Co-stewardship: Positive Impacts from Meaningful Consultation

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative Archaeology: How Native American Knowledge Enhances Our Collective Understanding of the Past" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

S’edav Va’aki (formerly known as Pueblo Grande) is an ancestral O’Odham (Hohokam) archaeological village site and the only National Historic Landmark in Phoenix, Arizona. For more than a decade, the S’edav Va’aki Museum (Museum) has consulted monthly with the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRP-MIC) and Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPOs). What began as a compliance-focused dialogue between the Phoenix City Archaeologist and SRP-MIC Cultural Resource Compliance Supervisor on citywide archaeology expanded to include Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) consultations with both GRIC and SRP-MIC THPOs. Ultimately, these compliance consultations expanded to meaningful collaborations on exhibits, signage, and collections management policies. Among the many positive impacts from this co-stewardship arrangement is renaming of the Museum from a Spanish name assigned in the 1920s—Pueblo Grande—to the O’Odham name, S’edav Va’aki (meaning Central Platform Mound), which better describes the ancient village and represents the cultural continuity between its original inhabitants and the O’Odham people. By collaborating with our tribal partners, the Museum has enhanced our interpretive programming to the public and has elevated the quality and cultural appropriateness of our collections care and archaeological compliance.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Collaborative Archaeology: How Native American Knowledge Enhances Our Collective Understanding of the Past   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38224.0