Saving Ancestral Sites

[E.P. Grondine]

While I have seen individual posts here on individual sites, there has not been a general discussion here of this, to my knowledge.

While what brought me to NAFPS was battling the frauds, but for some reason, this is an important issue for me - it really gets to me. Does this get to anyone else here?

I don't know how things go out west, but in the east, the loss of sites, their ownership and management usually are always deficient in major ways.

One of the things that always gets to me is when centers. and particularly ceremonial centers, are turned into "nature preserves", thus loosing/obscuring their function, and/or forgetting their history.

It's just not right.

And then of course there's always some of the archaeologists with their "cultures". Anyone here ever hear of the Hopewell tribe or the Hopewell nation?

This kind of relates to the issue of land trusts as well.

[amorYcohetes]

I am stingy about starting new topics, so this seemed the most relevant to post in. 

I am pleased to see that - after a lot of advocacy, apparently including shirts worn by Peruvians running the NYC marathon!, and possibly after intervention from Pres. Obama - Yale University has agreed to repatriate human remains and other items taken from Machu Picchu almost a century ago.  It's not exactly NAGPRA but I think it's a step in the right direction.


20 November 2010 Last updated at 19:31 ET

Yale University to return Machu Picchu artefacts
By Dan Collyns BBC News, Lima

Yale University has promised to return thousands of archaeological pieces taken from Machu Picchu nearly a century ago, Peru's president has said.

The relics from the 15th Century Inca citadel have been the focus of a bitter dispute lasting more than seven years.

Peru says the artifacts were loaned in 1911 but never returned. It filed a lawsuit against the university in 2008.

The agreement comes after a concerted media campaign by Peruvian President Alan Garcia and his government.

Marches fronted by ministers and the president himself were staged in Lima and Cuzco. Mr Garcia even appealed directly to his US counterpart, Barack Obama, to intervene.

Earlier this month, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York returned to Egypt 19 artefacts found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun.
Disputed figures

Peru says it loaned the university around 46,000 items which included mummies, ceramics and gold and bronze pieces, soon after Machu Picchu's official discovery by a Yale scholar, Hiram Bingham, in 1911.

But Yale says the number of pieces is far smaller and only 330 are suitable for display in a museum.

It says it returned boxes of artifacts more than 80 years ago.

Nonetheless talks between Peru and Yale seem to have gone well, with the university pledging to honour Peru's rich heritage by returning all the pieces in its possession, provided it can continue to study them.

Mr Garcia acknowledged that Yale's possession of the objects prevented them from being scattered among private collectors.

The artefacts are expected to be returned early next year in time for the centenary of what Peru calls the re-discovery of Machu Picchu.

The citadel is its top tourist attraction and most important archaeological site.