[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 50 (Tuesday, March 15, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 14045-14047]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-5859]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
National Park Service
[2253-665]
Notice of Intent To Repatriate Cultural Items: U.S. Department of
the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington, DC and Arizona
State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.
ACTION: Notice.
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Notice is here given in accordance with the Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), 25 U.S.C. 3005, of the intent
to repatriate cultural items in the control of the U.S. Department of
the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Washington, DC, and in the
physical custody of the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona,
Tucson, AZ, that meet the definition of unassociated funerary objects
under 25 U.S.C. 3001.
This notice is published as part of the National Park Service's
administrative responsibilities under NAGPRA, 25 U.S.C. 3003(d)(3). The
determinations in this notice are the sole responsibility of the
museum, institution, or Federal agency that has control of the cultural
items. The National Park Service is not responsible for the
determinations in this notice.
In 1929, cultural items were removed from Canyon Creek Ruin, AZ
C:2:8(GP)/AZ V:2:1(ASM), within the boundaries of the Fort Apache
Indian Reservation, Gila County, AZ, during legally authorized
excavations conducted by the Gila Pueblo Foundation, under the
direction of Emil Haury. The items were found in association with human
burials, but the human remains were not removed from these graves. In
1950, the Gila Pueblo Foundation closed and the collections were
transferred to the Arizona State Museum. The 185 unassociated funerary
objects are 5 basketry mat fragments, 1 bone awl, 1 bone awl fragment,
3 lots of botanical material, 30 ceramic bowls, 5 ceramic bowl
fragments, 11 ceramic jars, 1 ceramic jar fragment, 1 ceramic ladle, 1
ceramic pitcher, 77 pieces of flaked stone, 2 pieces of hematite
mineral, 1 quartz crystal, 2 shell beads, 1 shell
[[Page 14046]]
disk, 3 shell pendants, 1 stone artifact, 8 stone beads, 23 stone
projectile points, 1 stone shaft smoother, 1 textile fragment, 2
turquoise beads, 2 turquoise pendants, 1 turquoise tessera, and 1
unidentified object.
Canyon Creek Ruin is a cliff dwelling site of approximately 140
rooms. Based on the ceramic and perishable artifact assemblage, the
site is dated to A.D. 1300 to 1400. The ceramic and architectural forms
are consistent with the archeologically described Upland Mogollon or
prehistoric Western Pueblo traditions.
A detailed discussion of the basis for cultural affiliation of
archeological sites in the region where the above site is located may
be found in ``Cultural Affiliation Assessment of White Mountain Apache
Tribal Lands (Fort Apache Indian Reservation)'', by John R. Welch and
T.J. Ferguson (2005). To summarize, archeologists have used the terms
Upland Mogollon or prehistoric Western Pueblo to define the
archeological complexes represented by the site listed above.
Material culture characteristics of these traditions include a
temporal progression from earlier pit houses to later masonry pueblos,
villages organized in room blocks of contiguous dwellings associated
with plazas, rectangular kivas, polished and paint-decorated ceramics,
unpainted corrugated ceramics, inhumation burials, cradleboard cranial
deformation, grooved stone axes, and bone artifacts. The combination of
the material culture attributes and a subsistence pattern, which
included hunting and gathering augmented by maize agriculture, helps to
identify an earlier group. Archeologists have also remarked that there
are strong similarities between this earlier group and present-day
tribes included in the Western Pueblo ethnographic group, especially
the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and the Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Reservation,
New Mexico. The similarities in ceramic traditions, burial practices,
architectural forms, and settlement patterns have led archeologists to
believe that the prehistoric inhabitants of the Mogollon Rim region
migrated north and west to the Hopi mesas, and north and east to the
Zuni River Valley. Certain objects found in Upland Mogollon
archeological sites have been found to have strong resemblances to
ritual paraphernalia that are used in continuing religious practices by
the Hopi and Zuni. Some petroglyphs on the Fort Apache Indian
Reservation have also persuaded archeologists of continuities between
the earlier identified group and current-day Western Pueblo people.
