Let’s Put Our Differences Aside and Work Together: A Case Study in NAGPRA Consultation and Repatriation

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Although the Native Americans Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was enacted in 1990, New Mexico State University Museum (NMSU) personnel struggled to complete the required inventory of their collections for more than 15 years. Personnel changes at the museum and a complex, poorly documented collection added to the difficulties of completing the NAGPRA inventory. In 2015, new museum staff reinitiated the NMSU NAGPRA process and explored new strategies for completing an inventory, initiating consultation meetings, and successfully repatriating human remains and associated funerary objects to affiliated tribes. This paper explains how we succeeded in completing our inventory and carried out our NAGPRA consultation meetings so that repatriation will occur. The lessons we learned may be useful to other small museums that still need to complete their NAGPRA obligations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38143.0