Continuing Study Of Past Bones And Artifacts example essay topic

1. The debate of the reburial of excavated Native American sites has been going on for quite some time now. I believe that the wealth of knowledge gained from these discovered artifacts and bones yield much more valuable information than simply placing them back into the ground, causing them to be lost forever. The remains of Pre-Columbian Native Americans should not be reburied and should be studied and documented for the sake of history and a better understanding of it. After many years of looting of Native American burial sites, the Federal Government established The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NA GPRA) in 1990 and is the primary federal legislation pertaining to graves and human remains in archaeological contexts.

It was created to protect cemeteries on federal and tribal lands, and to provide a way to return the human skeletal material and associated funerary objects in the nation's scientific and museum collections to culturally affiliated tribes... However, I feel this act forces archeologists to halt further investigations and possibly damages lost records of history. Returning these artifacts and bones prevents them from being preserved and checked for inaccuracies, which, at that point becomes the sole creditability from the researcher. Once these are placed back to their original site, new technologies in the lab and additional investigations are useless in their attempt to 2. gain a better understanding of the culture and roots of the evidence. Genetic research on past civilizations requires hard evidence-bones and physical artifacts, not photographs. In many cases, the bones cannot be returned simply because the ancestry line is missing somewhere along the line and no living person can prove any relationship.

Many claims are made that the bones belong to a certain group and in return fight for bones of another tribe or enemies rather than long-lost relatives. Such was the case in 1996 when two young boat-racing enthusiasts in the middle of July stumbled across a skull alongside the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington. This eventually led to fight between American Indians who believe nature should be left to take its course with the remains and scientists who want to study them. The man found was believed to have lived 9,200 years ago to the age of 45 who was wounded by a stone projectile. After eight years of debate, the district court ruled that no relationship could be established between modern American Indians and Kennewick Man -- physically, contextually, or otherwise. In these cases, It is safe to say what does it necessarily matter if Native American's alive today want bones that are thousands of years old with barely any ancestral importance or connection?

These studies done on bones harm no one living today and only stand to record our nation's heritage. The same goes for artifacts from the culture in which much can be studied and understood about the way of life including day-to-day living, eating habits, living conditions, and places of settlement. 3. The general public has much more to gain than a minority of Native Americans and it is important for the public to know and understand history. Making it available to a select few cannot be good for the majority of the population who can have the opportunity to go to a museum to experience first-hand the events of the past. Museums in return would have trouble getting contributions if donors knew their money would go to something being reburied or destructed.

In conclusion, the cost of losing these precious facts of America is far too great and should be preserved for study. The continuing study of past bones and artifacts is key to understanding where we have come from and how far we have come since those times.