Reckoning with Archaeology’s Colonial and Exclusionary Tendencies

Editors: Archaeologists’ concerns over the political nature of their work are not new. Early descriptions of the discipline’s nationalist, colonialist, and imperialist tendencies (Trigger Reference Trigger1984) have continued into the 1990s and the new millennium (e.g., Croucher and Weiss Reference Croucher and Weiss2011; Gonzalez-Ruibal Reference González-Ruibal2018; Liebmann and Rizvi Reference Matthew and Rizvi2008; Thomas Reference Thomas2000). Although a significant amount of attention has been extended toward applying the critical perspectives of, for example, Marxism, feminisms, and postcolonialism to analyses of the material and historical records, archaeologists must also turn their attention to how these critiques might be used to transform disciplinary praxis, particularly practices outside of academia. In calling for forms of archaeological research that are responsive and responsible to Indigenous and descendant communities, we build on and expand these ongoing discussions by outlining how the entanglement of settler colonialism and structural racism in archaeology has disenfranchised Indigenous, Black, and other equity-deserving groups in the realm of cultural heritage management. Nearly all these problems stem from conventions of practice (rather than legal frameworks) within different spheres of archaeology (academic, governmental, private) that reify a traditional and narrow set of ideals that place specific forms of humanity (white, Western, able-bodied, educated, middle-class, heterosexual men) above all others. These conventions relegate those who do not “measure up” to a subordinate—or in some cases, external—position vis-à-vis the discipline of archaeology.

William White: Archaeology is a perfect case study of how methodological roots in colonialism keep BIPOC communities as subaltern groups rather than centering them when it comes to protecting heritage sites. The postcolonial critique in anthropology recognizes a dialectic between the colonized and colonizers (Gosden Reference Gosden and Hodder2012:176; Said Reference Said2014). Archaeology is a social science developed by colonizing nation-states. Its origins and methods are firmly rooted in antiquarian concepts fixated on acquiring, displaying, and possessing material culture from societies around the world and interpreting it to the public (Carman Reference Carman2015). This was done without input from colonized societies, which—with exceptions (e.g., Irish immigrants and poor white people [Isenberg Reference Isenberg2016; Orser Reference Orser2004, Reference Orser2007])—have become the BIPOC communities we recognize today. Although this anthropological dialectic between colonizers and colonized people is useful, it does not fully convey the complicated nature of this whole process, given that many BIPOCs have internalized the Western values that perpetuate mental colonialism. In select instances, it is BIPOCs themselves who gain from perpetuating systems created through colonization, and they act in such a way as to uphold them.

Within the discipline, an epistemology of ignorance naturalizes white supremacy and archaeology’s embeddedness in power structures created by colonialism. Critical race theorist Charles Mills (Reference Mills1997) points out how the “raciology” behind white supremacy creates “cognitive disfunctions” that make it difficult for white people to understand the racial world in which they live. Mills continues to explain that racialized societies depend on an “epistemology of ignorance” in which whiteness requires misrepresentations and distortions of reality that (1) get routinely packaged and repackaged as credible, authoritative knowledge (e.g., Science) and (2) requires white people to maintain ignorance of the existence of this fact. In a racialized society, all of us are socialized to be racial idiots because disavowing the lack of quantifiable truth behind the racial system is essential to the identity of white people (Fleming Reference Fleming2018; Isenberg Reference Isenberg2016; Mills Reference Mills1997; Roediger Reference Roediger2005).

American archaeologists maintain an epistemology of ignorance because of their education, socialization, and practices. It is this ignorance that prevents many archaeologists from understanding the cultural value and powerful ways non-Western sites shape American culture. This lack of understanding also serves to disenfranchise BIPOCs, as well as the rest of the American public, from the heritage sites at the heart of their identity. Race plays such a central role in archaeology because 90% of archaeologists in the United Kingdom, United States, and other Western nations are white, and these archaeologists disproportionately export their perspectives to the rest of the world (Aitchison and Rocks-Macqueen Reference Aitchison and Rocks-Macqueen2014; Zeder Reference Zeder1997).

Editors: White’s contribution clearly articulates how racial logics have become embedded within archaeology in ways that naturalize whiteness—“the conscious or unconscious, violent or subtle, individual or collective ways in which dominance is imposed upon BIPOC communities, or spaces by those in privileged positions through a racial calculus, logic, or structural mechanism” (Reilly Reference Reilly2022:52). We argue that archaeological research not critically engaged with whiteness will ultimately be limited in its analytical and political power. As Michael Blakey (Reference Blakey2020:186) has commented, what else can we expect from archaeological analyses that proceed from a position of racial ignorance? Racial ignorance notwithstanding, a significant proportion of historical archaeology in the United States examines processes of racialization and racial violence that (re)produce the marginalization of BIPOCs (Agbe-Davies Reference Agbe-Davies, Orser, Zarankin, Funari, Lawrence and Symonds2020). Drawing on this body of research, White’s comments reveal how the epistemology of racial ignorance that characterizes American society has negatively impacted historically marginalized groups. In acknowledging the ongoing entanglement of the discipline with settler colonialism, processes of racialization, and various forms of violence, Alicia Odewale outlines the possibilities and tensions that surround the use of historical archaeology in social justice movements.

Alicia Odewale: I wrote an article years ago that discussed the archaeology of the struggle against racial oppression and the double consciousness that would have been required for enslaved people to survive in what was a daily fight to remain alive (oscillating between self-preservation and resistance; Odewale Reference Odewale2019). Now in 2024, we (Black Peoples) are continuing that fight by living through a pandemic of COVID-19, rampant police brutality and gun violence, and an unrelenting wave of legislation threatening to erase our history, our culture, our unique race-based identities, and our very existence. In this present-day landscape, archaeology cannot resolve itself to stick to the Science, and we archaeologists cannot remain in our ivory towers and only engage within the limits of our materiality. Instead, we must become what Alexandra Jones describes as “accomplices” that engage with the social movements around us in an authentic and meaningful way if we are to be of any use to the communities facing immense challenges today (Franklin et al. Reference Dykeman, Roebuck and Deni2020; Society for Black Archaeology Reference Franklin, Dunnavant, Omilade Flewellen and Odewale2020).

Before the pandemic, I subscribed to the DuBoisian principle that people of African descent in the past operated within a dual consciousness of either trying to protect themselves within an unjust system (self-preservation) or expressing outward defiance against oppression (resistance; Odewale Reference Odewale2019). I now believe that not only are past modes of consciousness much more complicated than we imagined, but for present-day researchers working to uncover and reclaim Black heritage in the past for a new generation, one needs more than two modes or two consciousnesses to maintain one’s own sense of self while engaging in this form of remembrance work. Beyond the modes of self-preservation and resistance that were needed in the past, we as practitioners also need to engage in modes of radical advocacy for the preservation of both our own and other people’s histories and modes of collective care for the present-day communities that carry these histories forward. We as historical archaeologists have the dual burden of protecting our own mental health and the communities we love while waging war on both past and present-day erasure and epistemological violence. But as archaeologists, we have the power to not only impact the social world around us and within the communities with which we work but also build a world for ourselves centered on anti-racist praxis.

