Tracing Collection Histories for Repatriation: The Fisher Mound Group

Summary

This is an abstract from the "In Search of Solutions: Exploring Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners (Part IV): NAGPRA in Policy, Protocol, and Practice" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Before repatriation, NAGPRA practitioners need to track down all components of a collection to prevent their tribal partners from having to repatriate the same collections multiple times. This involves tracing often labyrinthine collection histories over decades of archaeological research and curation. Collection histories can get complicated when collections are split between multiple institutions due to repeated excavations, decades of distinct curatorial practices, and collaborative research with minimal paperwork for tracking movements of boxes. Split collections and sparse documentation lead to complicated legal and logistical challenges in the NAGPRA process. This poster highlights a case-study on tracing collection histories using Fisher Mound Group as an example. The Fisher Mound Group in Will County, Illinois was excavated by multiple entities, including George Langford from 1926-1929, the University of Chicago in 1940-1941, and George Horner of Northwestern Illinois University in the 1940s. Over the years, materials from these excavations were curated at the University of Chicago, Yale University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Indiana University. Materials and documentation moved between these institutions, and several others, making Fisher Mound Group a good example of the effort NAGPRA practitioners make to trace collection histories in facilitating best-practice repatriation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• In Search of Solutions: Exploring Pathways to Repatriation for NAGPRA Practitioners (Part IV): NAGPRA in Policy, Protocol, and Practice   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38765.0