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NAGPRA Issues in Hawaii, 2015

Coverage of NAGPRA-related topics in Hawaii first came to this website in 2003 when the national NAGPRA review committee decided to devote its national meeting to the Forbes Cave controversy. Forbes cave was the most intensively covered topic from 2003 to 2007. But other topics also came to public attention, including Bishop Museum, the Emerson collection repatriated and reburied at Kanupa Cave, the discovery of ancient bones during a major construction project at Ward Center (O'ahu), construction of a house built above burials at the shorefront at Naue, Ha'ena, Kaua'i; etc.

The Forbes cave controversy up until the NAGPRA Review Committee hearing in St. Paul, Minnesota, May 9-11, 2003 was originally described and documented at:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagpraforbes.html

The conflict among Bishop Museum, Hui Malama, and several competing groups of claimants became so complex and contentious that the controversy was the primary focus of the semiannual national meeting of the NAGPRA Review Committee meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota May 9-11, 2003. A webpage was created to cover that meeting and followup events related to it. But the Forbes Cave controversy became increasingly complex and contentious, leading to public awareness of other related issues. By the end of 2004, the webpage focusing on the NAGPRA Review Committee meeting and its aftermath had become exceedingly large, at more than 250 pages with an index of 22 topics at the top. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagpraforbesafterreview.html

That large webpage became so difficult to use that it was stopped on December 29, 2004; and a new webpage was created to collect news reports for NAGPRA issues in Hawai'i during year 2005. An index for 2005 appears at the beginning, and readers may then scroll down to find the detailed coverage of each topic. For coverage of NAGPRA issues in Hawai'i in 2005 (about 250 pages), see:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagprahawaii2005.html

For year 2006 another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagprahawaii2006.html

For year 2007, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/bigfiles40/nagprahawaii2007.html

For year 2008, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/big60/nagprahawaii2008.html

For year 2009, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09a/nagprahawaii2009.html

For year 2010, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09a/nagprahawaii2010.html

For year 2011, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/nagprahawaii2011.html

For year 2012, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/nagprahawaii2012.html

For year 2013, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/nagprahawaii2013.html

For year 2014, another new webpage was created, following the same general format. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/big09/nagprahawaii2014.html

NOW BEGINS 2015

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LIST OF TOPICS FOR 2015: Full coverage of each topic follows the list; the list is in roughly chronological order, created as events unfold during 2015.

(0) NAGPRA-like issues on the U.S. mainland, or in other nations. The purpose for putting these items in this webpage is to show that most cultures worldwide have no objection to digging up old burials to do invasive research on the bones; that such research is aimed at clarifying historical facts and/or improving modern medical practices; and that Caucasian researchers do not seek to give special respect, exemption or protection to Caucasian burials as some Hawaiian activists frequently claim.

(a) March 9, 2015: Archaeologists in London have begun excavating the bones of 3,000 people interred in the 16th and 17th centuries, who now lie in the path of the Crossrail transit line. They will be pored over by scientists before being reburied on Canvey Island in the Thames Estuary. Now scientists hope their centuries-old skeletons can reveal new information about how long-ago Londoners lived -- and about the bubonic plague that often killed them.
(b) June 9, 2015: Ten human skulls collected in the 1800s in French Polynesia have been returned to members of a Polynesian group at a ceremony in Sweden.
(c1) July 26, 2015: 10 sets of Chamorro remains from the 1300s that were discovered during road construction on Guam were ceremonially reburied half a mile away after anthropologists studied them.
(c2) September 13, 2015: Recent studies at an ancient burial site on Naton Beach, Tumon Bay is giving archaeologists more insight into the jewelry and ornaments worn by Guam's ancient residents.
(d) Remains of 4 early colonial leaders from 1608 discovered at Jamestown. Remains dug up and DNA samples taken. Cultural and religious artifacts were buried with the bones and are analyzed. News report includes photos of bones and complete lower jaw. 2 different articles, from July and September.
(e) 332 human remains found on Saipan during construction of resort and casino will be reburied when the community has been consulted (unclear what will happen to associated burial artifacts)

(1) Honolulu commuter rail construction project has plans for what to do about ancient Hawaiian burials. See previous years for news reports and commentaries. In April 2015: O'ahu Island Burial Council has recommended 13 burials found during exploratory trenching be left in place with minimal protection, and a 14th will be moved a short distance. Cultural monitors for ongoing construction will not be hired except as needed on a case by case basis.

(2) Tlingit village totem pole stolen from Alaska village in 1931 by actor John Barrymore, stored in Honolulu Museum of Art since 1981, returned to Tlingits.

(3) Federal officials have accused the Andover Newton Theological School of running afoul of the law in its handling of its collection of Native American and native Hawaiian cultural objects held at the Peabody Essex Museum, the culmination of an institutional clash that brought to light a little known treasure trove of artifacts.

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FULL TEXT OF ARTICLES FOR 2015

(a) March 9, 2015: Archaeologists in London have begun excavating the bones of 3,000 people interred in the 16th and 17th centuries, who now lie in the path of the Crossrail transit line. They will be pored over by scientists before being reburied on Canvey Island in the Thames Estuary. Now scientists hope their centuries-old skeletons can reveal new information about how long-ago Londoners lived -- and about the bubonic plague that often killed them.
(b) June 9, 2015: Ten human skulls collected in the 1800s in French Polynesia have been returned to members of a Polynesian group at a ceremony in Sweden.NBC News, March 9, 2015
(c1) July 26, 2015: 10 sets of Chamorro remains from the 1300s that were discovered during road construction on Guam were ceremonially reburied half a mile away after anthropologists studied them.
(c2) September 13, 2015: Recent studies at an ancient burial site on Naton Beach, Tumon Bay is giving archaeologists more insight into the jewelry and ornaments worn by Guam's ancient residents.
(d) Remains of 4 early colonial leaders from 1608 discovered at Jamestown. Remains dug up and DNA samples taken. Cultural and religious artifacts were buried with the bones and are analyzed. News report includes photos of bones and complete lower jaw. 2 different articles, from July and September.
(e) 332 human remains found on Saipan during construction of resort and casino will be reburied when the community has been consulted (unclear what will happen to associated burial artifacts)

Archaeologists Study 3,000 Skeletons at London's Bedlam

by Jill Lawless, Associated Press

LONDON -- They came from every parish of London, and from all walks of life, and ended up in a burial ground called Bedlam. Now scientists hope their centuries-old skeletons can reveal new information about how long-ago Londoners lived -- and about the bubonic plague that often killed them.

Archaeologists announced Monday that they have begun excavating the bones of 3,000 people interred in the 16th and 17th centuries, who now lie in the path of the Crossrail transit line. They will be pored over by scientists before being reburied on Canvey Island in the Thames Estuary.

One recent workday, just meters (yards) from the Liverpool Street railway station, researchers in orange overalls scraped, sifted and gently removed skeletons embedded in the dark earth. In one corner of the site, the skeleton of an adult lay beside the fragile remains of a baby, the wooden outline of its coffin still visible. Most were less intact, a jumble of bones and skulls.

"Part of the skill of it is actually working out which bones go with which," said Alison Telfer, a project officer with Museum of London Archaeology, which is overseeing the dig.

Due to open in 2018, the 118-kilometer (73-mile) trans-London Crossrail line is Britain's biggest construction project, and its largest archaeological dig for decades. The central 21-kilometer (13-mile) section runs underground, which has meant tunneling beneath some of the oldest and most densely populated parts of the city.

For Londoners, that has brought years of noise and disruption, but for archaeologists it's like Christmas. Almost every shovelful of earth has uncovered a piece of history, or prehistory: bison and mammoth bones; Roman horseshoes; medieval ice skates; the remains of a moated Tudor manor house. Chief archaeologist Jay Carver says the Bedlam dig could be the most revealing yet.