Historical archaeology has the power to inflict immense harm on individuals, marginalized communities, sacred spaces, burial grounds, and historic landscapes. And yet, despite the harm this practice has caused to human bodies and cultural landscapes, there is another side to this field that lets me believe we are not beyond redemption. Today’s reality is that archaeology is in the midst of another revolution, as more and more archaeologists like me are being called into movements pushing for global repair from centuries of state-sanctioned violence, genocide, mass lynchings, and the resulting historical trauma that lingers from these horrific acts. The reverberating historical trauma that lives in the soul of a people cannot be seen or as easily connected to materiality as overt resistance, but it is still worth searching for and attempting to heal, because even if we as archaeologists did not cause the violence directly, what have we done to stop the bleeding? For example, the postcards that were mailed across the country in the aftermath of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre showing Black businesses engulfed in smoked and ashes as well as the burned and mutilated bodies of Black men, women, and children in Greenwood—which Paul Mullins described as “lynching trophies” and/or KKK recruitment materials—were not the creation of archaeologists (Mullins Reference Mullins2021). And yet it is within the power of archaeologists to choose to either keep using these known trophies of violence in field schools, books, syllabi, articles, and conference materials or stop the spread of violence and the use of these materials from causing further harm. When I consider historical archaeology’s place within the global movements of reclamation, decolonization, redress, repatriation, healing of historical trauma, reconciliation, anti-racism, reparations, and restorative justice, I wonder if—ethically—it should take center stage in these movements. Or, should our role be to first attend to and heal the wounds we have left open? Before we can enter into social justice–oriented conversations, do we not have a duty to first reckon with our own professional positionality, given that our forebearers are the reason there are so many ancestors and objects of sacred heritage to repatriate in the first place?

Editors: Odewale’s contribution evokes key questions about how the process of disciplinary reckoning should unfold, pointing to individual and institutional reflexivity as essential first steps along the pathway toward reconciliation, decolonization, and justice.

The Anti-colonial Politics of Collaboration

Editors: Building on Odewale’s provocations around accountability as well as White’s description of the discipline’s racial logics, Wade Campbell describes the unique relationship between archaeologists, settler colonialism, and Indigenous peoples in North America. In outlining the underlying logic of dispossession that characterizes this relationship, Campbell draws attention to the role of community collaboration in anti-colonial politics.

Wade Campbell: The relationship between archaeologists and Indigenous peoples has long been haunted by the discipline’s colonial origins and the extractive pursuit of historical and cultural knowledge held by or relating to Indigenous communities. Over the past three decades, Indigenous peoples have increasingly pushed back against this history, embarking on a mission to “decolonize” archaeology by making it a practice done “with, for, and by” Indigenous people (Atalay Reference Atalay2006; Colwell Reference Colwell2016; Colwell-Chanthaphonh et al. Reference Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Ferguson, Lippert, McGuire, Nicholas, Watkins and Zimmerman2010; Marek-Martinez Reference Marek-Martinez, Lee and Sara2021). There is a growing number of researchers who are working to center Indigenous participants and viewpoints in all stages of the research process, from initial planning and fieldwork to the final interpretation and dissemination of results. Such community-oriented work is increasingly playing an integral role in affirming links between modern Tribal Nations and their ancestral communities. Importantly, this work has implications that transcend the traditional boundaries of archaeology and instead speaks to the diverse initiatives of Indigenous peoples, including Western legal wranglings over land claims and water rights as well as language and culture preservation (e.g., Hays-Gilpin Reference Hays-Gilpin, Hays-Gilpin, Herr and Lyons2021; Laluk et al. Reference Laluk, Montgomery, Tsosie, McCleave, Miron, Russo Carroll and Aguilar2022; Liebmann Reference Liebmann2017, Reference Liebmann and Stephen2018).

Editors: Building on Campbell’s reflections, Edward González-Tennant and Odewale emphasize the important role of collaboration with Indigenous and African American communities as part of the process of holding ourselves and the discipline accountable for its racist and colonial legacies. Although engaging with distinct historical and cultural contexts, each of the following contributions also embodies anti-colonial politics. Anti-colonial social theory identifies capitalist and racist structures of power that support white privilege and the disenfranchisement of historically marginalized groups, with the goal of dismantling these systems of oppression (see Patel Reference Patel2023). As an analytical tool and place-based practice, anti-colonialism is aligned with but distinct from decolonization. Decolonization refers to the long-term process of denaturalizing Western systems of knowledge production and transforming oppressive structures (Nunn and Whetung Reference Nunn and Whetung2020). Whereas decolonization is driven by a vision of society that is free from colonialism, anti-colonialism assumes its continued existence and the ongoing necessity of resistance. Furthermore, anti-colonialism encompasses not only historical rebellions against European colonial rule in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but also theoretical and analytical tools that dismantle colonial structures as they exist in the present. As the authors in this section discuss, applications of anti-colonial philosophy within the sphere of cultural heritage management must center on developing policies and practices that support community self-determination.

Edward González-Tennant: I first explored some of the concepts of reclamation in my dissertation and subsequent book (González-Tennant Reference González-Tennant2018) on the 1923 Rosewood massacre. Rosewood was a rural African American town in northern Florida destroyed by racial violence. I used a combination of traditional historical archaeological approaches and emerging digital technologies to reconstruct the social landscape of this once prosperous African American community. This work also examined how the root causes of this violence were reconfigured over time and resulted in structural and symbolic forms of racial violence overtaking interpersonal forms. Of course, all three forms remain core aspects of the fabric of American society.

My anecdotal experience of teaching for five years at the University of Central Florida—Florida’s largest institution of higher education—is that few students have opportunities to learn about Rosewood and its destruction prior to enrolling in college. Every student in each of my classes learned about Rosewood. Although colleagues in various departments across campus taught courses on violence, unfortunately their syllabi often excluded marginalized histories and/or authors. Clarke and colleagues (Reference Clarke, Lindberg and Cojti-Ren2023) provide a poignant discussion of how this slippage furthers the legacy of colonialism (and white supremacy) within archaeology. Failing to engage these histories and authors is a lost pedagogical opportunity. The best college experiences are often the transformative ones. Many college students arrive expecting to be challenged.

My own undergraduate experience at the University of Arkansas included these sorts of experiences. It also included volunteering with the Arkansas Archaeological Survey, where I developed an appreciation for the value of public archaeology. I learned that archaeology was at its best when contributing directly to public knowledge. My research continues to center public engagement. Collaboration is about engaging communities as equal partners, decentering our role as experts, and collaboratively crafting research agendas at each stage of a project. This approach is routinely employed by archaeologists exploring the role of racial violence in the past and present (Agbe-Davies Reference Agbe-Davies2010a; Atalay Reference Atalay2012; Blakey Reference Blakey2020; Colwell Reference Colwell2016; González-Tennant Reference González-Tennant2014; La Roche and Blakey Reference La Roche and Blakey1997; McDavid Reference McDavid2002; Shackel Reference Shackel2011; Silliman Reference Silliman2008; Supernant Reference Supernant2018; Wadsworth et al. Reference Wadsworth, Supernant and Dersch2021; White Reference White2023).

Alicia Odewale: My positionality in this discussion of reclamation is twisted. This is because of the irony inherent in the fact that I am a Black woman and part of a community of descendants across the Greenwood Diaspora who is attempting to use the very approach that bolstered the theft of our land and ancestors and that was the key to the birth of scientific racism in the past in order to bring forth restorative justice in the present. To use the same heritage tools that justified further destruction, erasure, and environmental racism within the Historic Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as a vehicle to support the future vision of a healed Greenwood in the present is a story of redemption. The irony and mental gymnastics that staying in this field requires is always at the center of my thoughts when I am doing surveys as part of my work within the district. But I have yet to find a better way to unbury our men, women, and children from mass graves, or un-erase our historic neighborhoods that have been burned to the ground or taken over by modern development and gentrification. So I find myself still clinging to this problematic field as the only way I know to pull my community out of a sea of historical trauma.

In the past few years alone, we have seen historical archaeologists risk their entire careers to stand with descendant communities, build curriculum that pushes back against historical erasure, fight against the illegal harboring of ancestral bodies in the academy, demand greater protections for Black burial spaces, and unearth mass graves at boarding schools and Black towns, bearing witness to unspeakable violence. But has any of this really changed how most historical archaeologists work or done anything to hold the discipline’s place in the global movements that have been happening around us?

