The Campaign to Thwart Paleogenetic Research Into North America's Indigenous Peoples

[bluedigger]

One of the major North American archaeological discoveries of the 20th century was made in 1967 by a bulldozer crew preparing a site for a movie theater in the small fishing village of Port au Choix (PAC), on Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula. It was a vast, 4,000-year-old cemetery created by a complex maritime culture known among researchers as the Maritime Archaic. The graves contained beautifully preserved skeletons covered in a brilliant red powder called red ocher (powdered specular hematite). Buried with the skeletons were many finely crafted artifacts. A few similar ones had previously turned up in earlier field surveys on the island, but no archaeologist had suspected that such a large and magnificent ceremonial site existed in the North American subarctic.

Had the discovery been made only a few years earlier, it is likely that no trained archaeologist would have taken over from the bulldozer crew. But fortunately, Memorial University in St. Johns had just added archaeologist James (“Jim”) Tuck (1940–2019) to its faculty. The American-born scholar set out to explore the cemetery, eventually excavating more than 150 graves spread over three clusters (which he referred to as loci).

Jim and I had both been field-trained by American archaeologist William Ritchie. We had never worked together, but stayed in close contact. As Bill’s protégés, the two of us were among the first generation of professionally-trained archaeologists to take the field in north-eastern North America outside New York State. Many of us shared a common objective, which was to track down a culture (or was it a series of cultures?) dating from between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago, which had left behind stone artifacts similar to those from PAC, and deposited them in ocher-filled graves extending from Maine to Ontario; and now, it had been discovered, Newfoundland.

We suspected that the communities represented by these cemeteries were linked, because of their similarly beautiful stone adzes, spear tips flaked from unusual rock types, elegant lance-tip-like objects made of ground slate, and tear-drop-shaped stone weights (called “plummets”). All of these artifacts, like the cemeteries themselves, differed from anything produced by more recent prehistoric peoples.

https://quillette.com/2021/03/29/the-campaign-to-thwart-paleogenetic-research-into-north-americas-indigenous-peoples/?fbclid=IwAR0cUDCkLiLSLJC34WuhRPmaxzk4sH5BIIGk7Aa4m2xxy-JPODgqFayJUjs

Fairly lengthy article from Bruce Bourque, who was a "big deal" in Maine archaeology when I was an undergrad at UMaine back in the 80s. Really interesting discussion of ethics in DNA research in North America.

[jpak]

1. I still have a copy of Bruce Bourque's dissertation

[bluedigger]

2. You read hieroglyphics?

That is impressive!

[jpak]

3. Yes and I have copies of all the discovery narratives

Of the early European invaders in New England.

Took classes with Bob Stenick and quite jealous of his paleoecology work.

Something that fascinates the shit out me

[dpibel]

4. The comments to that article...

They'd fit right in at any KKK meeting.

I get Bourque's point: It's frustrating for science to be stymied by creation myths.

But the subtext (clearly understood by 100% of the commentors on the article) is: "Fuck your land claims, lewzers! You stole the land from the people before you, so we were well within our rights to steal it from you."

No idea where Bourque stands on that. He's presenting this as a purely scientific harm. But there's no question where his readers land.

[wnylib]

6. Thank you. You summarized my impression and

response perfectly. I will give specific details in another post, but those details amount to exactly what you just posted.

[niyad]

5. KNR and bookmarking.

[wnylib]

7. Science vs culture vs human rights vs racism.

That's my take on this article.

First, I love science for its objectivity and ability to add to our knowledge of ourselves and the world and universe(s). But I am concerned when science is misused, especially in genetics.

This article is full of falsehoods about Native American tribal membership, terminology, and self perceptions. It makes me wonder why it was posted here. But I will focus on the worst and most racist falsehood.

The article falsely claims that Native Americans oppose DNA studies because they want to preserve their myth of being a "secular Eden," aka "noble savage." This is NOT a Native self perception. It is an image of idealistic fantasies projected by non Native people onto Native Americans. The opposite image of the "brutal savage " is also projected onto them by non Natives. Both stereotypes ignore the simple fact that they are just people.

The real reasons why some Native Americans oppose DNA testing is the historical use of "scientific studies" to "prove" their biologiuial inferiority to white Europeans. In the past, junk science used skull measurements and skin tone to categorize Native Americans in a racial heirarchy that put white Europeans at the top, followed by Asians, Native Americans, and Africans in that order. They used terms like Caucasian, Mongoloid, Amerindian, and Negroid.

To carry out these studies, junk scientists raided Native cemeteries. They were not ancient archaeological sites. They took bodies of living people's parents and grandparents from recent graves. This led to the passing of NAGPRA (Native American Graves and Repatriation Act) which the article complains about as an obstacle in studying Native Americans. And people wonder why Native people mistrust scientific studies?

The article mentions Kennewick Man in its complaint about not having access to Native remains. This was a skeleton exposed in a cliffside in Washington state. An anthropologist called to examine it correctly said that its features were ambiguous, neither fully Asian nor fully Caucasian (due to a biolgical history too lengthy for now). It was dated at 9000 years ago. The media sensationalized this as a pre Columbian European presence in North America.

The skelton was given to local Native people for reburial, which angered scientists who could not study it. They responded with an effort to do an end run around NAGPRA by claiming there were other people in America besides Native ancestors. They used two tactics, one based on artifacts and one on DNA.

Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institute claimed that similarities between the Native Clovis point spearhead and the Solutrean spearhead from French archaeology meant that ancient Europeans had carried the Solutrean technology to America and influenced the development of the Clovis point. I have read the anthropologists' discussions on this which ended in a consensus that the Solutrean notion was wrong. Stanford had ignored differences in manufacture that made it unlikely for one to have influenced the other. He had also ignored the time gap over 1000 years, making influence impossible. Geographically, Europe and North America were covered in glaciers and the Atlantic ice was 2 miles thick during the time that Stanford proposed.

The DNA tactic involved the X mtDNA haplogroup, found among a small number of Native Americans and a small number of Europeans. Some scientists said this supported Stanford's Solutrean idea. But further studies showed that the European and Native American X haplogroups are completely separate descendant strains of an earlier X haplogroup that originated 30,000 years ago in the Middle East. Some of tbose original X people stayed in the Middle East. Some went westward into Europe. Others went east into Asia and eventually to North America. The trail of mutations in the 3 main groups indicates that they separated thousands of years before the first X group reached America.

But today there are still racial supremacists who have a fantasy about the first people in America, who they say were white Europeans with an advanced Stone Age technology. According to this fantasy, hordes of later Asians arrived, outnumbering and slaughtering the white Europeans. Therefore, the genocides of Native Americans after Columbus were justified payback and Native American land rights and treaties should be abolished.

Native Americans have good reasons for mistrusting scientific studies of them.

[bluedigger]

8. I posted the article here because I thought it was interesting.

Any other implied motivation is highly insulting. Mr. Bourque is a highly respected archaeologist. Archaeologists are not racist because they suggest alternative theories of the population of the Americas. They expect their ideas to be challenged because that's how science advances. Finally, Kennewick Man was not found in a cliffside, but in a riverbank. I hope the rest of your attack, er, argument, is better factually founded.

[wnylib]

9. I don't care what credentials

Bourque has. Dennis Standford of the Smithsonian was respected in his field until he proposed an alternative "theory" without sufficient evidence and with doubtful motivation due to the timing and to his open opposition to NAGPRA. Actually, since he had so little science-based evidence, it was more approprate to call his notion a hypothesis than a theory. The words are too often used interchangeably.

It is not racist to propose alternate hypotheses or theories. It IS definitely racist to claim that Native Americans oppose DNA testing because they want to preserve an image of themselves as a "secular Eden." It overlooks completely the valid mistrust that Native Americans have about being scientifically studied because of how such studies have been used against them in the past. It assumes that the insulting white European stereotype of the "noble savage" (secular Eden in the article) originates with Native Americans themselves.

I accept the correction on the riverbank location of Kennewick Man instead of cliff, although a riverbank can be a cliff. Regarding facts, the origin of NAGPRA is a fact. The X haplogroup controversy is a fact.

When I questioned why the article was posted, I was not accusing YOU of being racist. I was wondering if you had enough knowledge of the subject to see the fallacies in the author's claims.

A few more facts about the article. The article claims that Native tribes use blood quantum to determine eligibility for membership, as if all tribes are the same culture with the same criteria. Each tribal nation determines qualifications for membership. Most require some degree of proven recent Native ancestry, which can be 3 or 4 generations in many cases. Many also require commitment to the well-being of the tribe and to an identification with the tribe. Some tribes, like the Seneca, are matrilineal. If your mother is Seneca, you are Seneca, regardless of who your father is. If your mother is not Seneca, neither are you, even if your father is.

So, there could be a Seneca woman married to a white European-American. Her daughter is Seneca. If that daughter also marries a European American, her children are still Seneca. This could in theory go on for generations until the children have red or blond hair and blue or green eyes, as long as there is an unbroken line of Seneca women who are tribal members that identify as Seneca. There are, in fact, people among the Mohawk with blue eyes and/or blond hair due to history and intermarriage around the Vermont and NY borders of Mohawk territory in Canada.

The article mentions the mobility of people in its argument against Native claims to Native remains. Human mobility is definitely a fact, well illustrated by the diversity of the US, but also in the history and prehistory of the world at large. A lot of intermixing throughout human and hominin existance. I don't see how that, in itself, eliminates Native claims to Native remains in a given region. The mobility and resulting admixtures do not decrease the possibilities of a relationship between remains and the people of the region. It can increase the possibilities of a connection.

Making or disallowing claims based on how long a specific people are known to have been in a region is interesting when applied to "possession" of the land where remains are found. Who has been there longer? Native Americans of any group, or non Native archaeologists who want to claim for themselves what is found on the land? This criteria of land rights due to length of residence on a land would put non Native people off of the continent altogether.

The article also mentions the "homogenizing" of Plains people. Really?? Even the modern EU has not homogenized Europe. Does the author know anything at all about Native Americans?

I understand his interest in archaeology, anthropology, and DNA. I share those interests myself. It's why I studied cultural anthropology with a focus on indigenous people of North America. I also sympathize with the frustration of not having access to the material that he and other scientists want to study. I would like to know, too, what the studies could tell us. But he uses the wrong way to get the access he wants when he uses inuendo and ignorance of Native people for his arguments.

I do not respect Bourque's methods in this article of seeking access. He might try conferences with Native people and learning about their concerns and objections. He could propose compromises and information sharing, which would bring Native people into the process. There are some tribes that are more comfortable with archaeology and DNA studies than others. He might start with meeting with them.

Archaeologist James Adovasio was working in the field out of a university in my home town (Erie, PA). Besides his well known work at Meadowcroft Rockshelter before going to Erie, he has done work in former Seneca territory in northwestern PA. He met with the Seneca people to discuss what he was doing and the results. He developed a relationship with them. Burque might try the same thing. And make it a give and take experience.