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http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/275763/sweden-returns-skulls-to-polynesia
Radio New Zealand, June 9, 2015

Sweden returns skulls to Polynesia

Ten human skulls collected in the 1800s in French Polynesia have been returned to members of a Polynesian group at a ceremony in Sweden.

The skulls were taken to Sweden in 1884 by a pioneering Swedish archaeologist, Hjalmar Stolpe, and have been kept at universities in Stockholm and Uppsala.

University authorities worked with the Polynesian association Te Tupuna Te Tura on the repatriation of the remains.

The skulls will now be buried in the Marquesas Islands.

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http://thegardenisland.com/news/state-and-regional/ancestors-reburied-after-remains-found-during-construction/article_7dbf9653-8b06-5aff-9ae3-e0a413bcf9e1.html
The Garden Island (Kaua'i), July 26, 2015

Ancestors reburied after remains found during construction

By GAYNOR DUMAT-OL DALENO
Pacific Daily News

HAGATNA, Guam (AP) -- Jeremy Cepeda recently sang and recited Chamorro words soulfully in front of a small group in a part of Inarajan that has kept much of its greenery, away from a home or building.

Members of the group who gathered in front of him sat still, careful not to disrupt the solemnity, the Pacific Daily news reported Friday.

One of Guam's Chamorro oral history speakers, Cepeda's song and chant were part of a traditional ceremony to rebury the remains of about 10 Guam ancestors who lived in the 1300s. Cepeda also placed a few stems of orange flowers, locally called niyoron, which were the more traditional material for leis or garlands before the more modern plumerias became the preferred local flower, he said. He also offered betel nut and leaves on the ground, next to the memorial marker for the ancestors.

The remains were discovered in 2010 during the construction for the road leading to the Layon landfill.

On Friday, the remains were reburied in a crypt with a memorial marker less than half a mile from where they were originally laid to rest.

The ancestors' remains were intact enough to leave some clues of how they lived. The adults had betel nut stains in their teeth, their homes had quarried stone columns, there were potteries, and they lived near a river not close to the shore.

Of the 10 remains, five were young adults, ages 17 to 35, and there was one infant, who lived until about 2 months old, according to what archeologists found.

The early Guam ancestors had a hard life, said David DeFant, an archeologist and principal investigator for Search Inc., a company that worked on the retrieval and documentation of the remains. The adults were very muscular because of the physical toll on their bodies as they practiced early farming and food-hunting. Due to their harsh living conditions, Guam's ancestors from centuries ago didn't live long lives, DeFant said.

Part of what Cepeda was saying in Chamorro during the ceremony, he said, "was to apologize to our ancestors about having to move them." "The recitation was also to remind us that it doesn't matter where we go; that we stand on the bones of our elders," he said.

Inarajan Mayor Doris Flores Lujan said she was pleased with the way the remains of the ancestors were properly reburied.

Other ancestral remains have been found over the past several years, including some during the reconstruction of the Ylig Bridge and the rebuilding of the Hagatna Bridge. Other remains discovered the past several years have yet to be properly reburied.

DeFant and archeologist Lynn Leon Guerrero said the last reburial ceremony they can recall, up until yesterday's ceremony, was the reburial of remains that were found at the Fiesta Resort Hotel construction site almost a decade ago.

Speaker Judith Won Pat and representatives of GHD, the company that was hired in part to oversee the landfill project and management, were there, too. GHD helped provide logistics for the reburial, in coordination with the Guam Historic Preservation Office and other agencies, such as the Guam Visitors Bureau.

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** The following article shows that even in the Pacific islands, local indigenous people are glad to cooperate with archeologists who dig up bones of the ancestors and also remove associated burial artifacts which in Hawaii would be called "moepu", for laboratory analysis and display in museums. The article, published in the Sunday newspaper on one of the main Hawaiian islands, did not elicit any negative comments online or in later letters to editor.

http://thegardenisland.com/news/state-and-regional/dig-offers-clues-about-guam-s-ancient-residents/article_bcfd457c-0bc2-5323-8d21-db7cd73e870e.html
The Garden Island (Kaua'i, Hawaii Islands), Sunday, September 13, 2015

Dig offers clues about Guam's ancient residents

By CAMERON MICULKA Pacific Daily News, Sunday, September 13, 2015

HAGATNA, Guam (AP) -- Recent studies at an ancient burial site on Tumon Bay is giving archaeologists more insight into the jewelry and ornaments worn by Guam's ancient residents. Between 2006 and 2008, excavations at the Naton Beach site turned up more than 400 burials from the pre-latte and latte periods of prehistoric Guam, said Judith R. Amesbury, an archaeologist with Micronesian Archaeological Research Services. The oldest burials at the site date back 2,500 years ago.

Anthropologists divide Guam's prehistory -- which refers to any time before writing was introduced to the island -- into two time periods. The first era, the pre-latte period, dates to 1,500 B.C., when the first wave of migration to Guam is believed to have taken place. The latte period, which refers to the time when lattes were first introduced, started around 950 A.D. and continued up to the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521.

During a presentation at the Latte of Freedom's Hall of Governors, Amesbury spoke about the extent of ornamentation found on ancestral remains buried in the Naton Beach site, saying the number of ornaments found "is extraordinary."

The site, Amesbury said, is the largest group of human remains from the pre-latte period ever discovered in the Marianas, as well as the oldest burials ever discovered. Of the more than 400 burials, more than 150 of them were pre-latte and more than 250 were from the latte period. During her presentation, Amesbury said there appeared to be a distinct difference in ornamentation between the pre-latte and latte period burials.

In the pre-latte period, a quarter of the 170 burials found had ornaments and the number of ornaments found exceeded 1,600. These ornaments included a wide range of materials and sizes. On the smaller side were what researchers labeled "Type 3 Conus beads." These beads were about a quarter of an inch in diameter and more than 1,000 of these were found at the site. In one case, Amesbury said, one woman's remains were found with more than 400 of these beads. The ornaments also included the teeth of tiger sharks.

Amesbury said the woman who was buried with the teeth also had what appeared to be a pumice file. Amesbury said it's possible the file was used to make other ornaments.

Also found among the burials were the shells of Pinctadamaxima, a species of pearl oyster. Amesbury said three burials had the shell placed over the left shoulder. Of the three, the largest shell measured 35 centimeters across and was found on the remains of a man who was believed to have been in his late 20s at the time of his death.

Amesbury said 11 pre-latte burials were found with red or yellow ochre, a type of pigment made from clay earth.

Amesbury also showed the audience a photograph of teeth belonging to a man's remains that showed circular pits cut into his two front teeth. That, she said, has never been seen before in the Marianas.

Amesbury compared the teeth to something similar found among Mayan remains, where teeth were inlaid with stones. Amesbury said it's possible the pre-latte inhabitants of Guam did something similar, but stressed there wasn't actually any connection between the Mayan example and the teeth found at Naton Beach.

The archaeologist also said a set of infant remains had ornaments. If researchers are correct that the ornaments are tied to status, the discovery of the infant would suggest that status in pre-latte Guam was inherited.

With regard to the burials dated to the latte period, only 17 of the 258 burials had ornaments, and Amesbury said the excavation had turned up eight burials with incised teeth.

She showed the audience a photograph of a skull on which a "cross-hatch" design had been carved into the teeth. The incisions were found on eight sets of remains: four female, three male and one whose sex wasn't determined.

Overall, she said, the discovery was of great significance to researchers. The higher prevalence of ornaments among the pre-latte burials suggested status was actually more important than it was in the later period.

On top of that, the prevalence of female remains with ornaments compared to male remains suggested women were held in high regard, reinforcing the idea of matrilineage.

