Bioarchaeology Legacy Collections: Varying Perspectives, Perceptions, and Challenges

Summary

This is an abstract from the ""Re-excavating" Legacy Collections" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Legacy collections can prove quite valuable in research, but may bring with them additional ethical and legal concerns and challenges. Known for the intricate wooden effigy carvings on a mortuary platform above a charnel pond, the site of Fort Center, 8GL13, also contains more than 24 earthworks dating from 800 BCE to 1700 CE. This paper explores the human skeletal individuals collected from the Fort Center site in Glades County, Florida in the 1960s and 1970s as well as the need for on-going NAGPRA compliance. Passed in 1990, NAGPRA is federal legislation that provides a legal pathway for Native Americans to repatriate the remains and funerary objects of their ancestors. The history of Fort Center post-excavation, a complicated journey involving multiple institutions and many paperwork trails, plays a significant role in bioarchaeological legacy collections assessment for compiling this history, documentation and associations with the entire collection. Both institutional and tribal requirements and needs are an integral part of these special legacy collections story. Continued sensitivity and a willingness to consider other perspectives are important parts of this process.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• "Re-excavating" Legacy Collections   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23315