In this piece I respond to several claims made by Paul Spickard and Kendall Lovely in their Forum piece in the Winter 2023 issue of California History, “Respecting the Ancestors: On Repatriating American Indian Remains.” First, I fact-check two claims made about UCSB archaeologists. Next, I comment on the authors’ claim that the study of American Indian remains by Euro-American scholars is inherently racist. Finally, I address several derogatory claims they make about Phillip Walker.
To begin, the authors claim that the human remains in the Repository of Ethnographic and Archaeological Objects at UCSB are the result of criminal acts of grave robbing by UCSB archaeologists.1 This is a serious accusation and warrants documentation. To assess this claim, I referred to the inventory of human skeletal remains I compiled between 1991 and 1993 as part of the university’s response to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).2 Part of the inventory process was identifying how human remains came to be housed in the repository, information pertinent to this discussion. According to the report, the remains derived from a number of different sources, including research, but by far the most common source was salvage efforts conducted between 1950 and 1973.3 In other words, these were archaeologists carefully removing human remains from the path of bulldozers, from archaeological deposits slated for destruction, or from eroding graves.4 The description of a 1960s salvage excavation near UCSB illustrates the conditions under which many of the human remains were recovered:
It was truly a salvage effort, with excavation…just one step ahead of, or behind, bulldozing operations. Fifteen of the burials were found by bulldozers…the workmen kept those artifacts they found, [but] they were quite cooperative in allowing me to record them first. The amount of time granted to work on burials exposed by the bulldozers ranged from 15 minutes to an hour.5
Development was happening all over Santa Barbara/Goleta in the mid-twentieth century, when most of the remains in the repository were recovered. Despite a law on the books protecting archaeological sites and resources on federal lands,6 there was minimal regulation of construction activities vis-à-vis their impact on archaeological materials and human remains on any lands until the late 1960s and ’70s with the passage of federal and state laws governing heritage resources.7 Universities were recognized by federal law as institutions permitted to conduct archaeological survey and excavation for research and recovery,8 and UCSB archaeologists often took on the responsibility of recovering remains from construction sites or collecting them from eroding deposits in both mainland and island locations.9 These were not criminal acts, and the language used by the authors is incorrect and inappropriate.
Second, I question the scholarship behind the authors’ statement, “…UCSB anthropologists were deeply imbued with the myth that American Indians were primitive peoples destined to die out in short order.”10 None of the six references associated with this statement are publications or contributions by or about UCSB anthropologists that would support this assertion.11 While I cannot speak to the earliest years of the Anthropology Department, I can say that it was my UCSB anthropology education in the 1970s that first made me aware that Indigenous peoples and cultures continued to exist all over North America.
Third, I challenge Spickard and Lovely’s claim that studies of American Indian remains by non-Indian scholars are inherently racist because “we”(?) do not dig up the bones of “White” ancestors.12 I readily acknowledge a great disparity in the excavation and curation of American Indian remains as compared to Euro-American remains in the United States, in part as a result of law, custom, and discriminatory attitudes. That said, Euro-American remains are sometimes excavated and studied in the United States.13 The larger issue that the authors seem unaware of, however, is that very little of the archaeological record in North America pertains to “White” history, because people of European ancestry have only been settled in the Americas for a few hundred years, whereas American Indian peoples have been living in North America for thousands of years. The deep history of this land and its people is American Indian history, not Euro-American history. “White” scholars wishing to study a corresponding biocultural history of Euro-Americans must look abroad to the thousands of ancestral human skeletons curated in museums and other research facilities across Europe—and they often do. Research on prehistoric and historic human remains in Europe and globally is flourishing;14 indeed, it was an important component of Phillip Walker’s research.15
Finally, I would like to address several incorrect statements the authors make about Walker, beginning with the charge that he “was deeply involved in the university’s nonresponse to NAGPRA.”16 Walker was my undergraduate adviser and he chaired my PhD committee. I worked with him on the UCSB NAGPRA inventory, I collaborated with him on publications, and I kept in contact with him until his death in 2009. I knew him quite well as a teacher, scholar, mentor, and individual.