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http://news.yahoo.com/remains-4-early-colonial-leaders-discovered-jamestown-153120563.html
Yahoo news, July 28, 2015

Remains of 4 early colonial leaders discovered at Jamestown

** Article on yahoo includes photos of human bones and a complete lower jaw.

Associated Press By BRETT ZONGKER

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Archaeologists have uncovered human remains of four of the earliest leaders of the English colony that would become America, buried for more than 400 years near the altar of what was America's first Protestant church in Jamestown, Virginia.

The four burial sites were uncovered in the earthen floor of what was Jamestown's historic Anglican church from 1608, a team of scientists and historians announced Tuesday. The site is the same church where Pocahontas famously married Englishman John Rolfe, leading to peace between the Powhatan Indians and colonists at the first permanent English settlement in America.

Beyond the human remains, archaeologists also found artifacts buried with the colonial leaders -- including a mysterious Catholic container for holy relics found in the Protestant church.

The Jamestown Rediscovery archaeology team revealed its discovery at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The museum is helping to study and identify those buried in the church. The burials were first uncovered in November 2013, but the scientific team wanted to trace and identify its findings with some certainty before announcing the discovery.

Archaeologists have been studying the site since 1994 when the original James Fort -- long thought to be lost and submerged in the James River -- was rediscovered. The church site was mostly untouched and had not been excavated for more than a century until it was found in 2010.

The team identified the remains of the Rev. Robert Hunt, Jamestown's first Anglican minister who was known as a peacemaker between rival leaders; Capt. Gabriel Archer, a nemesis of one-time colony leader John Smith; Sir Ferdinando Wainman, likely the first knight buried in America; and Capt. William West, who died in a fight with the Powhatan Indians. The three other men likely died after brief illnesses. They were buried between 1608 and 1610.

"What we have discovered here in the earliest English church in America are four of the first leaders of America," said historian James Horn who is president of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation. "There's nothing like it anywhere else in this country."

While the individuals buried at Jamestown were not royalty, they were considered pivotal figures in the early colony. Horn compared the find to the 2012 discovery of the lost grave of King Richard III in England.

Two years ago, the Jamestown team also found evidence of survival cannibalism in the colony.

Perhaps just as interesting as the newly discovered human remains are some of the artifacts buried with the bodies. Burial items were rare in English culture at the time, archaeologists said.

In the remnants of Archer's coffin, archaeologists found a captain's leading staff as a symbol of Archer's military status. Historical records indicate Archer helped lead some of the earliest expeditions to Jamestown. He died at the age of 34 during a six-month period known as the "starving time" when many perished due to disease, starvation and battles with Indians.

A well-preserved silver box believed to be a Catholic reliquary is displayed at the Smithsonian' � Mysteriously, a small silver box resting atop Archer's coffin turns out likely to be a Catholic reliquary containing bone fragments and a container for holy water. Archer's parents were Catholic in Protestant England, which became illegal. So the discovery raises the question of whether Archer was perhaps part of a secret Catholic cell -- or even a Catholic spy on behalf of the Spanish, Horn said.

Catholic relics have been found in the Jamestown archaeological site before, but the placement of this box seems particularly symbolic, the historians said. They used CT scans to see inside the sealed box without damaging it -- gaining a view that wouldn't have been possible 10 years ago.

An alternative theory holds that the religious piece was simply repurposed for the Anglican church as a holdover from Catholic tradition as England waffled between Catholic and Protestant rule. Historians said more research must be done.

"It was a real kind of ah-ha moment for a lot of us," said William Kelso, Jamestown's director of archaeology. "It was oh, religion was a big deal here, and that's often overlooked. Everyone thinks that people came to Jamestown to find gold and go home and live happily ever after."

But the Church of England had a strong role in the creation of an English America with the Protestant church acting as a bulwark against Spain's Catholic colonies to the south, Horn said.

A well-preserved silver box believed to be a Catholic reliquary is displayed at the Smithsonian' � In West's burial plot, archaeologists found remnants of the military leader's silver-edged sash in a block of soil. The silk material was too delicate to remove from the dirt, so archaeologists removed an entire block of dirt for preservation.

Archaeologists will continue searching the church site and expect to eventually find the burial of Sir Thomas West, the early governor of Virginia who led a rescue mission to save Jamestown when the colony was collapsing, Horn said. West, also known as Lord De La Warr, was the namesake of the Delaware colony. Wainman and William West were both related to the powerful baron.

Of the newly found historical figures, only Wainman and Hunt had children. Those family lines could allow for DNA comparisons after more genealogical research. Researchers first want to learn more about those related to Lord De La Warr.

Artifacts from the burials will go on display within weeks at Historic Jamestowne. The site also plans to memorialize the men and will keep their bones in an accessible place for preservation and future study.

The Smithsonian created a 3D scan of the excavation site, bones and artifacts to give people a look at the discovery online.

The team is more than 90 percent certain of the colonists' identities, Kelso said. Still they will work to complete more testing and potentially DNA analysis. One sample is in a DNA laboratory now at Harvard to determine whether any genetic information has been preserved.

The archaeology team said the discovery is like a riddle they must figure out over time. Records from the time period are limited.

"The things that we look at and can read from the bones are simply details that you're not going to find in the history books," said Douglas Owsley, a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian. "These are men that you might not know their name. But these are men that were critical to who we are in terms of America today."

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** Note from website editor Ken Conklin: The following article is copied here to provide an example of the fact that Caucasian archeologists have no hesitation to dig up the graves of important Caucasian historical figures, and to perform all manner of scientific tests on both the bones and the cultural artifacts that were included with the burials. The article as printed in the hardcopy magazine, and also available online, is studded with numerous high-resolution photographs. In addition the online version offers several 3-dimensional renderings of graves and bones.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/new-archaeological-research-jamestown-reveals-identities-four-prominent-settlers-discovery-180956028/

Smithsonian, September 2015, pp. 69-80

New Jamestown Discovery Reveals the Identities of Four Prominent Settlers

The findings by Smithsonian scientists dig up the dynamics of daily life in the first permanent British settlement in the colonies

By Marilyn Johnson
Smithsonian Magazine
July 28, 2015

One of the bodies was just 5 feet 5 inches long, and missing its hands, most likely from four centuries of deterioration. It had been jostled during burial, so the head and shoulders were scrunched long before the wooden coffin lid and the weight of the dirt above had collapsed on it. Flesh no longer held the jaw shut; when this skeleton was brushed free late in 2013, it looked unhinged, as if it were howling. The bones, now labeled 3046C, belonged to a man who had come to the New World on the first trio of ships from England to the spot called Fort James, James Cittie or, as we know it, Jamestown. He survived the first wave of deaths that followed the Englishmen's arrival in May of 1607. Over the next two years, he conspired to take down one leader and kill another. This man had a murderous streak. He died, along with hundreds of settlers--most of the colony--during the seven-month disaster known as the "starving time".

Jamestown's original fort is perhaps the most archaeologically fertile acre in the United States. In 1994, Bill Kelso, a former head archaeologist at Monticello, put his shovel in the clay soil here and began unearthing the first of two million artifacts from the early days of the settlement. His discoveries, all part of a project known as Jamestown Rediscovery, include everything from full-body armor, a loaded pistol and a pirate's grappling pike to children's shoes and tools from such a broad array of trades (blacksmith, gunsmith, mason, barber, carpenter, tailor and more) that it is clearly a myth that the settlers arrived unprepared. One firecracker revelation after another is now filling in the history of the first successful English colony in America. Kelso and his team captured international attention two years ago when they reported finding the butchered remains of a teenage girl, clear evidence that the settlers cannibalized their dead to survive during the famine. The team named the girl "Jane" and, along with Doug Owsley and the forensic anthropology lab at Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, reconstructed her skull and digitally recreated her face, thus populating this early dark chapter in American history. In another major find, a few years back, the team uncovered the foundation of the fort's original church, built in 1608--the earliest known Protestant church in the Americas, where Pocahontas married Virginia's first tobacco farmer, John Rolfe, and brought the warring natives and settlers to a temporary truce.