There are two main archaeology projects taking place in Tulsa, but they are separate initiatives. The first project is called “Mapping Historical Trauma in Tulsa from 1921 to 2021,” led by me and Parker VanValkenburgh, and the second is the “City of Tulsa’s Search for Mass Graves” (Odewale Reference Odewale2020). Although these two multiyear projects both rely on archaeology and are driven by community interests and a search for truth, they differ in several important ways: the mapping historical trauma project has a restorative focus designed to foster justice on behalf of the Historic Greenwood District, whereas the mass graves survey has a more retributive emphasis, based on forensics—the where, when, and why of a homicide crime.

For Parker and me, in leading the Mapping Historical Trauma in Tulsa project, we have seen the power of blending archaeology, oral and written historical accounts, and historical maps to transform what we know about Greenwood. A 1915 Sanborn Fire insurance map overlaid on top of a modern-day aerial image of what is left of the historic Greenwood business district today can re-create what the community looked like in the aftermath of the massacre. Instead of focusing on violence, trauma, and destruction, we can pair archaeological evidence with the map to tell a counter-story of resilience. When Greenwood was attacked in 1921 and attacked again in the 1960s under the guise of an urban renewal plan that featured a highway bulldozing what was rebuilt after the massacre, the community built itself back up again. One cannot visualize these repeated patterns of destruction, resilience, and reclaiming of space by studying written sources or a linear timeline of events, conducting a single site analysis, or observing the materiality alone. This is why we as archaeologists must think beyond the limits of our training and get creative about how we tap into all the various ways that knowledge, space, and heritage can and should be reclaimed.

Editors: Odewale’s and González-Tennant’s experiences working with communities in Greenwood and Rosewood, respectively, demonstrate how collaborative forms of historical archaeology can increase public awareness of local histories. In Rosewood, this meant emphasizing the history of racism and racialized violence—histories that are too easily forgotten in colonial and Eurocentric societies. In Greenwood, however, this involved drawing together multiple lines of evidence to demonstrate collective resilience. As Odewale discusses, anti-colonialism is a tool of resistance for historically marginalized communities, but it can also be used to hold those in power accountable (Kempf Reference Kempf and Kempf2009:14). Both examples speak to the importance of challenging disciplinary boundaries and maintaining flexible epistemologies that can reflect community interests, needs, sensitivities, and expertise.

In parallel with Odewale’s concerns above about using methods implicated in colonialist violence to produce a new anti-colonial narrative, many Tribal Nations understandably have a complex and often contentious relationship with the discipline of archaeology. However, Campbell and Acebo point to how these colonial tools can be used to pursue questions that matter to Native people. Their commentaries speak to the potential that an anti-colonial approach to archaeology holds for assisting Indigenous communities in their efforts to reclaim and reassert their sovereignty.

Wade Campbell: As a Diné (Navajo) archaeologist, questions such as “why archaeology?” and “how does it help the community, anyway?” are unavoidable when talking about my work with other tribal members. For many Diné people, archaeology is not seen as an innocuous or harmless exercise. The field’s most iconic practice—excavation—flies firmly in the face of traditional Diné cultural teachings, which advise the respectful avoidance of places where past peoples once lived. American pop culture’s “whip and hat” fantasies are wildly divorced from the reality of life on the Navajo Nation, where archaeological compliance is often held (whether rightly or wrongly) as a scapegoat for delays to real-world infrastructural needs, such as running water, modern housing, or paved roads. Perhaps most importantly, there is an awareness that a century-plus of Southwest anthropological and archaeological research has painted Navajos as recent cultural outsiders to the region, effectively disenfranchising the Diné community in weighty political conversations about land and water rights where the perceived strength and depth of archaeologically defined ancestral connections come to the fore.

In attempts to reconcile these often-critical responses to archaeology from within the Diné community with my own work as a Diné researcher, I frequently find myself reflecting on this quote by the Maya K’iche’ scholar Avexnim Cojti Ren:

Replace “Maya” with “Diné” or indeed any other Indigenous group, and one possible answer to questions about the benefit of archaeological research is clear. Archaeology’s primary value for Indigenous communities rests not in the anthropological study of some past Other but rather in reclaiming the ability to (re)write the history of Indigenous communities by marrying direct material evidence with written and oral records (e.g., Kretzler Reference Kretzler2019; Marek-Martinez Reference Marek-Martinez, Lee and Sara2021; Panich Reference Panich2020).

Although archaeology has enabled the development of infrastructure and economic opportunities across the reservation and assisted the Navajo Nation’s sovereign legal claims for decades, many people on the Navajo Nation today continue to view the practice of archaeology with distrust (Begay Reference Begay, Swidler, Dongoske, Anyon and Downer1997; Thompson Reference Thompson2011; Thompson and Marek-Martinez Reference Thompson, Marek-Martinez and Christopher2021; Two Bears Reference Bears and Davina2006). Part of this wariness can be linked to the fact that for the better part of a century, Southwest archaeologists engaged in the same sort of history-making process Cojti Ren (Reference Cojti Ren2006) describes in the Mayan world, treating Diné individuals as less-than-full collaborators in the work of defining the Navajo past. It is my hope that the continued development of a uniquely Diné form of Indigenous archaeology that centers the interests, thoughts, and actions of the Navajo community will contribute increasingly to the reclamation of Diné history, thereby providing a valuable long-term viewpoint on past and present connections that will help ensure that Diné society and culture thrives in the twenty-first century.

Nathan Acebo: I am a non-Indigenous scholar who collaborates with the Indigenous peoples of southern coastal California on archaeological research. As university faculty, I also help build Native American–Indigenous studies programs to serve Indigenous students and the Tribal Nations in Connecticut. These roles reciprocally shape how I practice an “un-disciplined” archaeological reclamation geared toward creating space for Indigenous communities to assert control within institutions and over historical narratives. Frankly, I care very little for what Indigenous knowledges can do for archaeology; rather, I am interested in how archaeology in its various forms can be manipulated to serve the needs and stories of Indigenous peoples. The creation of “questions that matter” in both contexts necessitates a position of humility and deference, and my first responsibility is to be available, listen, learn, and then actualize the needs of collaborators and stakeholders. I embrace an approach that pairs methods and interpretive principles from critical Indigenous pedagogies (Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua Reference Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua, Smith, Tuck and Yang2019; Smith Reference Smith2021) and community-based participatory research in Indigenous archaeology (IA-CBPR), with a concern for place-based microhistory (Magnússon and Szíjártó Reference Magnússon and Szíjártó2013). Explicated elsewhere (Atalay Reference Atalay2012, Reference Atalay, Supernant, Baxter, Lyons and Atalay2020; Gonzalez and Edwards Reference Gonzalez and Edwards2020), the former two paradigms position Indigenous descendants’ perspectives and needs as the guiding directions for all phases of research and program development, whereas the latter concentrates on interrogating and building place-based histories that are meaningful to local communities.

Editors: The reflections shared by González-Tennant, Odewale, Campbell, and Acebo suggest that transparent engagement with the politics of archaeology plays a central role in developing alternative forms of praxis. Although calls for self-reflection within the discipline can be traced back to the postcolonial critiques of the 1980s and 1990s, the authors of this forum draw attention to the important link between reflection and action. As Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang (Reference Tuck and Wayne Yang2012:20) have argued about the increasingly hollow discourse on decolonization in academia, self-reflexivity is too easily used as proof of transformation without creating structural changes in power. Tuck and Yang’s critique is reframed by White in this forum piece, and he draws an important distinction between self-reflection and attentiveness.