Biological information from the site of Grasshopper Pueblo, which is
located in close proximity to the site listed above, supports the view
that the prehistoric occupants of the Upland Mogollon region had
migrated from various locations to the north and west of the region.
Hopi and Zuni oral traditions parallel the archeological evidence
for migration. Migration figures prominently in Hopi oral tradition,
which refers to the ancient sites, pottery, stone tools, petroglyphs,
and other artifacts left behind by the ancestors as ``Hopi
Footprints.'' This migration history is complex and detailed, and
includes traditions relating specific clans to the Mogollon region.
Hopi cultural advisors have also identified medicinal and culinary
plants at archeological sites in the region. Their knowledge about
these plants was passed down to them from the ancestors who inhabited
these ancient sites. Migration is also an important attribute of Zuni
oral tradition, and includes accounts of Zuni ancestors passing through
the Upland Mogollon region. The ancient villages mark the routes of
these migrations. Zuni cultural advisors remark that the ancient sites
were not abandoned. People returned to these places from time to time,
either to reoccupy them or for the purpose of religious pilgrimages--a
practice that has continued to the present-day. Archeologists have
found ceramic evidence at shrines in the Upland Mogollon region that
confirms these reports. Zuni cultural advisors have names for plants
endemic to the Mogollon region that do not grow on the Zuni
Reservation. They also have knowledge about traditional medicinal and
ceremonial uses for these resources, which has been passed down to them
from their ancestors. Furthermore, Hopi and Zuni cultural advisors have
recognized that their ancestors may have been co-resident at some of
the sites in this region during their ancestral migrations.
There are differing points of view regarding the possible presence
of Apache people in the Upland Mogollon region during the time that
these ancient sites were occupied. Some Apache traditions describe
interactions with Ancestral Puebloan people during this time, but
according to these stories, Puebloan people and Apache people were
regarded as having separate identities. The White Mountain Apache Tribe
of the Fort Apache Reservation, Arizona, does not claim cultural
affiliation with the human remains and associated funerary objects from
this ancestral Upland Mogollon site. As reported by Welch and Ferguson
(2005), consultations between the White Mountain Apache Tribe of the
Fort Apache Reservation, Arizona, and the Navajo Nation, Arizona, New
Mexico & Utah; Pueblo of Acoma, New Mexico; and Pueblo of Laguna, New
Mexico, have indicated that that none of these tribes wish to pursue
claims of affiliation with sites on White Mountain Apache Tribal lands.
Finally, the White Mountain Apache Tribe of the Fort Apache
Reservation, Arizona, supports the repatriation of human remains and
associated funerary objects from the ancestral Upland Mogollon site and
is ready to assist the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and Zuni Tribe of the Zuni
Reservation, New Mexico, in their reburial on tribal land.
Officials of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Arizona State Museum
have determined, pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001(3)(B), that the 185
cultural item described above 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 a Native American individual. Officials of the Bureau of
Indian Affairs and Arizona State Museum also have determined, pursuant
to 25 U.S.C. 3001(2), that there is a relationship of shared group
identity that can be reasonably traced between the unassociated
funerary objects and the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and Zuni Tribe of the
Zuni Reservation, New Mexico.
Representatives of any other Indian tribe that believes itself to
be culturally affiliated with the unassociated funerary objects should
contact John McClelland, NAGPRA Coordinator, Arizona State Museum,
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, telephone (520) 626-2950,
before April 14, 2011. Repatriation of the unassociated funerary
objects to the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and Zuni Tribe of the Zuni
Reservation, New Mexico, may proceed after that date if no additional
claimants come forward.
The Arizona State Museum is responsible for notifying the Hopi
Tribe of Arizona; White Mountain Apache Tribe of the Fort Apache
Reservation, Arizona; and Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Reservation, New
Mexico, that this notice has been published.
[[Page 14047]]
Dated: March 9, 2011.
Sherry Hutt,
Manager, National NAGPRA Program.
[FR Doc. 2011-5859 Filed 3-14-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4312-50-P