This was where 3046C was laid to rest, in the winter of 1609-10. In spite of being under siege, and with food so scarce they were scavenging rats and cats and gnawing shoe leather and even, on occasion, their dead, his fellow settlers gave him a fine burial in the church's chancel. A hexagonal oak coffin was made for him, a captain's staff put alongside him. Just before the dirt sealed him off for centuries, someone placed a small silver box on top of his coffin. When the archaeologist lifted it out of the trench and gave it a tentative shake, the corroded box rattled.

Three more skeletons, labeled 2993B, 2992C and 170C, have been pulled from beneath the chancel. All date to around the same time as 3046C, and though one was in a simple shroud, the other two also had splendid coffins. Who were these men? Why were they buried, not in nearby fields with the other settlers, but beneath the floor of the church's altar? Kelso and Owsley have marshaled an army of experts who have dedicated thousands of hours of scientific and archival scrutiny to the task of matching the remains with the historic record. Now they are ready to unveil the identities of these latest Jamestown discoveries. Each has its part in the larger story of life on the edge of a New World.

Jamestown records refer to a "pretty chapel" in the fort's "middest." That's just where Bill Kelso and his team found the remains of the church where Pocahontas married John Rolfe (marked by a mud wall, in front of a later, reconstructed brick church). (Greg Kahn)

On a chilly gray day in late April, Kelso urged me out of the headquarters of Jamestown Rediscovery and past the house behind the hedges where he and his wife live; I needed to see the whole site before the skies opened and drenched us. Unspoiled so far by commercial development and buffered by National Park Service land, the 22.5 acres purchased by the nonprofit Preservation Virginia in the early 1890s are dominated by monuments: an obelisk, a statue of Pocahontas and another of explorer John Smith, and a weathered replica of a brick chapel that eventually replaced the original church. They give weight to the landscape around Jamestown's original fort. The native tribes had laughed at the first Englishmen's choice of real estate. Who wanted to live in a swampland with no fresh water? But it's a beautiful spot, on a channel deep enough for multimasted ships yet far enough up the James River that its residents could anticipate attacks from their Spanish enemies.

Jamestown was England's attempt to play catch-up with the Spaniards, who had enriched themselves spectacularly with their colonies in South America and were spreading Catholicism through the world. After years of war with the Spanish, financed in part by pirating their ships, England turned to the Virginia Company to launch new colonial adventures. The first 104 settlers, all men and boys (women didn't arrive until the next year), sailed with a charter from their king and a mission to find silver and gold and a passage to the Far East. They landed in Jamestown, prepared to scout and mine the land and trade with the native people for food. And they did trade, exchanging copper for corn between eruptions of hostility. But as Jamestown's third winter approached, the Powhatan had limited supplies of corn; a drought was smothering their crops and diverting the once plentiful giant sturgeons that fed them. When English resupply ships were delayed, and the settlers' attempts to seize corn turned violent, the Powhatan surrounded the fort and killed anyone who ventured out. Brackish drinking water, brutal cold and the lack of food did their damage from within. Jamestown's early history is so dire it's easy to forget that it endured to become a success and the home of the first democratic assembly in the Americas--all before any pilgrims made camp in Plymouth. Abandoned in 1699 when Virginia's capital moved to Williamsburg, the colony was thought to have sunk into the river and been lost. The first archaeologist who brought skepticism to that story, along with a stubborn determination to test it, was Kelso.

He stopped by the current excavation site and introduced me to the begrimed crew toiling in the bottom of a pit six feet deep. The archaeological work here has a temporary feel among the monuments. Visitors are separated from the excavations by a simple rope because Kelso wants the public to share in the discoveries. Nearby, the location of an early barracks has been roughed out with lengths of saplings. Kelso has unearthed foundations that hint at the class lines imported from England: row houses built for the governor and his councilors, as well as shallow pits near the fort wall where laborers probably improvised shelters. "We're trying to reconstruct the landscape," Kelso says. "It's a stage setting, but it's in pieces and the script has been torn up." He found a major piece when he located the fort's original church. It was large, more than 60 feet long, the center of life for all the settlers in its day. John Smith called it the "golden church" because, though its walls were mud mixed with black rushes and its roof thatched, two broad windows filled it with light and it was crowned with two bells. Kelso's team has outlined the foundation with a low uneven wall using the same mud-and-stud construction the settlers would have used to make their first buildings. Four stark iron crosses mark the places where the chancel bodies lay. Each received a distinct number; a letter identified the layer of dirt in which the body was found. Kelso stood by their resting places, now covered with crab grass and clover, as the sky darkened, a battered leather hat over his white hair.

"Everyone thought John Smith was sad because he was looking at the drowned fort," Bill Kelso said of a 1909 statue built facing the river. The fort, including the recently discovered chancel burials (marked with crosses), were later found behind the statue. (Greg Kahn)

He nodded toward the first cross, which marked the burial of 2993B, the one laid to rest in only a shroud. "Robert Hunt, the minister, was the first buried here. He came with the original settlers in 1607," Kelso said. That first fleet to Virginia had been delayed by storms and stuck within sight of the village of Reculver in Kent, where Hunt was from, for six weeks in heavy seas--six weeks! Hunt, who from the ship would have been able to see the spires of a church he knew well, was so ill that the others considered tossing him overboard. He had already said goodbye to his two children and quit the young wife he suspected of infidelity. He'd defended himself from accusations of an affair with his servant woman. He had made his will and turned his back on England. He would get to the New World if it killed him.

A slight and strong-willed man, Hunt delivered sermons and personal appeals to keep the peace among the leaders, whose clashes and quarrels fill the narrative history of Jamestown. In early 1608, a fire raged through Fort James, destroying all of Hunt's possessions, including his precious library of books. The fire might have been set accidentally by sailors who had arrived in the bitter month of January. Hunt did not complain (as John Smith wrote, "none never heard him repine"). The mariners were put to work rebuilding a storehouse and a kitchen and, while they were at it, constructing the future wedding church of Pocahontas. Hunt, who had been presiding over services outside under a stretched sail, must have taken consolation in seeing its walls go up. He died, probably of disease, within weeks of its completion.

A flock of children in matching red slickers surrounded us as the drizzle began. Two girls dragged their friend to stand by the chancel like Pocahontas at her wedding. One hovered, tightly sprung, by Kelso's side; she was dying to tell him that she wanted to be an archaeologist. Kelso, age 74 and a grandfather of four, recognized her intensity. "Study hard," he told her, "and don't let anyone talk you out of it."

All through the site, I noticed tombs and grave markers, a granite cross and dozens more of those black iron ones, evidence of the price paid by the colonists. I asked Kelso how many burials there are in Jamestown and he pulled out a map dense with tiny maroon rectangles. He started pointing them out, dozens on the side of the brick chapel and who knew how many inside...a trench with 15 burials near a cellar they're digging now...scores on the way to the visitors' caf� and beneath the elevated archaeology museum. Kelso's finger stopped by the far eastern border of the fort. "There don't seem to be any here," he said. Where are the bodies in Jamestown? It is easier to say where there are none.

James Horn, a British-born historian of the early colonies and president of Jamestown Rediscovery, explained to me the importance of religion to this tale, particularly England's desire to make Jamestown a base for the spread of Protestantism. "Pocahontas was a conversion story!" Horn said as Kelso and six or seven younger archaeologists and conservators gathered in Horn's office. They lowered the shades so they could present the discoveries that they had kept secret for more than a year. There was intense excitement, but the researchers took time to apologize before showing me photos of the skeletons. They are aware of how sensitive this type of work is. They are excavating graves after all. State historic preservation officers must be involved and satisfied that there is a scientific reason for the disturbance. And though the researchers invite the public to stand at the edge of the excavations, a fence goes up as soon as human remains are involved. They try to convey respect at every stage of unearthing and testing.