William White: We archaeologists can start to see shortcomings in our practice when we are attentive to the way we conduct our profession, its impacts on communities, and how it recursively affects archaeologists themselves. I argue that attentiveness is the first step in cultivating a decolonial approach to American archaeology. Attentiveness is different from awareness. An archaeologist can be aware of systematic inequality, injustice, and the lack of inclusion of BIPOCs’ experiences in this system. However, attentiveness asks archaeologists to remember that they work at the discretion of the American people and to consider how their actions may adversely affect others. Rather than following the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) like a road map, an attentive archaeologist thinks of both the broader picture (e.g., what are the causes and results of these actions?) and the present moment (e.g., how are these actions affecting me, my colleagues, and the communities for which I work?).

Beginning with attentiveness to our actions, I feel as though archaeology can be retooled into something that sets all of us on a pathway of ancestral healing. Before American archaeology can become a regenerative practice, archaeologists must be willing to do the deep thought work required to build a new, inclusive, altruistic practice. Furthermore, attentiveness is the first step in creating the sort of mindset that will allow archaeologists to become a community asset rather than another source of cultural extraction. Fortunately, some archaeologists are starting to move into this regenerative work. Examples of the attentive approach to archaeology can be seen in Indigenous archaeology (Atalay Reference Atalay2006; Deloria Reference Deloria1992; Kuwanwisiwma Reference Kuwanwisiwma, Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson2008; Schneider and Hayes Reference Schneider and Hayes2020; Supernant et al. Reference Supernant, Eva Baxter, Lyons and Atalay2020; Watkins Reference Watkins2005), anti-racist archaeology (Battle-Baptiste Reference Battle-Baptiste2011; Franklin Reference Franklin1997; Franklin et al. Reference Franklin, Dunnavant, Omilade Flewellen and Odewale2020; La Roche and Blakey Reference La Roche and Blakey1997; McDavid Reference McDavid1997, Reference McDavid2002; Mullins Reference Mullins1999; Orser Reference Orser1998, Reference Orser2004; Society for Black Archaeology Reference Dykeman, Roebuck and Deni2020), feminist archaeology (Battle-Baptiste Reference Battle-Baptiste2011; Meyers et al. Reference Meyers, Horton, Boudreaux, Carmody, Wright and Dekle2018; Müller-Scheeßel Reference Müller-Scheeßel, Coltofean-Arizancu, Gaydarska and Matić2021; Voss Reference Voss2021a, Reference Voss2021b), and archaeologies that seek to address health issues in the field, including mental health (Chartered Institute for Archaeologists 2023; Eifling Reference Eifling2021; Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2023; Peixotto Reference Peixotto, Klehm and Eifling2021). All these approaches have the potential to heal archaeologists as human beings, with the hope that these more whole persons can do regenerative research for the communities in which they work.

Editors: As White’s comments reveal, reclamation requires enacting de- and anti-colonial principles through everyday forms of praxis, with the goal of changing material realities “on the ground.” Importantly, descendant and Indigenous communities, rather than archaeologists, need to be the leaders and visionaries behind how the tools and products of the discipline are applied (see Gould et al. Reference D. Rae, Herbster, Gould, Herbster, Heather Law-Pezzarossi and Mrozowski2020)

Un-disciplining Archaeology

Editors: As outlined by White in the previous section, contributors to this forum see attentiveness—a holistic and empathy-based approach to disciplinary reckoning—along with collaboration with Indigenous and descendant communities as two intersecting pathways to deconstructing colonial power structures within the discipline of archaeology. In addition to this reflexive and engaged framework, several authors emphasize the role that incorporating nondominant ontologies and forms of traditional and community knowledge can play in decentering dominant ways of knowing and modes of writing history within the discipline. Acebo frames these ongoing efforts to “center Indigenous wisdom” and worldviews into archaeology as a form of “un-disciplining” (Haber Reference Haber2012; Miranda Reference Miranda2013:193). As Acebo points out, scholars have argued that Western “research is just one form of knowing, but in the Western academy, it eclipses all others” (Tuck and Yang Reference Tuck, Wayne Yang, Paris and Winn2014:237). This epistemic framework designates these “other forms” of knowledge as a lesser category, perhaps reducing them to mere superficial citations. These “other forms” may even be extracted primarily for the benefit of the researcher rather than the communities from which they come. And yet, these “other forms” are vital for the cultural resiliency of Indigenous communities.

Nathan Acebo: Confronting enduring colonial harm manifest in institutional or epistemic practices of erasure is not a generalized exercise but a context-specific facilitation and support of Indigenous knowledges that forges structural capacities for Indigenous peoples. This approach to reclamation is shaped by what Schneider and Hayes (Reference Schneider and Hayes2020) define as “un-disciplining,” or a serious commitment to Indigenous epistemologies as the directives for protecting heritage and remodeling university structures for the benefit of Indigenous peoples first. Collaboration conducted with and for Indigenous nations by interdisciplinary scholars and students within the “field” or “ivory tower” strives for a reciprocal process of becoming “un-disciplined” in which the traditional agenda of academic archaeology is explicitly decentralized in favor of serving the people and their places that matter. This is because the ontological dimensions of Indigenous knowledges are rarely engaged with or respected by archaeologists, and the categorical practices of archaeology favor settler empiricism. As a result of these structural dimensions of archaeological practice, the discipline continuously fails to provide reciprocal care for Indigenous heritage. Heavily favoring Indigenous knowledge first, as part of an asymmetrical form of praxis with community, attempts to move toward a mutually beneficial practice.

Editors: As Acebo points out, expanding archaeology’s theoretical tent goes beyond the scope of mere cultural relativism and the broader ontological turn within Western social theory by linking these epistemological shifts to an emic approach, which centers community perspectives and initiatives. Building on the concept of un-disciplining dominant modes of knowledge production, White expands his previous discussion of “cultures of ignorance,” arguing that the incorporation of BIPOC perspectives and knowledge into archaeological praxis can make cultural-heritage management practices and products more relevant to historically marginalized and equity deserving groups (see also Panich and Schneider Reference Panich and Schneider2019; essays in Schneider and Panich Reference Schneider and Panich2022).

William White: Although archaeological theories may come from academia, the power of cultural resource management (CRM) is important to note because budgets, areas of potential effect (APEs), and scopes of work created for the CRM industry drive archaeological practice in the United States. The CRM industry employs most archaeologists in the United States, and the mandate to identify, evaluate, and document archaeological sites through the CRM process provides a mechanism for nationwide archaeological survey (Anfinson Reference Anfinson2018; King Reference King2012). Section 106 of the NHPA forms the foundation of the CRM industry because it describes the process whereby the significance and integrity of historic properties can be determined in advance of an “undertaking,” which is also defined in the law. CRM archaeologists are the professionals hired to make sure government agencies follow the NHPA and other preservation regulations. Basically, the state calls for the preservation of historic properties—including archaeological sites—and delegates this task to CRM professionals, who are responsible for fulfilling the letter of the law. The NHPA and Section 106 are important for American archaeology because they clearly state that it is the government’s job to provide for historic preservation, and they outline the criteria archaeologists use to evaluate the significance of archaeological heritage.

However, the work of evaluating site significance is not being done by representatives of the wider society; rather, it is performed by a specific subset trained to focus myopically on the material attributes of archaeological sites, buildings, structures, objects, and districts—oftentimes without the proper cultural knowledge to effectively make these evaluations. Consequently, these evaluations are informed by a culture of ignorance that prevents many archaeologists from truly understanding the powerful ways non-Western sites shape American culture. Within this legal regime, archaeologists have created a system that universalizes Euro-American understandings of value while ignoring the specific cultural understandings of BIPOCs. In fact, this lack of traditional cultural knowledge is treated as a requirement for making evaluations (e.g., impartial, unbiased, detached) and serves to disenfranchise BIPOCs from the heritage sites at the heart of their identity. This disenfranchisement is enacted through archaeological schema for evaluating the historicity and significance of archaeological objects and landscapes.

