamp.
In the last 30 years, however, archaeologists have discovered these ancient field systems and how they worked.
Local farmers were persuaded to use the traditional methods.
Yields are almost seven fold as much as normal dry farming in the area.
The Past as Heritage
The archaeological record, under attack from the expansion of increasing population and global economies, is rapidly disappearing in many areas.
There are a number of ways to help protect the past.
Several organizations of archaeologists are working to increase public awareness and support.
Example: UNESCO World Heritage
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was chartered in 1972.
Its purpose is to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value.
More than 750 sites have been inscribed in the program to date, including various archaeological localities in the United States.
Protecting the Past: Abu Simbel
Abu Simbel is located in southern Egypt.
The two temples at the site were removed and reconstructed.
Built by Pharaoh Ramses II, the site has four statues of the seated pharaoh guarding the entrance to the temple.
The seated figures of the pharaoh are more than 5 stories high.
Abu Simbel would have been flooded after the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960's.
The temples were moved up 60 m to higher ground.
An international effort was mounted, sponsored by UNESCO, involving more than 50 countries.
Example: The Archaeological Conservancy
The Archaeological Conservancy is the only national, non-profit organization dedicated to acquiring and preserving remaining archaeological sites in the U.S.
Founded in 1980, the Conservancy is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The organization has obtained through purchase or gift more than 285 archaeological and historical sites.
Some Conservancy sites have been incorporated into public parks.
Major funding for the Conservancy comes from its more than 23,000 members, as well as individual contributions, corporations, and foundations.
Who Owns the Past?
One of the issues facing archaeology today is growing concern with questions about who owns the past.
A well-known example involving ownership of the past concerns the Elgin marbles.
The Greeks defeated the Persians in 479 B.C.
The Greeks leader Pericles rebuilt Athens as an artistic and cultural center.
The Parthenon took 15 years to construct and was finally dedicated in 432 B.C as the temple of the goddess Athena.
Atop the Parthenon, was a frieze of more than 400 human and 200 animal marble statues.
In 1801, Lord Elgin obtained permission to remove large portions of the Parthenon frieze.
The marble statues of the Parthenon were shipped to the British Museum where the statues sit today, known as the Elgin Marbles.
The Greek government has been petitioning the British government for many years for the return of these treasures, but to no avail.
The U.S. Congress has passed several acts that attempt to protect the past.
The National Historic Preservation Act was passed in 1966.
The Archaeological Resources Protection Act was passed in 1979.
A sensitive and contentious issue involves the disposition of ancient human skeletal remains.
North American archaeologists have been excavating burials along with other cultural materials for many years.
By some estimates, more than 100,000 Native American graves have been excavated in the U.S. and the skeletons placed in museums.
Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990.
NAGPRA provides a mechanism for museums and Federal agencies to return certain Native American cultural materials.
Items requested for return must be repatriated to a lineal descendent or related group.
Several different lines of evidence are required to determine cultural affiliation.
Example: Kennewick Man
Spectators at a boat race in 1996 came across a human skull close to the riverbank near the town of Kennewick.
Over the next month other bones from the skeleton were found.
Radiocarbon dated the skeleton to 7500 BC.
Detailed reconstruction and study of the skull indicated that this individual was not typical of the ancestors of Native Americans.
Debate followed the discovery of the skull.
Five Native American tribes in the area claimed these remains for reburial, under the NAGPRA legislation.
Anthropologists filed an injunction to allow scientific investigation of the find and to prevent its return.
They argued that the remains were important and that they were not demonstrably Native American.
In 2002, a judge ruled in favor of the anthropologists.
Ethics in Archaeology
Ethical behavior in archaeology is an increasingly complex subject.
Important issues include those relating to heritage, native people, treatment of the dead, and the preservation of the past.
The major professional organization for archaeologists in the U.S. is the Society for American Archaeology [SAA].
Founded in 1934, the society has more than 6500 professional archaeologists and students as members today.
The promotion of ethical behavior is an important aspect of the society's activities.
The major principles of ethical practice have been set down by the SAA.
These principles encompass the major concerns of archaeology.
Stewardship concerns the protection of our common archaeological and cultural heritage.
Accountability concerns archaeology's interaction with individuals or groups who are involved with archaeological sites or materials.
Commercialization of the past is the basis of another principle.
The ethical principles also concern intellectual property.
Example: Donnan and Sipán
One ethical issue surrounding the discoveries at Sipán concerned archaeologist Christopher Donnan.
He visited a private collector and photographed some of the finds.
Some archaeologists condemned Donnan's activities, arguing that professionals should have no contact whatsoever with looters and smugglers.
Donnan responded that the objects would be lost to science unless he recorded them for posterity.
Example: The Ypres Battlefield
Archaeologists have been excavating a series of military trenches from World War One near the town of Ypres in Belgium.
A network of fortifications has been exposed.
In addition, the human remains of five individuals still in their uniforms have been removed from the excavations.
Several ethical issues surround the excavation of human remains and places of death on the battlefield.
One issues relates to how should the remains should be treated and to whom do they belong.
Another relates to who owns the artifacts.
A third issue involves the preservation of the battlefield sites themselves.
The Responsible Archaeologist
Archaeological sites are non-renewable resources.
Excavations involve moving the earth and all its contents from a site, resulting in the destruction of all or part of an archaeological site.
Archaeologists usually leave a substantial portion of a site undisturbed.
In addition to keeping accurate records for a permanent archive, it is essential that archaeologists make their work public.
Publication is part of the responsibility that archaeologists have to make their work and conclusions known.
Museums and monuments are of course another way in which the public had access to the past.
