NAGPRA Consultation Grant

The William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology at the University of Kentucky [the WSWM] is pursuing a Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Consultation Grant from the National Park Service to support the identi??ication and repatriation of NAGPRA eligible cultural items to the three federally recognized Shawnee Tribes: the Shawnee Tribe, the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. To date, the WSWM has built a strong and collaborative relationship with the Shawnee and has culturally af??iliated and repatriated ancestral remains and associated funerary belongings from 46 sites and across 60 unique accession numbers, to the three federally recognized Shawnee Tribes. Kentucky is a ‘removal state’, and as such there is a signi??icant geographical distance between the WSWM in Lexington, Kentucky and the Tribes’ Of??ices in Oklahoma and Kansas. This distance has meant that our NAGPRA consultations to date have been exclusively virtual. While a virtual format has worked well for discussions of cultural af??iliation and repatriating ancestors and cultural items with known burial proveniences, it has been prohibitive to a broader assessment of some of the larger artifact collections- speci??ically, identi??ication of additional unassociated funerary objects, sacred items and objects of cultural patrimony. If funded, this consultation grant would provide an opportunity to bring representatives from the three federally recognized Shawnee Tribes to the WSWM in Lexington, Kentucky to review and consult on artifact catalogues and collections in person. Six of the 46 Fort Ancient sites which have already had Notices of Inventory Completion published (15BB12, 15BE08/22, 15BK200, 15GP1/15, 15GP03 and 15GP22) have been chosen for review based upon the volume of the artifact collections, which have limited the ability for virtual consultations to adequately assess them for cultural items. The ultimate goal of this proposed project is to identify all cultural items from these sites for prompt repatriation.