Indigenous Archaeology - Indigenous Archaeology in Practice

Indigenous Archaeology in Practice

As the values and goals of descendent communities are incorporated into the structure of heritage management, a different picture of heritage stewardship should emerge. Where the Western mode is predicated on ideas of the public trust, the Indigenous stewardship paradigm is more often concerned with the care of living history (Smith and Burke 2003: 183-185; also Lawson 1997, Watkins 2003). Assigning custody of heritage on the basis of cultural patrimony respects the "traditionally, or historically, legitimate cultural or spiritual responsibility for the cultural property at hand" (Meskell 2002: 291), and infuses stewardship with a duty of familial care. The differences between the "public trust" school of archaeological thought, and the "cultural legacy" perspective of Indigenous thought have cognitive implications: the former isolates history, failing to link it with other people, places or times, while the latter binds the studied past with the present and future. The distinction can be as simple a matter as considering an archaeological skeletal specimen as object or ancestor (Smith and Burke 2003: 184-185). Or, it can be as complex as demonstrating continuity by drawing one’s past on the landscape for a world that relies on discontinuities to order time and space.

Watkins (2005) presents an overview of the gradual progress of the Indigenizing of archaeology worldwide, lauding the few accomplishments and otherwise trying to "interpret the relative quiet of the Indigenous voice" (40). Mesoamerica and South America are shown to be only recently opening to the dialogue of indigenous interests in archaeology, which there as elsewhere takes a backseat to more pressing efforts to secure basic rights for First Peoples. Scandinavia has made minimal progress in even considering the archaeology of the Sami people, let alone involving the descendent populations in projects (38). In Africa, as with Meso- and South America, attention focused on fundamental economic and human rights issues seems to diminish the immediate importance of indigenous involvement in archaeology valued in developed nations (39). In Australia and New Zealand, archaeology is an increasingly important part of Aboriginal peoples’ reclamation of heritage and indigenous rights, where it increasingly used in support of land claims and repatriation issues (39). The Canadian experience follows a similar trajectory, albeit at a slower pace. Specific examples of unambiguously successful (though not necessarily easy or intuitive) Canadian collaborative projects include the SCES-SFU partnership in B.C. and the study and reburial of Kwaday Dan Ts’inchi in the Yukon (Watkins 2005: 35).

Great progress has been made worldwide in educating and involving Aboriginal communities in research and management projects, though a divide still exists between academically-trained personnel and the broader indigenous population. While there has been increasing pressure on First Nations people to pick up the archaeological torch, the current academic system has not changed rapidly enough to encourage or accommodate native interests and enduring socioeconomic inequalities (Lippert 1997: 120-121).