Indigenous Archaeology: California’s AB52 and Its Impact

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

NAGPRA empowered tribes to repatriate the remains and sacred objects of their ancestors. As a result, a movement developed and Indigenous archaeology was born. It has been with us for nearly 30 years now and some important benefits have resulted, especially in terms of interpreting archaeological data through an Indigenous lens. An amendment to the California Environmental Quality Act, Assembly Bill 52, has taken empowering tribes to a new level. Along with biologists, geologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, etc., tribes are now at the table while creating mitigation plans to impacted resources. These new Tribal Cultural Resources not only include archaeological sites, features, and objects but also tribal stories related to landscapes, medicine collection areas, hills, caves, waterways, etc. The impact has not only added to the interpretation of archaeological data but some tribes are actually collecting, analyzing, and curating their material culture of their ancestors directly. This paper will explore how this shifting paradigm has impacted development, tribe/archaeologists relations, and cultural resources.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37046.0