Arion T. Mayes, ‘These Bones are Read: The Science and Politics of Ancient Native America’, The American Indian Quarterly 34, 2 (2010).

In lieu of an abstract, here is part of the introduction:

Each Native American culture and nation has differing beliefs as to the treatment of human remains. Some are adamantly opposed to any kind of study of human remains, some are open to all types of study, and others fall somewhere in between, allowing scientific investigations that do not include invasive procedures such as DNA analysis.

[…]

This case study brings to the forefront a continual problem of miscommunication between tribal and scientific communities and allows for a discussion on the usefulness of osteological analysis for settling such disputes. Additionally, the case study presents evidence of physical characteristics often considered quintessential Native American traits and evidence of their presence in human remains in the Americas almost ten thousand years before the present. This critical fact would have been unknown if analysis of the remains had not been done. When the invitation to carry out the analysis of the University House remains was accepted by the bioarchaeologist at San Diego State University, it was understood that the goal was to document biological evidence, by noninvasive procedures, of population relationships. This analysis was based on collecting nonmetric data on dental and skeletal traits as well as skeletal morphology; metric data would be collected where possible. Any additional information that would be indicative of a population’s biological history, such as disease patterns and occupational health, would also be documented. A surprising development during this process was the realization that, unlike in the past, where the charge was to determine if the remains were related to a specific group of Native Americans, the new challenge was to determine if they were Native American, an issue critically related to the current political controversy surrounding the subject of culturally unidentifiable human remains (CUHR).

The recently proposed changes to NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) continue to polarize the anthropological and Native American communities as well as some within the scientific community. The current law dealing with the repatriation of Native American human remains and objects of cultural patrimony includes the phrase “of or relating to a tribe, people or culture that is indigenous to the United States” (NAGPRA PL 101-601). In 2004 a change was suggested that would alter the definition by adding in “or was” (“that is ‘or was’ indigenous”). The proposed wording change as to the determination of when a group is deemed to be Native American is, of course, related to the continuing debate over who were the first Americans and what pre-European contact populations may have contributed to the genetic and cultural diversity we see in the indigenous populations of the Americas today.

Participating in the science, or at least defining the questions at hand, would allow Native American communities the chance to level the playing field and answer for themselves inquiries regarding these early peoples. What makes us human? What makes us Native American? The Australian Aborigines can trace their lineage back almost fifty thousand years. Why let them have all the fun? As an evolutionary approach to the peopling of the New World continues, biological evidence may also lend further support to the many archaeological sites of greater antiquity in the New World. The dental, DNA, and craniometric studies point to Pacific coastal regions of both North and South American populations as the locations we should be investigating for answers to the earliest migrations. Not surprisingly, the archaeology has begun to point in that direction as well.