In 1991 I was hired by Walker to conduct a NAGPRA inventory of human skeletal remains and associated burial objects in the repository at UCSB.17 The inventory process was monitored by the UCSB Committee on Human Remains and Cultural Items, which included members of the Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Mission Indians, the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, and the UCSB faculty and administration. Walker was a formative influence for and active member of this committee.18 Of significance here, the inventory commenced less than one year after the passage of NAGPRA under Walker’s guidance and was likely one of the first NAGPRA inventories conducted at a major institution.19 Furthermore, Walker strongly advocated for the rapid determination of cultural affiliation for all archaeological human remains from Chumash territory in the repository with the Chumash, which occurred through a cooperative agreement between the University of California Regents and the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians in 1994.20 Thus, the claim of Walker’s “nonresponse” is simply not true. That he did not file the results of the inventory with National NAGPRA following the completion of the draft report in 1993 was likely because, unlike the human remains, which were primarily stored in one place and systematically identified and described during the initial inventory, burial-associated objects still had to be located and retrieved from extensive archaeological collections, and these were not under Walker’s purview. NAGPRA inventories are complex, time-consuming, and chronically under- or unfunded for both tribes and repositories, so the process bogged down at this point.21
Next is the authors’ claim that Walker’s stance on repatriation was that “…he had a right to [study Chumash remains] and no one could question or restrict this right,” because “scientists’ desire for information must trump all other claims.”22 This is incorrect, per the previous paragraph. Beyond this, it is important in evaluating his actions to understand the role that Walker played in NAGPRA at a national level. In 1992, he began his five-year service on the first NAGPRA Review Committee, the group charged with monitoring and reviewing the implementation of NAGPRA. The committee comprises three members representing Indian Tribes / Native Hawaiian organizations, three members representing national museums / scientific organizations, and one member consented to by the other members.23 The composition of the committee reflects the balance struck in 1990 when NAGPRA was passed into law between the rights of federally recognized Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations and the recognized value of scientific inquiry about America for the American people.24 Over time, with the promulgation of new regulations guiding the interpretation of the law, NAGPRA has shifted away from this balance, but in the early years of its implementation the law reflected this compromise. Walker was nominated by scientific organizations and accepted an appointment to represent the interests of the scientific community on the committee. It was his role on this and other NAGPRA-related committees to represent scientific perspectives.25 He passionately believed in the value of documenting human biocultural history and thought that not including American Indians in that history was racist, and he relished every opportunity to speak with people about this topic.26 Seven years before the passage of NAGPRA, Walker produced a film that explored the growing debate between scientists and American Indians concerning the excavation, treatment, and study of human remains from archaeological sites.27 His film constituted a rare early effort to give voice to the views of Indigenous groups and spiritual leaders in academically-oriented discussions of the issues.
In closing, I would note that the limited correspondence between Walker and colleagues presented in the article appears to have been cherry-picked from an extensive archive and does not represent a balanced view of his work or attitudes.28 I never heard Walker speak disrespectfully about the Chumash, their values, or beliefs. He appreciated the value of traditional knowledge and co-published a volume in 1993 on Chumash healing traditions and medical practices based on Chumash accounts and oral histories.29 Walker had long-standing friendships with people at Santa Ynez and among Chumash descendants in the greater Santa Barbara area that he cherished. On his death the Chumash of Santa Ynez lit a sacred four-day fire to honor his life, and several Chumash Elders spoke at his memorial gathering, suggesting that these feelings were mutual.30 While they did not always agree on the study and curation of Chumash remains, they were respectful of each other in their disagreements.
Notes
Paul Spickard and Kendall Lovely, “Respecting the Ancestors: On Repatriating American Indian Remains,” California History 100(4) (Winter 2023): “…early in our [University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB)] history, our university too had an active corps of grave robbers. It was what many anthropologists did” (5); “…human remains [at UCSB] are the product of crime: the repeated, systemic robbing of graves (10);” “Whatever the moral state of the profession at the time these remains were collected, kept, and studied, the fact remains that these are the bones of Native people whose graves were looted” (14).
Patricia M. Lambert, “The University of California at Santa Barbara Inventory of Human Skeletal Remains and Associated Burial Objects: Draft Report,” on file in the Repository for Ethnographic and Archaeological Collections at UCSB (November 1993). The inventory was guided by the Policy & Procedures for the Repatriation of Human Remains and Cultural Items at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1992), a document developed in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (P.L. 101–601, 11-4-90) and the California Public Resources Code, Section 5097.9. For more information on salvage excavations at SBA-1, see William M. Harrison and Emily S. Harrison, “An Archaeological Sequence for the Hunting People of Santa Barbara, California,” Archaeological Survey Annual Report (University of California, Los Angeles, 1966), 1–90. Although Spickard claims that he “did a considerable amount of research into the history of our own campus” (Spickard and Lovely, “Respecting the Ancestors,” 6), he did not contact the person who actually conducted the inventory of human skeletal remains.
