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Native American Tribes in Texas Oppose Analysis of Prehistoric Remains

Posted on: Sunday, 20 July 2003, 06:00 CDT

Jul. 20--VICTORIA, Texas--Prehistoric human remains and artifacts discovered in one of the continent's oldest known cemeteries will undergo extensive analysis, despite bitter complaints of grave desecration from several Native American tribes.

Federal officials last week said they hope to minimize destructive tests on the human bones and promptly rebury them when studies are complete, but tribes said they are considering legal action to halt further analysis.

"These are our ancestors," said Walter Celestine of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe in East Texas.

After more than 18 months of talks with archaeologists, tribes and others, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged the Native Americans' concerns and vowed to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act that prescribes treatment of such sites. But officials insisted more study is warranted, given the knowledge to be gained about prehistoric culture.

The ancient cemetery, known as Buckeye Knoll, is south of Victoria on land owned by DuPont Textiles and Interiors Corp. Reflecting more than 10,000 years of human history along the marshy Texas Gulf Coast, the several-acre site has the largest Early Archaic cemetery west of the Mississippi, holding 10 percent of all ancient human remains discovered in North America from the period 8000 BC to 6000 BC. Only about 20 similar sites have been discovered in the United States.

First noticed around 1960, preliminary analysis of the graveyard didn't begin until 2000, when the Corps was preparing to enlarge the Victoria Barge Canal near where the Guadalupe River reaches the Gulf. Initial tests indicated that bones and primitive artifacts ranged from 600 to nearly 11,000 years old, exciting archaeologists who pressed for a more thorough examination.

No more excavation is planned at the site, only further study of the items found there during 2000-01. Some 79 sets of remains were encountered and taken to a laboratory for study and storage.

The government's decision to proceed "balances the diverse concerns of Native Americans and the archaeological community to the greatest extent possible," said Col. Leonard Waterworth, the Corps' Galveston district engineer and commander.

"The Corps concluded that limited analysis of the human remains is necessary because they are the only evidence of the unique Early Archaic occupation at the site. This means that questions important to the prehistory of this country cannot be answered without direct analysis of the remains and associated mortuary materials," Waterworth said.

Working with private contractors, all human remains and archaeological materials found at the site will be analyzed, officials said. Nondestructive techniques such as observation and measurement will provide some information about those buried there, including their ages, genders, physical traits and health -- possibly even causes of death.

But information about when the burials occurred and their DNA makeup can only be accomplished using small samples of bones weighing as little as one gram, said Corps archaeologist Jan Stokes, who described the Corps' plan as a middle ground among conflicting interests.

"Because of concerns expressed by the consulting Native American tribes, and out of respect for the human remains, the number of samples obtained for destructive analysis has been limited to the amount necessary to obtain statistically valid results. The human remains and associated mortuary goods will be released for eventual reburial at the site of origin," Stokes said.

Several meetings and public hearings were held about the project, which has cost the federal government about $1 million so far and will require another $1 million and two years to complete, Stokes said.

"We very carefully followed the regulations for the National Historic Preservation Act, which required we consult with a number of different groups and the public," she said.

"We did our best to balance the diverse array of opinions on what should happen. The opinions of the tribes and the archaeologists are very, very different. In trying to balance that, we end up somewhere in the middle."

The Corps is determined to learn all it can from the unique site, Stokes said.

"We have very little evidence of that time period, very few sites with this detailed amount of information," she said.

"The artifacts associated with the human burials tell us quite a bit about society and ritual. It humanizes the archaeological information that we get."

Tribes including the Alabama-Coushatta, Choctaw, Comanche, Caddo and Tonkawa oppose the effort, said Celestine, of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe. In early 2002, they unsuccessfully demanded a halt to the project, saying the remains should never have been disturbed after the initial discovery.

"They went out of their way to dig up those 79 remains," said Celestine, who visited Buckeye Knoll last year. "They were about 100 yards from the actual (canal) dredging, and I don't see why they went over that far.

"Even though we really tried hard to convince Col. Waterworth, he wasn't going to budge. He was more afraid of all these different archaeological societies than he was with native people."

The basis for the tribes' opposition is the tradition that those buried enter a spirit world and must not be disturbed, Celestine explained.

"Any time the remains are unearthed, the spirit of that person is in a state where they can't go to where they're supposed to go. Once it's disturbed, we want to put them back in" the grave, he said.

The land owner said it was the government's decision to proceed with further study.

"We certainly understand the historic and scientific significance of this discovery. We also see the need to respect and honor the human remains that were discovered there," DuPont spokesperson Amy Hodges said.

The company prohibits public access to the site and, citing respect for the dead, declined to provide or allow photographs of Buckeye Knoll.

"One of the things we did fairly quickly, once the archaeologists had finished their work, was we took great measures to secure the site," Hodges said.

Hodges described the cemetery as a "grassy area under some trees. To the common eye, you would not know that what is underneath there is of such cultural and historic significance," she said.

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