A screen lit up with a sequence of X-rays and CT scans of the "grave goods," the objects found with the best-preserved of the bodies, 3046C, now identified as Captain Gabriel Archer. Typically in English graves of this period only royalty were buried with such goods, but Archer boasted two. The captain's staff was a sign of leadership. The mysterious silver box appeared to have religious significance.

Archer was a gentleman who trained as a lawyer, but he might be better characterized as a provocateur. He had been shot in both hands with arrows by Native Americans on the day the first ships arrived in Virginia, the same day he learned that, in spite of his connections and high status and experience, including a previous expedition to New England, he had not been appointed to the colony's ruling council. John Smith, a soldier and the blunt son of a farmer, had. Their enmity was sealed, one of many "struggles between alphas," as Horn described it. The two men disagreed about whether Jamestown was the right spot for the colony (Archer said no) and how to wield power (Smith had no use for councils). They were alike in their belligerence. Archer helped unseat the first president of Jamestown, who branded him a "ringleader...always hatching of some mutiny." Smith had been in chains at least once on mutiny charges too.

When Archer finally secured a leadership position as the colony's official record-keeper, he used it to try to hang Smith. Archer called Smith's loyalty into question after two of Smith's scouts were killed in a skirmish with the natives; Smith was taken captive in the same incident, but returned unharmed. When this plot failed, Archer attempted murder, detonating Smith's pouch of gunpowder while he slept--so historians and Smith himself believed. Smith headed back to England, where he made a surprising recovery and wrote the accounts that figure so prominently in American history, including the story, perhaps apocryphal, of his rescue from death by the young Pocahontas. He became the best known of all the Jamestown leaders. Archer died soon after the attempt on Smith's life, from the bloody flux (dysentery) or typhus or starvation.

Kelso projected a short video of Jamie May, a senior archaeologist, lifting the silver box out of Archer's grave. "Feels like there's something in it!" she said, shaking it. After conservationists spent more than 100 hours carefully removing corrosion with a scalpel under a microscope and polishing and degreasing its surface, the silver-copper alloy still looked battered, but a crude initial, M or W, could be seen on one side, and on the other, what looked like the fletching of an arrow. What was inside? Incredibly, the archaeologists have decided not to open the box. It is so fragile, they fear it would crumble to pieces. Instead they are using every scientific trick to glimpse its interior.

Scientists believe that this mysterious box, found buried with Gabriel Archer, is a Catholic reliquary. Detailed analyses suggest it's inscribed with an M (not a W). (Greg Kahn) I was scribbling in my notebook when Kelso said, "Wait, she's not looking," and the researchers backed up the slide show to a high-resolution, noninvasive micro-CT scan of the box's contents: two pieces of a lead object--possibly a broken ampulla, a vessel to hold holy water--and several small pieces of bone. "Human? We don't know. The best we can figure is mammal," said Michael Lavin, a conservator. Only 41 years old, Lavin, like several others on the team, has spent his entire career with Jamestown Rediscovery. "We think it's a reliquary," a container for holy objects, perhaps a Catholic artifact.

But hadn't Catholicism been banished in England? Weren't they all Anglicans? Yes, Horn pointed out, but there were still Catholics practicing underground. Rosary beads, medallions of saints and a crucifix carved on jet have also turned up at Jamestown. Gabriel Archer's father was among the Catholics, called a "recusant" and cited in court for failing to attend Anglican services. Archer had learned resistance at home.

And was that an M or a W inscribed on the silver box? A Smithsonian expert in microscopy scrutinized the etching and showed that the letter had been formed using four distinct down strokes. It was probably an M. One of Archer's co-conspirators in his effort to kill John Smith had been named John Martin. Was it his silver box etched with the archer's arrow and left on Archer's coffin? Was it a token of sentiment, or of defiance?

The archaeologists here find themselves at a particular moment when the artifacts can still be recovered and the technology has advanced sufficiently to extract important information. The window for scrutiny is closing, though, as the skeletons still buried deteriorate and as changing climate lifts the waters of the James River. "These bones were almost gone," Kelso said. How long will it be before this site is completely swamped?

After Gabriel Archer died, along with most of the rest of the colonists, Jamestown came close to collapse. Survivors, so skeletal they looked, as one witness wrote, like "anatomies," were in the act of abandoning the fort in 1610 when orders from the new governor, arriving in June with a year's worth of food and hundreds of men, turned them back. Thomas West, known as Lord De La Warr (Delaware was named for him), marched in with a force of halberd-bearing soldiers, read his orders in the golden church, then immediately began to clean up the squalor from the Starving Time. He had two valued deputies in this mission to revive the colony, his knighted cousin, Sir Ferdinando Wainman, and a younger uncle, Capt. William West. The relatives helped establish martial law and enforce discipline, including mandatory church attendance twice a day, and Wainman (also spelled Weyman and Wenman, among others) was given the additional responsibility in the newly militarized colony of Master of Ordnance.

Even connections and privilege and sufficient food could not protect these men from the dangers of the New World: Wainman died his first summer, probably of disease. His death was, according to one leader in the colony, "much lamented" because he was "both an honest and valiant gentleman." His skeleton, 2992C, was found between those of Hunt and Archer. Genealogical research, conducted by Ancestry.com, reveals that Wainman had an infant daughter in England, whose christening records list multiple noble godparents. The knight had invested 100 pounds in the Virginia Company, hoping to multiply it on his adventures. When he died, Lord De La Warr saw that the stake was given to Wainman's child.

West, only in his 20s, was killed later that year by Native Americans almost 50 miles upriver, and his body brought, with difficulty and sorrow, back to the church for burial. A close examination of West's ribcage revealed silver threads from a bullion fringe, which would have decorated a sword or royal sash. His skeleton, 170C, suffered the most damage over the centuries. During the Civil War, the land had been scraped to build a fort, narrowly missing the bodies, but a utility line dug in the late 1930s took part of 170C's skull.

"Jamestown is a story of luck, figuratively and literally. Over and over, lost and rediscovered, lost and saved," said Kari Bruwelheide, a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, where I met her in an office with a cabinet lined with skulls. Bruwelheide noted one important way that archaeology had contributed to saving the site: High-density scans of the chancel remains had been made before excavation. "Someday, you'll be able to visit this site virtually."

But what the scientists still don't know about the four bodies continues to tease them. "Not a one do we have a [forensic] cause of death for," Doug Owsley told me. Owsley, the prominent forensics expert who has worked on human remains from the controversial prehistoric Kennewick Man to 9/11 and beyond, was leading me through the warren of anthropology offices and down increasingly narrow halls. He inserted a key to a locked door, and admitted me to the layout room, where every surface, including the shelves of what looked like commercial kitchen serving carts, was arrayed with human bones. He pulled two chairs up beside a skeleton from Maryland set out as part of his long-term project, an exploration of what it means to become an American through burials and bones from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. He and his team have data on more than a thousand skeletons from burial sites throughout the Chesapeake region (most of these remains were threatened by erosion or development). By looking at burial practices and the chemical composition and shape of bones and teeth, the researchers can learn much about a person's life. They can tell whether a woman sewed from marks in the teeth left from biting down on thread.