Sources for the remains of 429 individuals represented in collections from Santa Barbara County include: salvage excavations/recoveries between 1950 and 1973 (261 individuals); archaeology field schools / classes held between 1961 and 1972 (90 individuals, many from archaeological sites such as SBA-46 and SBA-71 that were heavily impacted by subsequent development activities); federal- and state-mandated cultural resource management (CRM) projects (22 individuals); donations from non-UCSB entities (30 individuals); transfer from a Dos Pueblos high school field class (15 individuals); a research project (10 individuals from a site destroyed several years later); and a loan (1 individual). See Lambert, “The University of California at Santa Barbara Inventory.”
These actions adhered to the ethic of protecting and preserving archaeological resources and remains, as per the Antiquities Act of 1906 (16 USC 431–433).
Harrison and Harrison, “An Archaeological Sequence for the Hunting People,” in Lambert, “The University of California at Santa Barbara Inventory,” 117.
Antiquities Act of 1906.
National Historic Preservation Act of 1966; Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) of 1979; and the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970, among others.
Antiquities Act, 1906; ARPA, 1979.
Human remains from the three Northern Channel Islands came to the repository in several different ways. Sources of human remains from Santa Cruz Island include: skeletal remains representing 17 individuals (in most cases very incomplete, often just a few bones or fragments) salvaged by UCSB archaeologists from eroding/endangered archaeological deposits during a 1970s NSF-funded project on Carey Stanton’s cattle ranch; the remains of 18 individuals encountered in test trenches during the NSF project that were at least partially excavated and collected (cemeteries and burials were generally avoided by intention on this project); the very incomplete remains of five individuals salvaged from eroding deposits by UCSB personnel before and after the NSF project; and the crania of four individuals donated/transferred to UCSB from outside sources. Human remains from San Miguel Island include four crania donated/transferred to UCSB from outside sources. Human remains from Santa Rosa Island include mandibles and maxillae representing eight individuals donated by the Biological Sciences Dept. at UCSB, and incomplete remains of two other individuals donated(?) by an unrecorded source (1968). See Lambert, “The University of California at Santa Barbara Inventory.”
Spickard and Lovely, “Respecting the Ancestors,” 5.
Spickard and Lovely, “Respecting the Ancestors,” endnote 9.
Spickard and Lovely, “Respecting the Ancestors”: “White people’s bones were protected by law and custom, but Indians’ bones were ripe for exploitation. That’s not a scientific decision, that’s a racial decision” and concluding that “[w]hile imperialism and colonial undermining of Native sovereignty are at play, treating these bodies as specimens is always a White supremacist project of racist science” (11–12). Note: I question the appropriateness of the authors’ use of “we” on page 14, where the authors’ reference to “we” Americans assumes that Americans are “White,” a decidedly racist notion.
For example, Phillip L. Walker and Patricia M. Lambert, Human Skeletal Remains from the Historic Cemetery at Seccombe Lake Park, San Bernardino, California (San Bernardino, CA: Report prepared for the City of San Bernardino, 1991); Julia Costello and Phillip L. Walker, “Burials from the Santa Barbara Presidio Chapel,” Historic Archaeology 21 (1987): 3–17; “Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th-Century Chesapeake,” an exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural Historic that ran from 2009 to 2014, https://www.si.edu/exhibitions/written-bone-forensic-files-17th-century-chesapeake%3Aevent-exhib-234; Douglas Owsley and Karin Bruwelheide, “Three Decades of Identification: Advances in Civil War Bioarchaeology,” presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology, Washington, DC, 2016 (tDAR id: 434898), https://core.tdar.org/document/434898/three-decades-of-identification-advances-in-civil-war-bioarchaeology; Eugene Daniel, “Colonial Williamsburg Scientists Uncover Human Remains Linked to Civil War,” 13NewsNow, March 8, 2023, “https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/local/virginia/williamsburg/colonial-williamsburg-virginia-scientist-uncover-human-remains-linked-to-civil-war/291-87aab249-7fed-4387-aa1d-a7ef77f3a86c. For comparative bioarchaeological studies of American Indians, Euroamerican pioneers, military men, and Chinese laborers, see George W. Gill and Rick L. Weathermon, eds., Skeletal Biology of the Northwestern Plains (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2008).
