[Federal Register Volume 61, Number 221 (Thursday, November 14, 1996)]
[Notices]
[Pages 58422-58423]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 96-29155]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural Items in the Possession 
of the Springfield Science Museum, Springfield, MA

AGENCY: National Park Service

ACTION: Notice

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    Notice is hereby given under the Native American Graves Protection 
and Repatriation Act, 25 U.S.C. 3005 (a)(2), of the intent to 
repatriate cultural items in the possession of the Springfield Science 
Museum, Springfield, MA, which meet the definition of ``unassociated 
funerary object'' under Section 2 of the Act.
    The 68 cultural items include: conch shell beads, a conch shell 
drinking cup, a soft-shell clam hoe, stone projectile

[[Page 58423]]

points, bear claws, a Caddoan incised-neck pottery bottle, bone pins, 
and a worked copper sheet.
    In 1912, C. B. Moore collected these cultural items from the Lower 
Mississippi Valley in LaFayette, Miller, Cross, Hempstead, and Calhoun 
counties of Arkansas, and donated them to the Springfield Science 
Museum the same year.
    Consultation evidence indicates these counties were used as a 
homeland and burial/funerary areas between c. 800 A.D. and the mid-
nineteenth century by the Caddo Tribe. Archeological and 
anthropological evidence further indicates continuities of funerary 
practice, tools, types of ornamentation, and funerary objects 
throughout this period. Consultation evidence presented by the Caddo 
Tribe also indicates these burial practices, tool manufacture, and 
types of ornamentation and funerary objects are identical to known 
Caddo traditional practices into the historic period.
    Officials of the Springfield Science Museum have determined that, 
pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001 (3)(B), these 68 cultural items are 
reasonably believed to have been placed with or near individual human 
remains at the time of death or later as part of the death rite or 
ceremony and are believed, by a preponderance of the evidence, to have 
been removed from a specific burial site of an Native American 
individual. Officials of the Springfield Science Museum have also 
determined that, pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001 (2), there is a 
relationship of shared group identity which can be reasonably traced 
between these items and the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma.
    This notice has been sent to officials of the Caddo Tribe of 
Oklahoma, the Creek Nation of Oklahoma, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, 
and the United Keetoowah Band of the Cherokee Nation. Representatives 
of any other Indian tribe that believes itself to be culturally 
affiliated with these objects should contact John Pretola, Curator of 
Anthropology, Springfield Science Museum, 236 State Street, 
Springfield, MA 01103, telephone (413) 263096875, ext. 320 before 
December 16, 1996. Repatriation of these objects to the Caddo Tribe of 
Oklahoma may begin after that date if no additional claimants come 
forward.
Dated: November 8, 1996.
Veletta Canouts,
Acting Departmental Consulting Archeologist,
Deputy Manager, Archeology and Ethnography Program.
[FR Doc. 96-29155 Filed 11-13-96; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310-70-F