A battery of scientific tests by Smithsonian scientists Kari Bruwelheide and Doug Owsley, along with genealogical records, have now revealed the identities of the four men. (Greg Kahn) I set my coffee near the ribs while Owsley reflected on the De La Warr relatives, whose remains were nearby. They had the forensic marks of wealth for the period: high lead counts, which came from eating off pewter or lead-glazed dishware. "The lead levels tell us these are somebodies," Owsley said. Neither the knight nor the young captain showed the dramatic development of muscle attachments common to people involved in heavy physical labor. Wainman did have pronounced ridges on his leg bones, suggesting greater use of leg muscles, perhaps from horseback riding. Readings of oxygen isotopes, accumulated in the bones from drinking water, suggest that all the men, including Hunt and Archer, were from the southern coastal regions of England. Of the three coffins, one had been hexagonal and two cut in at the shoulders and squared tight around the head. These two anthropoid coffins, which held the De La Warr relatives, fascinated Owsley. King James had been buried in such a coffin, which required a skilled craftsperson to build, and Owsley has seen only one other from this period in North America. "Did you see the three-dimensional picture of the coffin nails? Remarkable," Owsley said. Because the wood in the coffins had decayed, only the nails remained in the dirt around the skeletons, but Dave Givens, an archaeologist and specialist in geographic information systems, had mapped their locations, marking their depth and orientation, then plotting them in a 3-D image. The nails seemed to float in space, clearly outlining the shapes of the coffins.

Strapping on a headband with a portable microscope and a light, Owsley pulled out a tray of jawbones from the chancel burials. "I'm re-editing my field notes, checking teeth to verify which sides the cavities are on," Owsley said. He explained that the longer the settlers had been in the colonies, the more decay you could see--the difference between the European diet based on wheat and the more destructive one based on the New World staple, corn. "And see?" he said, showing me the jaw with noticeably less-worn teeth. "Our young fellow [West] had one cavity. He was pretty new off the boat." Luckily his mandible had not been in the line of the utility trench. "I'd love to have his cranium, though," Owsley said. He picked up 2993B, "our older man [Hunt], the minister, who would have been 35 to 40. See that tiny dark speck in the tooth there? That's a break in the pulp. It was abscessing. That would have been weighing him down." He set it aside and picked up Archer's jawbones. "Now look at this: cavity, cavity, cavity, more cavities, 14 in all, teeth with enamel completely worn, a destroyed crown, broken exposed pulp chamber, two active abscesses. This guy was in agony. John Smith had returned to England after the attempt on his life because there was no surgeon at Jamestown to see to his burns, so we know there was no medical person around to pull this man's teeth." I remembered that when the archaeologists uncovered him, Archer looked like he was howling.

So Owsley and his team chip away at the mysteries of the four Jamestown leaders buried with honor. The goal is to extract bits of factual evidence to piece together a larger picture, while still preserving the scientific data and guaranteeing access to it in the coming years. What we are learning now deepens our understanding of the force of religion in the early settlement, the fractious nature of leadership and how people of wealth and privilege were mourned in the wake of those great levelers, suffering and death. "Students of the future will have questions we haven't thought of," Owsley said.

In Jamestown, the rain fell gently as we gathered by the obelisk. The half-dozen or so archaeologists here take turns leading tours. Danny Schmidt, who started in 1994 as a high-school volunteer and is now a senior archaeologist and field manager, shepherded us to the current excavation pit, where two archaeologists were hard at work with brushes and dustpans in what appeared to be a massive cellar. Then he led us to the excavation of another cellar--the one used for trash from the "starving time". "This was where we found butchered dogs and horses, a human tibia, and a few days later, most of a human cranium. Right away, we could see it had marks like those on the bones of the dogs. They belonged to a 14-year-old girl we called Jane."

Schmidt pointed out the steps constructed for Queen Elizabeth II, so she could walk down into one of the pits. She visited Jamestown for its 350th anniversary and returned in 2007 for its 400th. Of course she is fascinated by the site. This is the birthplace of modern America and, as one of the earliest British colonies, a nursery for the empire.

Schmidt turned to the foundation of the original church, "the great-grandfather of 10,000 Protestant churches," as he put it, now marked out with rough mud walls. "Yes, Pocahontas was married here, but not John Smith," Schmidt said wryly. Pocahontas changed her name to Rebecca and bore a son with John Rolfe. The marriage brought seven years of peace between the Powhatan and the English and culminated in a celebrated voyage to England. But the peace ended with Pocahontas' death as she was departing for the trip home, and she was buried in England.

Nearby, the reproduction of the brick chapel offered temporary shelter from the drizzle. The rigid class lines of English society had bent in this colony where resourcefulness and mere survivorship mattered as much as connections, and in 1619, the first elected assembly of the Americas met here. This was also where Schmidt was married, he told us. Standing on its brick floor, I pictured ghosts in ruff collars smiling down on him and his bride.

The tour ended near a shrine to Robert Hunt, though Schmidt didn't mention the discovery of Hunt's body (the news had not yet been made public). A knot of history lovers surrounded Schmidt, asking questions. I noticed his pocket vibrating and his hand reaching in to silence his phone. Finally, one of the archaeological team approached and caught Schmidt's eye. "They found something?" Schmidt asked. Yes, they had.

We hurried past the 1607 burial grounds and Jane's cellar to the current pit. Schmidt waved me behind the rope and, electrified, I stood with Kelso and Horn and the others while, from the bottom of the excavation, a field archaeologist named Mary Anna Richardson passed up a tray of loose brass tacks. "We kept finding these, and now it seems we've found a bunch in a pattern--maybe a decoration for the lid of a wooden box or a book?" The mood was festive, and someone showed the tray of stray tacks to the small crowd gathered on the other side of the ropes. America, still being discovered!

Mike Lavin, the conservator, coached Richardson on how to protect the surviving wood with its pattern of tacks for the night: "Cover it lightly with soil, then upend two dustpans. We'll pedestal it and lift the whole thing out tomorrow." The rain was coming down steadily, and those who had hurried over from the offices and lab shared umbrellas while the archaeologists covered the pit with tarps. Horn grinned, his nice leather shoes spattered with mud. No one wanted to leave the place that so frequently delivered news of the people who founded a colony in a swamp and seeded a country with desperation and hope.

I mentioned Schmidt's marriage in the brick chapel to Kelso--what a fitting perk for those who toiled in the graves and garbage pits of Jamestown, to celebrate life on the site of the second historic church, the one with a roof and pews. Lavin looked up. "That's where I got married," he said. "Me, too," an archaeologist added, and another said, "I think we all did."

Richardson wiped her hands on her jeans: "And I'll be getting married there in September."

------------------

http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport/2015/November/11-23-11.htm

Link: Pacific Islands Report
Pacific Islands Development Program, East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai�i

Pre-Contact Remains From Saipan Casino Site To Be Reburied
Bones unearthed during construction to get proper reinternment

By Alexie Villegas Zotomayor

SAIPAN, CNMI (Marianas Variety, Nov. 23, 2015) -- The 332 human remains probably from Pre-Contact Period found at the ancient village of Anaguan -- more recently known as Samoan Housing Complex -- where Best Sunshine's Grand Mariana Casino and Hotel Resort is being constructed will be given a proper reburial according to the community's consensus, Best Sunshine legal counsel Viola Alepuyo said on Friday.

Alepuyo, along with Imperial Pacific/Best Sunshine senior vice president Tao Xing, visited the Lower Base storage where these remains and other artifacts are temporarily kept in a temperature- and humidity- controlled environment.

Alepuyo said: "Whatever we do with the remains, the community will have an input. It's absolutely necessary to give the public a voice."

[PIR editor's note: Saipan Tribune reported that �Best Sunshine International, Ltd. gave some of its employees and the media on Friday a sneak peek at the archaeological artifacts that have been unearthed at their site in Garapan.']
http://www.saipantribune.com/index.php/a-sneak-peek-at-archaeological-finds/

She said Best Sunshine is waiting for the results of the remaining radiocarbon dating and DNA tests of the specimens before they proceed with consulting the public regarding a proper reburial.

She reiterated that they are only temporarily holding these artifacts and remains until all results are back and these will then revert to the Historic Preservation Office.