For examples of European studies, see Richard H. Steckel, Clark S. Larsen, Paul W. Sciulli, and Phillip L. Walker, “The History of European Health Project: A History of Health in Europe from the Late Paleolithic Era to the Present,” Acta Univ Carol Med Monogr 156 (2009): 19–25; Jorge López Quiroga and Luis Ríos Frutos, eds., Bioarchaeology of Injuries and Violence in Early Medieval Europe (Oxford: BAR Publishing, 2022). For global examples, see Bioarchaeology International (journal); Jane Buikstra and Charlotte Roberts, eds., The Global History of Paleopathology: Pioneers and Prospects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Melissa S. Murphy and Haagen D. Klaus, Colonized Bodies, Worlds Transformed: Toward A Global Bioarchaeology of Contact and Colonialism (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2017).
Walker collaborated with Jesse Byock and Jon Erlandson on a long-term archaeological research project in Iceland from 1995 to 2009; see Patricia M. Lambert, “Phillip Lee Walker: 1947–2009,” in The Global History of Paleopathology, 135–36. Walker was co-PI on a large NSF grant, “A History of Health in Europe from the Late Paleolithic Era to the Present” (2002), that funded bioarchaeological work throughout Europe and resulted in multiple publications, including the Steckel et al. paper listed above.
Spickard and Lovely, “Respecting the Ancestors,” 7.
Lambert, “University of California at Santa Barbara Inventory.”
I was present at committee meetings to report progress on the inventory and observed meeting dynamics. A particularly troubling issue I recall being discussed at these meetings was NAGPRA’s focus on federally recognized groups to the exclusion (disenfranchisement) of federally recognized Chumash individuals and state-recognized Chumash groups with potentially closer ties to particular remains.
One downside to this early response was that sparse information was included in NAGPRA as to how inventories should be conducted; few models existed for how inventories had been done by others; and strikingly little funding was available to complete the arduous tasks involved in locating, identifying, and (upon a claim from a culturally affiliated tribe) preparing human remains and associated grave objects for repatriation.
See Lynn H. Gamble, “Response to ‘Respecting the Ancestors: On Repatriating American Indian Remains,’” California History 101, no. 4 (Winter 2024).
Gamble, “Response to ‘Respecting the Ancestors.’”
Spickard and Lovely, “Respecting the Ancestors,” 8.
Membership History, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (U.S. National Park Service), updated August 30, 2023, https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nagpra/review-committee-membership-history.
Susan B. Bruning, “Complex Legal Legacies: The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Scientific Study, and Kennewick Man (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act),” American Antiquity 71 (2006): 501–21. See also Patricia M. Lambert, “Ethics and Issues in the Use of Human Skeletal Remains in Paleopathology,” in Companion to Paleopathology, ed. A. Grauer (New York: Wiley Blackwell, 2012), 17–33.
Membership History, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Walker was profoundly opposed to the concept of race as a valid biological construct for characterizing human variation; in my own teaching I still use arguments he presented against the biological race concept in his Human Variation class.
Phillip L. Walker, Science or Sacrilege: The Study of Native American Remains (Santa Barbara, CA: UCSB Department of Learning Resources, 1983).
Spickard and Lovely, “Respecting the Ancestors,” endnote 27, indicates at least 36 boxes. The treatise by Forbes quoted by the authors to bolster their argument was actually extracted from Walker’s archive, box 36.
Phillip L. Walker and Travis Hudson, Chumash Healing: Changing Health and Medical Practices in an American Indian Society (Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press, 1993). This volume makes extensive use of the unpublished field notes of John Peabody Harrington, a field ethnographer who interviewed Chumash Elders about Chumash culture and recorded several Chumash languages from some of the last native speakers in the first half of the twentieth century.
I attended Walker’s 2009 memorial service in Santa Barbara, during which a Chumash Elder from Santa Ynez spoke of the tribute. It was also posted by A. A. Padilla in 2009 at http://phil-walker.net/santaynezchumashtribute.html (no longer active).
University of California Press