Furthermore, this disenfranchisement adversely affects those of us who are part of BIPOC communities because we are attached to these sites as part of our cultural patrimony. We deserve the right to interpret and evaluate them. The cultural knowledge embedded in these places and spaces is what we use to form our group and individual identities. Having university-trained archaeologists determine the significance of our sites without understanding our cultural values is harmful. Not doing the emotional, spiritual, and psychological work to understand cultural sites from a BIPOC perspective is the most damaging aspect of American archaeology. It is harmful because these evaluation practices perpetuate the assumed right of archaeologists to determine the cultural heritage of living communities of which they are not a part and that they do not properly understand. Our mistreatment of archaeological sites should be a considerable concern for archaeologists seeking to fulfill the letter of historic preservation laws, given the potential boom in archaeological research looming on the horizon. By 2022, CRM expenditures had ballooned to more than $1.4 billion, and they are expected to grow to $1.85 billion by 2031 (Altschul and Klein Reference Altschul and Klein2022).

Editors: Building on White and Acebo’s call to incorporate BIPOC perspectives and understanding of value into cultural resource management practice, Campbell and Emily Van Alst discuss how they have worked with Indigenous communities to incorporate culturally relevant knowledge into their research.

Wade Campbell: A review of recent Indigenous archaeology projects in North America highlights several key trends in this movement around centering Indigenous participants and viewpoints. First and foremost is an increase in collaborative archaeological research programs directed by Indigenous individuals and non-Indigenous allies that center Native bodies of knowledge as a principal interpretive lens (e.g., Aguilar Reference Aguilar2019; Bernardini et al. Reference Bernardini, Koyiyumptewa and Leigh2021; Gould et al. Reference D. Rae, Herbster, Gould, Herbster, Heather Law-Pezzarossi and Mrozowski2020; Laluk Reference Laluk2015; Lee Reference Lee2014; Montgomery Reference Montgomery2021; Thompson Reference Thompson2009). Indeed, as Welch (Reference Welch, Supernant, Baxter, Lyons and Atalay2020:31) notes, the ongoing generational (and ethical) shift within the discipline has led to a blurring of the lines between Indigenous and non-Indigenous archaeologies such that true collaboration and partnership between researchers and diverse owner/descendant/stakeholder communities—Indigenous or otherwise—are increasingly becoming the norm. As a result, some researchers have willingly given up a degree of control over their fieldwork methodologies in accordance with the specific traditional policies of different Indigenous communities, eschewing access to certain sites and minimizing or even entirely forgoing the use of destructive or invasive research methods such as excavation (Gonzalez Reference Gonzalez2016; Liebmann Reference Liebmann and Stephen2018; Panich and Gonzalez Reference Panich and Gonzalez2021). These decisions have pushed both the technological and theoretical boundaries of the field forward by fostering new approaches to gathering and analyzing diverse sets of data that can be applied to a variety of old and new questions.

Emily Van Alst: Many scholars have emphasized the need for Indigenous people to reclaim their knowledge and traditions (e.g., Atalay Reference Atalay2006; Bruchac Reference Bruchac and Smith2014; Risling Baldy Reference Risling Baldy2018; Watkins Reference Watkins2000; Wilson Reference Wilson, Peter and Jason2005). Over the past few hundred years, Indigenous knowledge has been lost, stolen, and claimed through anthropological practices (Smith Reference Smith2021). Stó:lō scholar Jo-Ann Archibald asks us to consider another three “r” words when conducting research with Indigenous communities: reciprocity, responsibility, and respect (Archibald Reference Archibald2008; Davidson Reference Davidson, Jo-Ann and Lee-Morgan2019:26). Archibald, most famously known for her culturally grounded method of “storywork”, implores researchers to consider traditional forms of storytelling when interpreting Indigenous material culture. Utilizing this method returns to a traditional form of Indigenous knowledge and allows scholars to conduct research in a way that centers the voices of the community and, if applicable, themselves. These three concepts within “storywork” resonated with me when I was thinking about interactions with my community. As a researcher who is part of an Indigenous community, I must ask myself, “What does it mean to give back? What kind of responsibilities do I have to my community that may differ from those of other archaeologists? How do I ensure that I respect their knowledge, stories, and positions within the larger Lakota community?” The answers to these questions can be found in the guiding principles of reciprocity, responsibility, and respect, allowing me to conduct my research in ethically grounded ways. As part of this responsibility and respect, it was critical that the interpretation of my research results be anchored in Lakota ways of knowing.

Native American and First Nations scholars argue that Indigenous lived experiences are research and can generate additional knowledge (Absolon Reference Absolon2011; Fiola Reference Fiola2021; Simpson Reference Simpson2017; Wilson Reference Wilson2008). Furthermore, scholars have argued that the Western research framework places “other forms” of knowledge in a lesser category, and yet these “other forms” are vital for Indigenous communities (and for the careers of Western researchers). The embodied knowledge that Indigenous people have uniquely positions them within academia. Embodied knowledge can include storytelling and oral traditions, ceremonies, dreaming, and self-knowledge (Bruchac Reference Bruchac and Smith2014; Simpson Reference Simpson1999). There are many ways to share knowledge, and because of this, many communities have traditional knowledge keepers, elders, and medicine people who are tasked with maintaining this knowledge. One of the important forms of traditional knowledge is dreaming. Within a Western research framework, this practice may not be considered a “legitimate” form of knowledge production. However, Anishinaabe scholar Leanne Simpson (Reference Simpson1999:38) argues that “dreaming and visioning are often the way the spiritual world transmits knowledge to humans. Dreaming is taken very seriously and is a primary way of obtaining knowledge from other-than-human entities.” For my own research, dreaming is a critical practice and space for Hehaka Oyate—or Elk Nation—which is a family of tribal folks who are currently revitalizing elk knowledge related to the elk dance ceremony. Dreaming is a space for spirits of the past to communicate traditions and cultural knowledge to specific individuals who can interpret the meaning in the present (Yellowhorn Reference Yellowhorn2002). Dreaming allows Hehaka Oyate to have knowledge about elk-dreamer ceremonies and related knowledge that may have been “lost” in the past. Elk dreamers of the past are then connected to the elk dreamers of the present through this process. Dreaming not only allows me as a researcher to apply elk dreamer cultural understandings to interpret ceremonial elk rock-art imagery but also centers elk-dreamer men’s and women’s experiences in the present. By interacting with these rock-art sites, we can understand how the elk petroglyphs are part of the larger knowledge system about the elk ceremony. This research fulfills a crucial element of the continued revitalization efforts of Hehaka Oyate.

Wade Campbell: Within the specific context of Navajo-focused archaeological research, a greater appreciation of Diné oral histories combined with three decades of work by tribal archaeologists has enabled researchers to engage with the diachronic complexity of Diné society in new ways. One avenue of research focuses on critical discussions of Navajo ethnogenesis and seeks to challenge the traditional “newly arrived Subarctic peoples” model that has long held sway (Begay Reference Begay and Noble2004; Dykeman and Roebuck Reference Dykeman, Roebuck and Deni2012; Warburton and Begay Reference Warburton and Begay2005). A key part of this reclaiming work is the development of an alternative hypothesis for Navajo origins that suggests Diné culture is an autochthonous Southwest cultural development comprising elements of early Archaic–type Southwest hunter-gatherer populations in addition to Southwest villager and Athapaskan-speaking migrant populations (Brugge Reference Brugge and Deni2012; Campbell et al. Reference Campbell2021:256–257; Thompson and Towner Reference Thompson, Towner, Barbara and Fowles2017; Weiner Reference Weiner2023:Appendix A).