In so far as locating a place to reinter the remains, Alepuyo said Best Sunshine has communicated to HPO about it. "We have to listen [to the public.] We have to give them an input. These are their ancestors, too."

Scores of labeled and wrapped boxes containing artifacts and ancient remains are kept in a storage in Lower Base rented by Best Sunshine. "Everything is stored here," said Alepuyo, adding that there is one radiocarbon dating test and one DNA test remaining. "We want to share the results with the public. We can't do that without HPO's permission. We were hoping to do that in October but the results are not back yet," she said adding that it is premature to meet with the public when there are still tests being conducted.

Pre-Latte and Latte periods

Among the interesting finds in what was referred to as the largest archaeological dig in Saipan history is a ceramic bowl 3 feet in diameter. Alepuyo said when the archaeologists unearthed the bowl, it was upside down and it covered the remains of a child with other remains at its periphery.

Also found was a "lusung" -- mortar and pestle -- that was used to pound rice or other food items.

In addition, stored in boxes stacked one after the other were pieces of Latte period pottery, sling stones, and fish hooks, among other artifacts.

Pre-Contact Marianas is divided into three periods: Pre-Latte, Transitional Pre-Latte and Latte. Latte stones are the megalithic monuments of pre-contact times in the Marianas.

The site found in the Samoan Housing area is believed to be not older than 1,000 years old.

Variety learned that there were also bottles and other artifacts associated with the Japanese administration or pre-WWII eara.

Dr. Mike Dega of Scientific Consultant Services Inc., which is based in Hawaii, led a team of experts that conducted this archaeological data recovery from April 6 to June 29, 2015.

Alepuyo said prior to the dig, "we had a ceremony -- we want to pay respects." She said there was a Carolinian ceremony before a Chamorro ceremony was performed.

For the dig, Best Sunshine spent about $2 million.

Alepuyo said what made the dig complicated was the fact that the site was riddled with bombs and Best Sunshine later had to seek the assistance of the U.S. Navy to get rid of unexploded ordnance.

There have been several archaeological studies done at the site prior to Best Sunshine's proposed construction of a casino-hotel.

A previous dig commissioned by Nakamoto Corp., which was planning to build a 461-room, 21-story hotel at the site, unearthed 263 human remains, Latte Period pottery, shells, Contact Period artifacts, among others. But the Nakamoto investor failed to finish the project owing to financial difficulties and its footprint is only a fraction of the survey conducted by Best Sunshine.

By the conclusion of the work in June this year, the over four hectares of land in Garapan had been fully excavated.

Marianas Variety
Copyright � 2015 Marianas Variety.

====================

http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/20150409__keep_iwi_in_place_burial_council_advises.html?id=299159431
Honolulu Star-Advertiser, April 9, 2015

Keep iwi in place, burial council advises
The state's historic division will decide what to do with remains found along the planned rail route

By Marcel Honor�

Rail workers have reportedly uncovered 14 distinct sets of iwi kupuna, or ancestral human remains, in the path of Oahu's future rail transit line so far. This week island burial leaders endorsed a plan for most of those remains to stay protected where they lie.

The Oahu Island Burial Council voted unanimously Wednesday to recommend preserving in place 12 of the 13 iwi kupuna found in rail-related archaeological survey digs between China�town and Ala Moana Center. The last of those 13 iwi kupuna, a fragment, will be moved from one trench in the middle of Halekauwila Street to a nearby trench along the sidewalk, rail officials told the burial council.

Meanwhile, a 14th set of remains was discovered Dec. 4 near McGrew Point in Aiea, rail officials said. It's the first iwi kupuna reported discovered during project construction. Hono�lulu Authority for Rapid Transportation officials said they've reported the remains to the State Historic Preservation Division to follow the protocol for such findings.

All of the survey remains in town, confirmed by rail consultants to be at least 50 years old and of Hawaiian origin, will be covered by plywood boxes filled with gravel, as well as a concrete slab set above the plywood and a layer of dirt.

The concrete will feature a metal label reading KAPU ("forbidden") and an official state contact to try to ensure that the remains aren't further disturbed sometime in the future.

"We are OK (with the plan) because they've been diligent in addressing the concerns of the recognized descendants," burial council leader Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu said Wednesday of HART.

Paulette Kaanohiokalani Kaleikini, a recognized descendant of iwi kupuna in Honolulu, told the council Wednesday that she supports the plan and has participated in talks on how to handle the remains. Kaleikini had successfully sued in state court in 2012 to halt the rail project until its full 20-mile archaeological survey was completed.

The island burial council's recommendation goes to the Historic Preservation Division, which is charged with reviewing proposed developments to help protect culturally and historically important sites.

The Kakaako area approaching the rail system's end at Ala Moana Center was always where officials anticipated finding the most iwi kupuna in their surveys. Workers found seven sets during rail's initial archaeological survey and five more sets during more extensive trench work required by the division, rail officials said. An additional set was found during a survey related to changing rail's route along Queen Street.

Three of the sets were near-complete skeletal remains found in a "flexed" position, officials said, meaning that's likely where they were originally buried before being discovered by workers.

During the archaeological surveys in the Kakaako area, HART contracted cultural monitors -- Hawaiian experts on iwi kupuna who knew what to look for and how to handle any discoveries. Such cultural monitors are only employed on an on-call basis for construction in West and Central Oahu because the chances of finding iwi kupuna there are believed to be slim, HART Executive Director Dan Grabauskas said Wednesday. Monitors will be contracted full-time for four different sites around the airport where chances of finding remains are high. They'll also be present full-time again in the Chinatown and Kakaako areas when construction reaches there, Grabauskas said.

After the latest discovery near McGrew Point, Michael Kumukauoha Lee, a recognized cultural descendant and an advocate for stronger protections of historically and culturally significant sites along the rail line, said that he pressed HART for a stronger cultural monitoring presence. "You're spending billions � I cannot believe that they cannot afford people who are already contracted to do this," Lee said. He said that he recommended there be monitors for when crews would be digging holes only several feet deep, where remains would likely to be found in the fill material there. Lee said cultural monitoring is likely unnecessary at greater depths. "You can't convince me that those costs would be too exorbitant," he said. "This is where I think HART is really missing the boat."

Nonetheless, Grabauskas contends cultural monitoring at sites where the agency considers it unlikely to find remains would be impractical for a project that's already facing massive cost overruns and budget shortfalls. "I don't think it would merit it," he said Wednesday. "We're doing this above and beyond, but we don't want to waste money."

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(2) Tlingit village totem pole stolen from Alaska village in 1931 by actor John Barrymore, stored in Honolulu Museum of Art since 1981, returned to Tlingits.

http://thegardenisland.com/news/state-and-regional/alaska-tribal-members-get-back-totem-pole-taken-by-actor/article_c6918201-df06-5f01-b0a8-31168761d6c3.html
The Garden Island [Kaua'i], Posted: Thursday, October 22, 2015 1:02 pm

Alaska tribal members get back totem pole taken by actor

Associated Press

HONOLULU (AP) -- A stolen totem pole that went from the garden decor of two golden-age Hollywood actors to the basement of a Hawaii museum was returned Thursday to Alaska tribal members.

Screen legend John Barrymore was traveling along the Alaska coast by yacht and directed crew members to take the totem pole from an unoccupied village in 1931, said University of Alaska Anchorage professor Steve Langdon, who has long researched the object. They sawed it in three pieces.

Barrymore, star of "Grand Hotel" and grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore, displayed the pole in the garden of his California estate.

After Barrymore's death, actor Vincent Price, known for horror flicks such as "House of Wax," and his wife bought the item and also used it as a yard decoration. The couple donated it to the Honolulu Museum of Art in 1981.

