A leading anthropologist "explores the fraught project of repatriating Native American sacred objects in this moving and thoughtful work" ( Publishers Weekly).Who own the objects that connect us to history? And who has the right to decide, particularly when the objects are sacred or, in the case of skeletal remains, human? As senior curator of anthropology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Chip Colwell has navigated questions like these firsthand. I...

Wie Dinge unser Leben prägenWir haben zu viel Zeug, das wissen wir nicht erst seit Marie Kondo. Aber wie kam es eigentlich dazu? In der Steinzeit war noch jeder Gegenstand einzigartig und lebenswichtig – doch spätestens seitdem die Massenproduktion erfunden wurde, können wir uns vor unseren Dingen (und unserem Müll) kaum noch retten.Chip Colwell erzählt von unserem zwiespältigen Verhältnis zu unserem Hab und Gut – und versucht sich selbst am Ausmisten.

How humans became so dependent on things and how this need has grown dangerously out of control.Over three million years ago, our ancient ancestors realized that rocks could be broken into sharp-edged objects for slicing meat, making the first knives. This discovery resulted in a good meal and eventually changed the fate of our species and our planet.With So Much Stuff, archaeologist Chip Colwell sets out to investigate why humankind went from self...

Over 3 million years ago, our ancestors realised that rocks could be broken apart for sharp edges, to cut and slice meat. The discovery made for a good meal. It also changed the fate of our species and our planet.In this lively and learned book, Chip Colwell charts three great leaps in humankind’s relationship with objects and belongings, from the discovery of tools to the production of endless commodities. How did we start out as primates who needed nothing, and end up as people w...

Who owns the past and the objects that physically connect us to history? And who has the right to decide this ownership, particularly when the objects are sacred or, in the case of skeletal remains, human? Is it the museums that care for the objects or the communities whose ancestors made them? These questions are at the heart of Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits.Today, hundreds of tribes use the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to help them recover...

In recent years, archaeologists and Native American communities have struggled to find common ground even though more than a century ago a man of Seneca descent raised on New York’s Cattaraugus Reservation, Arthur C. Parker, joined the ranks of professional archaeology. Until now, Parker’s life and legacy as the first Native American archaeologist have been neither closely studied nor widely recognized. At a time when heated debates about the control of Native American heritage have come t...

Winner of a National Council on Public History Book AwardOn April 30, 1871, an unlikely group of Anglo-Americans, Mexican Americans, and Tohono O’odham Indians massacred more than a hundred Apache men, women, and children who had surrendered to the U.S. Army at Camp Grant, near Tucson, Arizona. Thirty or more Apache children were stolen and either kept in Tucson homes or sold into slavery in Mexico. Planned and perpetrated by some of the most prominent men in Arizo...

This book is about the tangled relationship between Native peoples and archaeologists in the American Southwest. Even as this relationship has become increasingly significant for both "real world" archaeological practice and studies in the history of anthropology, no other single book has synthetically examined how Native Americans have shaped archaeological practice in the Southwest and how archaeological practice has shaped Native American communities. From oral traditions to repatriatio...

Based on the Society for American Archaeology’s Annual Ethics Bowl, this SAA Press book is centered on a series of hypothetical case studies that challenge the reader to think through the complexities of archaeological ethics. The volume will benefit undergraduate and graduate students who can either use these cases as a classroom activity or as preparation for the Ethics Bowl, as well as those who are seeking to better understand the ethical predicaments that face the discipline.

Archaeology as a Tool of Civic Engagement is an indispensable resource for archaeologists and the communities in which they work. The authors are intensely committed to developing effective models for participating in the civic renewal movement - through active engagement in community life, in development offor interpretive and educational programming, and for in participation in debates and decisions about preservation and community planning. Using case studies from different reg...

Between 1893 and 1903, Jesse H. Bratley worked in Indian schools across five reservations in the American West. As a teacher Bratley was charged with forcibly assimilating Native Americans through education. Although tasked with eradicating their culture, Bratley became entranced by it—collecting artifacts and taking glass plate photographs to document the Native America he encountered. Today, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s Jesse H. Bratley Collection consists of nearly 500 photog...

Arizona’s San Pedro Valley is a natural corridor through which generations of native peoples have traveled for more than 12,000 years, and today many tribes consider it to be part of their ancestral homeland. This book explores the multiple cultural meanings, historical interpretations, and cosmological values of this extraordinary region by combining archaeological and historical sources with the ethnographic perspectives of four contemporary tribes: Tohono O’odham, Hopi, Zuni, and San Ca...