Another movement within Diné archaeology considers the historical dynamics of the late nineteenth- and twentieth-century reservation period in greater detail. Several researchers have investigated what mixed archaeological and ethnohistoric research methods can tell us about US colonialism’s ongoing impacts on Diné society since 1868 (Campbell Reference Campbell2021; Kelley and Francis Reference Kelley and Francis2019a; Lee Reference Lee2021; Two Bears Reference Bears and Davina2021; Wero and Martin Reference Wero and Martin2021). Elsewhere in the Four Corners, projects continue to explore the nature of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century regional dynamics between the Spanish, Pueblos, Utes, and the early Navajo communities of Dinétah (Becenti Reference Becenti2019; Campbell Reference Campbell2022; Reed Reference Reed, Matthew, Jeffrey, Boyer and Cordelia2023; Towner Reference Towner2016). There remains much to examine—including Spanish missionization attempts, shifts in Diné foodways, and the history of Navajo settlement—across the greater Four Corners region.

Perhaps most importantly, over the past decade, Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars alike have engaged with fundamental Diné ontological and epistemological concepts in archaeological interpretations. Specifically, these studies reference the ways in which the structures of k’é (relationality) and dóone’é (clanship) organize the Diné land-use system and how the overarching moral teachings inherent in the Blessing Way ceremonial system manifest in Navajo architecture and material culture (Brugge Reference Brugge and Deni2012; Dykeman and Roebuck Reference Dykeman, Roebuck and Deni2012; Kelley and Francis Reference Kelley and Francis2019b; Thompson Reference Thompson2009). Such approaches build on nearly six decades of using Diné concepts to structure educational theory and research practice on the Navajo Nation (e.g., Nez Reference Nez2018; Vallejo and Werito Reference Vallejo and Werito2022). The use of Diné cultural concepts in archaeological interpretations is also part of a growing movement in Indigenous archaeology that centers culturally specific Indigenous ways of knowing as rigorous and valid tools for a range of theoretical and analytical endeavors. Examples of different concepts harnessed by archaeologists worldwide include the concepts of place, gózhó, and avoidance in Western Apache culture (Laluk Reference Laluk2017, Reference Laluk2021); Place-Thought, or manitou, in the Great Lakes region (Howey and Brouwer Burg Reference Howey and Brouwer Burg2021); and Māori whakapapa in New Zealand (Marshall Reference Marshall2021). We ask students to familiarize themselves with concepts such as “habitus,” sociétés à maison, and “hybridity,” but what is it about French terms and neologisms that seems to make them more valid than Indigenous bodies of knowledge?

Editors: Acebo extends this discussion of un-disciplining by drawing attention to how Native epistemologies can be used to build new interpretations of the past and reform academic practices and policies. Academics can play an important role in BIPOC struggles by acting as advocates for community accountability within institutions of higher learning. A High Country News article by Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone (Reference Lee and Ahtone2020) on “land-grab universities” brought much-needed public attention to the role of American colleges and universities in colonial processes of Indigenous dispossession. Referencing the impact of this article, Acebo draws attention to the importance of a place-based approach to anti-colonial resistance and community collaboration.

Nathan Acebo: My career as an archaeologist is afforded and shaped by my roles within the university, an institution that possesses specific responsibilities and debts to Indigenous people, among others. Embodied in the resilience of past and present Indigenous students at the University of Connecticut (UConn), this space of higher learning was never devoid of Native people, including, but not limited to, the members of the five federally and state recognized Native tribes in Connecticut—Eastern Pequot, Golden Hill Paugussett, Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, and Schaghticoke. Although the presence of Native people at UConn is not new, the institution’s commitment to sustainable Indigenous-driven curriculum, research, and outreach is a recent and growing enterprise (Buckley Reference Buckley2022). A central question that matters in this context is, “How can the university become a more inclusive and generative space for Indigenous people?” This is a question relevant to all universities on occupied Indigenous lands that can be addressed through collaborative community-based research with Indigenous students and local Tribal Nations with a place-based concern for Indigenous presence.

At UConn, a land-grant university situated in the heart of New England, the expropriation of local and distant Indigenous homelands (Land Grab Connecticut 2022; Lee Reference Lee2020) and regional narratives of Indigenous extinction intertwine (O’Brien Reference O’Brien2010). Here, place-based collaboration helps to move us beyond land acknowledgments or honoring to identify how achieving greater “inclusion” first necessitates that Connecticut tribes provide direct input on student services and curriculum as well as community event–based programs that strengthen campus visibility and networking access. My Native American and Indigenous studies colleagues and I engage in a microhistorical study of the university and the lands it occupies to understand the events and institutional policies that created barriers for Indigenous people. This is performed by being in community with—and taking direction from—faculty outside of anthropology, our students, and local tribal leaders, who provide education on areas of concern and shape institutional remediation and policies centered around care. Engaging in community- and place-based programing is more than a service demand in that it provides a completely different exposure to dimensions of colonization, anti-colonial pedagogies, and modes of actualizing Indigenous knowledge through community.

Although my research in California and my university responsibilities on the East Coast are linked to different Indigenous peoples and homelands, both experiences build off each other by offering different methods for being in and learning from community and Tribal Nations to remediate the harm or neglect caused by research or other institutional roles that intersect with archaeology. Acts of restitution and reconciliation as well as reparations emerge as viable tools for engaged research or education programing but only after reclamation identifies and creates space for community sovereignty to be exercised. That is not to say that I am without my own questions or that Indigenous CBPR is not concerned with grand narratives about the human condition or making relevant the futures of settler institutions (e.g., universities or museums). Instead, and echoing Indigenous futurists (see Kuwada Reference Kuwada2015), I believe that serving the needs of Native communities will provide answers to these questions.

Reclamation

Editors: The original webinar discussion that sparked this forum piece was framed in terms of archaeology’s potential to contribute to collective repair, reconciliation, and restitution. The genesis of our asking these questions was a shared belief that archaeology should open itself up to the voices of the communities we work with and aid in building a sustainable future for the members of those communities. In reflecting on his work with descendant communities in Rosewood, González-Tennant outlines his evolving thinking regarding the role of archaeology in achieving restitution and reconciliation.

Edward González-Tennant: Rosewood is well known as one of the few examples of reparations in the United States. Florida House Bill 591 remains a primary example cited by advocates for African American reparations in our country. It was signed into law by Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles on May 4, 1994, after a group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers championed the cause. The bill paid monetary compensation to survivors and descendants and established a scholarship fund. This fund was expanded in 2020 to support up to 50 minority students attending state universities, with priority given to Rosewood descendants. It remains to be seen how this scholarship and the teaching of Rosewood’s history will be impacted by recent, so-called anti-woke legislation in Florida.

I initially framed my community engagement and outreach efforts in Rosewood as a form of reconciliation. This began with meeting descendants and their allies to discuss potential research questions. For instance, a common request centered on identifying specific locations where ancestors’ homes were placed on the landscape. This, in turn, compelled me to use GIS mapping to document hundreds of historical property deeds and expand this data with census records. The resulting data also proved useful by predicting the best locations for fieldwork. Outreach efforts included crafting public presentations that were given to dozens of groups and featured in various online/streaming formats (e.g. González-Tennant Reference González-Tennant2015, Reference González-Tennant2020, Reference González-Tennant2024) that have been viewed tens of thousands of times. I framed this work as reconciliation because it supported public conversations about the ways historic racial violence impacts modern America. I routinely spoke about Rosewood as illustrating the loss of intergenerational wealth and the growth of systemic violence.