Langdon's interest in the piece came from a visit to an Alaska museum where he saw a photo of Price standing next to the approximately 40-foot-tall pole. "It was totally out of place," he recalled. "Here's this recognizable Hollywood figure in a backyard estate with a totem pole ... that was surrounded by cactus."

Langdon learned the pole was used for burials, and that there were remains of a man inside before Barrymore had it erected at his home. Langdon does not know what happened to the remains after they were removed from the pole.

Museum officials didn't know the pole was stolen. With permission from tribal leaders, Langdon came to Honolulu in 2013 to examine the pole, setting into motion a repatriation process funded by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

On Thursday, seven Tlingit tribal members who traveled to Honolulu from the southeast village of Klawock wore lei, sang somber songs, handed out gifts and thanked Hawaii for taking good care of the pole.

"We too also are ocean people," said Jonathan Rowan, master carver and cultural educator. "We live on an island also."

With the scent of cedar wafting in the air, his daughter Eva Rowan brushed three feathers along the pole pieces bearing carved images of a killer whale, a raven, an eagle and a wolf.

"It gives my heart great peace that my ancestors can go home," she said. "I feel my father's people here. I feel my grandfather's people here, giving us strength right now."

Only the top section of the pole was displayed briefly in the museum, and the pole spent most of its years in Honolulu in a climate-controlled basement. "I take some comfort in the fact that we've taken good care of it," said Stephan Jost, the museum's director.

It was among more than 100 totem poles that once stood in the old village of Tuxecan on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, which was inhabited by the Tlingit people, the museum said. Of the original Tuxecan poles, only two remain, both in Klawock, the village of 800 people where the tribe moved, according to the museum.

The pieces were cradled in packing foam in wooden crates that museum workers sealed after the ceremony. The pole will leave the museum Friday, and set sail for Alaska on Tuesday.

Follow Jennifer Sinco Kelleher at http://www.twitter.com/JenHapa

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https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2015/12/05/federal-officials-cite-newton-seminary-after-clash-over-native-american-artifact-collection/DWCSai0b7LwfizA7ZbKDtM/story.html
The Boston Globe, December 5, 2015

Seminary eyes repatriation after clash over artifacts

By Malcolm Gay

Federal officials have accused the Andover Newton Theological School of running afoul of the law in its handling of a collection of Native American and native Hawaiian cultural objects, the culmination of an institutional clash that brought to light a little known treasure trove of artifacts.

Portions of the collection -- owned by the seminary but housed by the Peabody Essex Museum since the 1940s -- could now be returned to descendants and affiliated tribes for whom the objects have special cultural significance.

In a letter to Andover Newton, the Department of the Interior charges that the school has failed to comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a 1990 law that seeks to return funerary objects, sacred items, and objects of cultural patrimony to their rightful tribal heirs.

In a first step toward returning the objects to indigenous people, the officials have advised the Newton seminary to make a list of all the Native American cultural items in the collection and submit it to any tribe that may have an interest, as well as to federal officials. There are around 160 Native American and native Hawaiian objects in the roughly 1,100-piece collection, which also includes artifacts from other cultures.

"It's a complex task, but we're undertaking it so that we can repatriate the items," said Andover Newton president Martin B. Copenhaver.

The existence of the collection was not well known among indigenous people.

"We didn't know anything about it; it was a surprise," said Rosita Worl, president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute, which represents several native Alaskan peoples.

The collection is thought to contain objects associated with 52 Native American tribes and native Hawaiians, including many items such as a ritualistic halibut hook that Worl said are no mere artifacts.

"These objects embody the spirits of our ancestors," she said. "The current generation is tied both to our ancestors and to our future generations, so it basically ensures our cultural survival."

Worl said she first heard about the collection this summer from Peabody Essex Museum director Dan Monroe, then promptly requested a governmental compliance investigation. "I keep hoping these guys, who are supposedly Christian, would do the Christian thing and return these objects that they are holding illegally," she said of the seminary.

According to Monroe, most of the Andover Newton collection was assembled in the 19th century through missionary work. Although the seminary and the Salem museum partnered for decades to care for the collection, the relationship began to sour in 2014, when Andover Newton began actively exploring the possibility of selling roughly 80 of the collection's most valuable Native American items.

For the museum, the prospect of a sale was troubling.

"Upholding the rights of Native Americans and native Hawaiians . . . and ensuring that those rights are not potentially compromised is and has been very important to us," said Monroe. "It seemed to us inconsistent with their stated values and with their purpose as an institution to sell an important part of the religious heritage of 52 Native American tribes and native Hawaiians in order to strengthen their bottom line."

Andover Newton's financial difficulties became public recently after school leaders issued a letter announcing plans to reduce operations and relocate to a smaller facility. "Andover Newton's current mode of being," the letter stated, "is not financially sustainable."

But Copenhaver disputed the idea that the seminary's efforts were driven primarily by a desire to strengthen its financial position.

"It was always to appropriately make them available to other museums or collectors who would donate to museums," said Copenhaver. "There might have been some financial benefit to the school in doing that, but to paint the picture that we were looking to a fire sale, to sell these objects to the highest bidder to save the school financially, is just not an accurate picture."

Copenhaver noted that only a handful of pieces from the collection have been displayed at Peabody Essex and said the seminary hoped to make them more widely available to the public. In a letter to federal officials this summer, he argued that some of the objects were not subject to the law, writing, "The trustees of Andover Newton intend to sell those items only to persons and institutions that fully respect the heritage, history and spiritual traditions of Native Americans."

But the question quickly became whether the seminary had the right to sell any of the artifacts in the first place. Following Worl's request, federal officials determined on Sept. 29 that the seminary -- and thus all Native American objects in its collection -- was subject to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which would forbid the sale and mandate the return of certain sacred objects.

Violation of the law is punishable by a base fine of up to $5,000, though additional penalties may be assessed.

Copenhaver said the seminary accepts the government's ruling and is working toward compliance. But relations between the two institutions remain strained.

The seminary faults the museum for not informing it earlier that all the Native American objects in the collection were subject to the law.

"It's laced with irony that the Peabody Essex Museum would point the finger at us when this is their field, not ours," said Copenhaver. "We're not a museum. I wonder why the Peabody Essex Museum -- this is their business -- that they were not more thorough in their assessment of it and communicating with us about it."

Copenhaver maintains that the museum had earlier advised the school that only 10 Native American items in the collection were subject to the federal protection law.

But PEM director Monroe denies that, arguing that the museum does not have standing to declare whether a collection is subject to the law or to make individual determinations of cultural patrimony. He said he repeatedly told the seminary that if the law applied to the school, then all Native American objects in the collection would be affected, though only members of affiliated tribes and other descendants could make repatriation claims.

"We said, �We don't know. We're not qualified to make those determinations,' " Monroe related. " �But based on repatriation claims we're familiar with that have been made at other institutions, here are 10 objects that could conceivably be subject to repatriation claims, but it's not a determination we can make.' " He added, "We suggested that until they resolve that issue there would be a cloud over any sale."

Monroe said he repeatedly urged the school not to go through with the sale.

"At one point I wrote the entire board of trustees and argued that it would be extremely unfortunate to proceed with this plan," said Monroe. He said he argued that "it would likely cause controversy, and that it could result in a variety of consequences that would not strengthen their hand, or capability to raise money, or underscore or strengthen their integrity as an institution. It had, sadly, absolutely no effect.''

Copenhaver, who said the seminary always wanted to adhere to the letter of the law, now wants to close the painful chapter. "We're just taking a very different course now," he said. "We're proceeding to look for repatriation."

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Send comments or questions to:
Ken_Conklin@yahoo.com

LINKS

This present webpage covers only the year 2011.

For coverage of events in 2005 (about 250 pages), see:

https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagprahawaii2005.html

For year 2006 (about 150 pages), see:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/nagprahawaii2006.html