Engaging with NAGPRA at the Veterans Curation Program

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.

The Veterans Curation Program (VCP) is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) funded program with a dual mission to rehabilitate USACE administered artifact and document collections and provide temporary employment and vocational training to veterans. Since its inception in 2009, the VCP has trained more than 790 veterans who have worked with collections from 25 USACE Districts. At the start of each term, veterans receive training in many anthropological topics, including NAGPRA and how it affects indigenous communities within the United States. VCP contractor staff continue to refine the teaching of sensitive issues, like NAGPRA, to non-archaeologist veteran technicians, including incorporating indigenous knowledge and educating them about modern and historical Tribal Nations local to each lab. Additionally, document collections related to archaeological excavations are cleaned, organized, and digitized in a standardized way, which allows the records to be accessible without having to physically view them. Through this process, over 1,800 linear inches, or 150 feet, of documents have been rehabilitated and are now searchable, not only for research purposes but also for aiding USACE and Tribal communities in the NAGPRA process.

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)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39087.0