Editors: Although financial reparations and reconciliation may be appropriate goals in some contexts, our conversation during the 2022 symposium ultimately led in a different direction. As we discuss in our SAPIENS editorial “Advocating for Archaeology’s New Purpose,” we believe that the concept of reclamation offers a more productive framework for transforming archaeological praxis (Questions Worth Asking Symposium 2023). As González-Tennant discusses, “service” is central to the work of reclamation. This community-first orientation brings up important questions about how archaeological research can better serve the needs of Indigenous peoples and descendant groups. The centrality of service within a reclamation paradigm shares similarities with other forms of engaged research, including collaborative community-based models with Tribal Nations and Michael Blakey’s (Reference Blakey2020:191) “clientage model,” which requires archaeologists to do their work at the behest of communities.

Edward González-Tennant: Today, I view my work as a form of archaeological reclamation (Montgomery and Supernant Reference Montgomery and Supernant2022). Archaeological reclamation is a call to recognize how archaeologists can serve the dual interests of conducting research and serving community interests. Certainly, there are archaeologists who do not value collaboration, or consultation. Objectors often frame this work as limiting the scientific study of the past. For example, recent objections to a proposed image policy for the journal Southeastern Archaeology are an example of this ongoing struggle for progress (Hollenbach et al. Reference Hollenbach, Bloch, Wendt and Herr2023). Archaeological reclamation is not an attack on archaeological expertise. The opposite is true. Archaeological methods and theories are unique in their ability to craft new knowledge about the past. Resituating ourselves as collaborators and bringing unique tools to projects is a powerful way of supporting community efforts to “assert control over their meaningful places, ancestors, belongings, and historical narratives” (Questions Worth Asking Symposium 2023). Engaging with communities has alerted me to new questions. Addressing these questions has made me a better archaeologist, both methodologically and theoretically. These collaborations have pushed me to become a better scientist. For this reason, the only question that counts for me in the twenty-first century is the one I pose each time I begin working with a group: how can archaeology help you?

Collaboration with diverse communities is the foundation of my work in Rosewood and elsewhere. Community concerns and interests are centered at every stage of a project, from planning to dissemination. This was also the approach recently adopted by archaeologists and residents of Royal, Florida. Royal remains a predominantly African American rural community in central Florida, an area threatened by both state and private development. In Royal, descendants of Black homesteaders have continued to live on their ancestors’ properties for 150 years. Community members secured state funding to support a cultural resources assessment survey (González-Tennant and González-Tennant Reference González-Tennant and González-Tennant2017) and nomination of the area as a rural historic district under the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The nomination was forwarded to the National Park Service (NPS) after nearly a year of struggling with officials in Florida. This struggle culminated in the arbitrary decision by the Florida State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) to remove hundreds of acres because a small group of white owners objected to their land being in the district, despite the presence of African American activity on the properties in the past. SHPO staff removed these properties and others owned by descendants of Royal’s founding families. Today, residents of Royal and archaeologists are working with the Southern Poverty Law Center in petitioning the NPS to conduct a formal review assessing the SHPO staff’s arbitrary district boundary (Schrader Reference Schrader2023).

Editors: The struggle to control significant sites of African American heritage in Royal, Florida, draws attention to the important role that archaeologists can play as advocates for descendant communities navigating state and federal legislation. The actions of the SHPO staff in Florida also highlight how embedded forms of structural racism continue to disenfranchise BIPOC communities by privileging the interests of private owners and capital development in matters of heritage management. The racialized nature of how cultural heritage laws are implemented highlights long-standing tensions between the goals of historically marginalized communities and the interests of state and federal bureaucrats. This disjuncture was also discussed by Odewale in the context of African American cultural heritage preservation in Oklahoma.

Alicia Odewale: The community of Greenwood, located north of Tulsa, shares the same history as González-Tennant outlined in his discussion of the Rosewood community in Florida. It is not just a historic and prosperous Black community but one that carries a history of unspeakable violence. However, the attack on Greenwood—more popularly known as the Tulsa Race Massacre—was only the first of a series of acts of anti-Black violence against this community. These cycles of violence include the burning and bombing of Greenwood (also commonly referred to as Black Wall Street) in 1921, the bulldozing and complete erasure of entire neighborhoods in the district under the guise of eminent domain during urban renewal in the 1960s and 1970s, and the construction of a highway designed to cut through the heart of what was built in Greenwood after the 1920s. And yet Greenwood has survived, continued to grow, and maintained its spirit for over 100 years.

An even larger story that has gone overlooked is the ongoing battle that archaeologists, historians, activists, and preservation architects have been waging for decades to get the entire district of Greenwood listed on the NRHP. Greenwood was repeatedly denied eligibility for the NRHP and deemed as not “of national significance” and “not justified for inclusion” according to the “alterations made during urban renewal after the initial ‘incident’” (Myers et al. Reference Myers, Brown and Franklin2011). Maria Franklin, as a leading historical archaeologist, added her voice to those of Myers and colleagues (Reference Myers, Brown and Franklin2011), challenging the state historic preservation office to advocate for Greenwood as more than just significant but worthy of saving.

Exactly 100 years after the attacks in 1921 and nearly 10 years of struggle, a successful nomination to preserve the 100 Block of North Greenwood Avenue was put forward using Franklin’s work as a foundation (Montgomery and Pearce Reference Montgomery and Pearce2021). This represents one out of at least 40 contributing blocks to the historic district. This means that it took exactly 100 years to get one block of the Historic Greenwood District to be recognized as worthy of preservation in the eyes of the state and federal governments. What makes the battle to achieve NRHP status for Greenwood even more infuriating from my perspective is that although it took a century for one block to be listed on the registry, the Convention Hall in Tulsa—also known as the Brady Theater—has been listed on the NRHP since 1979 (Jennings and Ruth Reference Jennings and Ruth.1978). The protections afforded to Brady Theater as a nominated site honor a space that once served as the headquarters of the Tulsa Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and where Black men were rounded up and detained within hours of the attack in 1921 (Black Wall Street Times Reference Franklin2022; see Jones Parrish [Reference Jones Parrish2021:38] for the testimony of Dr. R. T. Bridgewater, originally printed in 1923). Is this a moment of celebration for historical archaeology’s role in pushing this nomination forward? Or is it a long season of torment as years of advocacy through archaeology have been deemed irrelevant or unimportant enough to merit inclusion as national heritage while monuments to racial violence are seemingly recognized with little debate?

Editors: Odewale’s work with the Greenwood community opens a broader set of conversations about how archaeologists might contribute to the long-term efforts of descendant communities who are working to assert control over heritage sites and to foster cultural resurgence. More broadly, the struggles African American communities faced in claiming NRHP status in Rosewood and Greenwood demonstrate how systemic racism undermines the power of communities to reclaim and protect their cultural heritage. These examples make White’s points regarding attentiveness concrete; specifically, the need for archaeologists to carefully examine how our current practices, legal frameworks, and policies may be constraining the ability of BIPOC communities to control their cultural heritage and to write their own histories. The theme of attentiveness as well as the concept of accountability are taken up by Acebo and Van Alst in relationship to Indigenous communities.

Nathan Acebo: The “question that mattered” in my first IA-CBPR project with Payomkawichum (Pechanga Band of Indians), Tongva, and Acjachemen descendants at the village of Puhú (CA-ORA-132/317) in the Santa Ana Mountains of California was a relatively simple one: “In what ways were our [collaborators’] ancestors so powerful?” Paying attention to the past and present realities of Indigenous power was specifically important at Puhú, a state landmark (no. 217) memorializing the site of the 1832 “tragic massacre of the last wild Indians of Orange County” (Gould Reference Gould1989).

Local folklore, hiking tours, and borderland historians propagated myths that portrayed Puhú’s ancestors as struggling survivors destined for annihilation. Generations of archaeologists contributed to this process of erasure by physically deconstructing the village through excavations and improper curation. In failing to conduct any analyses with or without Indigenous descendants’ stories, they reburied the fragments of material Indigenous stories in the bowels of different museums (Acebo Reference Acebo, Dale and White2022). In response to the dominance of the massacre narrative, IA-CBPR with descendants, museums, and land managers was deployed as a tool for restoring Indigenous presence (i.e., the physical and storied connections to place) at the site through the return and proper care of associated collections. During this process, Indigenous collaborators desired a reanalysis of the village that would re-story the site as a communal nexus of Indigenous political, economic, and ceremonial power rather than a site of violence, destruction, and disappearance. Material analyses paired with oral histories resulted in a tailored “survivance” story—an active sense of presence over absence, tragedy, victimry, or disappearance—that teases out how Puhú ancestors thrived before and in the face of colonization (Acebo Reference Acebo, Lee and Sara2021). Beyond refuting false portrayals of victimhood, these storied connections to Indigenous prosperity now inform how Puhú is stewarded by land management agencies, made accessible to Indigenous descendants for cultural practices, and has shaped new heritage projects. Continuing together with Payomkawichum and Tongva collaborators, our new project, “Enduring Indigenous Homelands”, asks how the Santa Ana Mountains homelands supported the generations of Indigenous ancestors from Puhú through the American era (1848–present) of colonization.

Emily Van Alst: Alicia Odewale and Nathan Acebo both argue that the communities they work with have always been resilient and that their descendants are proof of that resiliency. The petroglyphs I work with are proof that Lakota ancestors left their mark permanently on the landscape, allowing our knowledge to continue to survive. During the Questions Worth Asking panel in 2022, Acebo also introduced the concept of “rematriation.” Rematriation is rooted in women-led scholarship surrounding the application of Indigenous feminist approaches to ongoing reclamation work within Native American Studies and related academic disciplines.Footnote ² Although Indigenous communities have always worked to maintain their unique cultures, rematriation is a specific movement focused on reclaiming Indigenous-women’s cultural and traditional knowledge that may have been dormant and women’s traditional roles before colonization (Gray Reference Gray2022). These conversations inspired me to incorporate more Native-women’s scholarship into my community-based practices. In centering Indigenous-women’s knowledge and voices, my research seeks to ground archaeological reclamation within Indigenous knowledge.

Specifically, my current work focuses on reclaiming a particular part of my community’s knowledge related to Hehaka Wačipi—the elk dance ceremony. Ancestral knowledge of the ceremony was passed to knowledge keepers within the community through dreams. Here, this ancestral knowledge about the dance is connected to contemporary communities, and we can use that historic knowledge to better interpret the elk rock-art imagery. My particular interest lies in how the visual depictions of the Hehaka Wačipi through elk petroglyphs, ledger art, and ethnographic descriptions over time relate to contemporary elk dance ceremonies. The entire elk-dreamer community guided this research, identifying what members considered to be the “questions worth asking,” including the longevity of the ceremony, the creators of the petroglyphs, and the ways Lakota women kept ecological and cultural knowledge related to the landscape and images.

Reclamation requires engagement with descendant communities to ensure the ethical and long-term preservation of cultural sites, which is a fundamental human right of Indigenous peoples as laid out in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Nicholas and Smith Reference Smith2020). Many of us who wrote this article have designed our research with the needs and rights of descendants and Indigenous communities in mind, and we are well positioned to synthesize archaeological methods and the knowledge of community members. This weaving together is a key pathway through which descendant and Indigenous communities can reclaim their heritage for future generations. These methodological practices of collaboration and braiding knowledge are critical for the communities we work for and the archaeological discipline more broadly. With these goals in mind, the first step I took in my doctoral research was to consult with the elk dreamer community about the elk petroglyph panels, despite the colonial disruption of this ceremonial relationship due to ranching, mining, and continued land theft. Foregrounding the voices of those community members aids in our interpretation of the material culture of the ancestors. Reclamation is critical for the reinterpretation of the elk petroglyph panels I study and for the broader restoration and transfer of elk knowledge. The petroglyphs exist as part of a larger elk knowledge system that allows Hehaka Oyate to have the information necessary for the future. Although the petroglyphs have been part of the broader Lakota landscape of the Northwest Plains for the past 300 years, it is not until this particular project, this particular moment, that reengagement with them from a research perspective became necessary. But it is also necessary because ancestral knowledge was given to Hehaka Oyate now so that it could be used by current elk dreamers and so that its preservation for future elk dreamers could be ensured.

William White asked in spring 2022, “Can archaeology take us into the future?” I believe that everyone’s work represented in this article can do just that. Our work calls for a just future for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, to rewrite archaeology’s wrongs and celebrate those who came before us.

Concluding Thoughts

Editors: Despite long-standing calls within the discipline to attend to the politics of archaeological interpretation, much of the fieldwork and research done in North America over the last century and a half has minimized or ignored connections between the pasts imagined by archaeologists and those imagined by descendant and Indigenous communities. Similarly, until relatively recently, the direct impacts of archaeological research on BIPOC futures—including their future self-determination and rights of sovereignty—have been largely dismissed as outside the field’s purview. These challenges and concerns raise new questions about our discipline and its future.

This forum underscores the continued importance of assessing how our pasts and the pasts that we study are forever tethered to both the present and the future. Saying so is never enough, though. These problems require action, including continued attentiveness to and critique of how our practices are informed by the traces of the pasts on which we tend to fixate, by the present conditions in which we find ourselves, and by the futures that we seek to actualize. Action also entails changing how we practice archaeology inside and outside of academia and advocating for forms of cultural heritage legislation and policies that empower communities. At its best, archaeology strives to do much more than invite members of the communities whose past it studies to participate in projects. Instead, the authors of this forum strive to transform the discipline by working with and for communities using Indigenous, collaborative, and community-based forms of research.

The goal of archaeological reclamation is to systematically transform institutional structures, practices, and discourses in ways that serve community interests, sensitivities, needs, and expertise. In his reflections above, Campbell offers one example of how archaeological practice can respond to the local preferences and protocols of Indigenous communities, such as the Navajo Nation. As Campbell notes, remaking archaeology with Diné communities means un-disciplining our practices by rethinking what it means to do archaeology—that is, our methods, data, theories, and goals. In other words, how should archaeology be conducted on Diné lands and in what instances is it best to respectfully avoid material traces from the past? If we only hold to traditional archaeological methods of excavation in this setting, we ignore the cultural values and sovereignty of Diné peoples. Instead, we advocate for an approach to remaking archaeology that develops methods and theories that are grounded in care and that empower—rather than simply extract from—the people with whom we work.

In reflecting on the continuing challenges posed to un-disciplining the field of archaeology and the practice of cultural heritage management in the United States, Odewale asks readers to consider whether “we as historical archaeologists are really ready to do what it takes to build a world that is ethical, antiracist, and that pushes for reclamation in all its forms within our own field.” In answering this question, we point to the scholarship and activist efforts of the authors in this forum as examples of how a reclamation paradigm oriented around documenting and reawakening hidden and erased histories, archiving colonial violence, and challenging narratives of absence can be used to build a more hopeful future. Ultimately, we see reclamation as a form of anti-colonial, anti-racist praxis guided by a hopeful vision of the future in which BIPOC scholars and communities exercise sovereignty over their ancestors, belongings, and traditional territories.