[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 17 (Wednesday, January 27, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 4651-4652]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-01597]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service

[NPS-WASO-NAGPRA-20018; PPWOCRADN0-PCU00RP14.R50000]


Notice of Intent To Repatriate Cultural Items: Fowler Museum at 
the University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, and 
California Department of Parks and Recreation, Sacramento, CA

AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Fowler Museum at the University of California Los Angeles 
(UCLA) and California Department of Parks and Recreation, in 
consultation with the appropriate Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian 
organizations, have determined that the cultural items listed in this 
notice meet the definition of unassociated funerary objects. Lineal 
descendants or representatives of any Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian 
organization not identified in this notice that wish to claim these 
cultural items should submit a written request to the California 
Department of Parks and Recreation. If no additional claimants come 
forward, transfer of control of the cultural items to the lineal 
descendants, Indian tribes, or Native Hawaiian organizations stated in 
this notice may proceed.

DATES: Lineal descendants or representatives of any Indian tribe or 
Native Hawaiian organization not identified in this notice that wish to 
claim these cultural items should submit a written request with 
information in support of the claim to the California Department of 
Parks and Recreation at the address in this notice by February 26, 
2016.

ADDRESSES: Leslie Hartzell, Ph.D., NAGPRA Coordinator, Cultural 
Resources Division Chief, California State Parks, P.O. Box 942896, 
Sacramento, CA 94296-0001, telephone (916) 653-9946, email 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 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 under the 
control of the California Department of Parks and Recreation 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 Native 
American cultural items. The National Park Service is not responsible 
for the determinations in this notice.

History and Description of the Cultural Items

    In 1954, two burial objects were removed from Arroyo Sequit (CA-
LAN-52) in Los Angeles County, CA. Excavations were conducted by 
Clement Meighan as a UCLA Department of Anthropology and Sociology 
field school to salvage information from portions of the site that were 
to be lost due to highway widening. This collection was curated at UCLA 
after analysis was complete. The excavations were located on lands 
belonging to the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Arroyo 
Sequit is also recorded as the village of Lisiqshi with a radiocarbon 
date of A.D. 610 100, placing occupation in the Late Period 
through Spanish contact. The excavation notes indicate that an adult 
female burial was excavated (Burial 1). The human remains from this 
burial were not curated at UCLA and notes indicate the human remains 
were donated to Freddie Curtis in 1958. The current location of these 
human remains is unknown to UCLA. The two objects, a projectile point 
and a flake scraper associated with Burial 1, are present in the 
collection. Because the human remains are not at UCLA, these objects 
are considered unassociated funerary objects under NAGPRA.
    In 1970 and 1971, 8,475 cultural items were removed from Humaliwu 
(CA-LAN-264) in Malibu, Los Angeles County, CA. Nelson N. Leonard 
obtained permission to have a UCLA Anthropology field course conduct 
research, which included excavation of

[[Page 4652]]

the historic cemetery on California Department of Parks and Recreation 
property. Collections were accessioned at UCLA as they returned from 
the field. The village dates from A.D. 550-1805. Excavations included 
the village's historic cemetery, and while all items identified as 
being associated with a particular burial were included in a separate 
Notice of Inventory Completion, excavators further identified objects 
recovered from the cemetery in general. In consultation with descendent 
communities, all items from the cemetery were requested for 
repatriation and are included as unassociated funerary objects. The 
unassociated funerary objects are 191 lumps, plugs, and fragments, 30 
bags of asphaltum fragments many with basketry, wood, and fabric 
impressions, 698 pieces and 19 bags of unmodified animal bone, 14 
pieces of worked bone, 1 ceramic fragment, 7 bags of charcoal, 1 bag of 
clay fragments with basketry impression, 1 adobe fragment, 3 glass 
bottle fragments, 1 worked glass piece, 1 cordage fragment, 24 whole 
and fragmented unmodified shells, 214 worked shell objects, 3 asphaltum 
plugged shell dishes, 2 steatite pendants, 1 elbow pipe, 1 soil sample 
bag, 6,524 individual stone, shell, and glass beads, 72 pieces of 
ochre, 10 bags and 9 wood fragments, 26 metal objects, 4 bullet shells, 
1 bag of iron fragments, 1 column sample bag, 6 soapstone comals, 94 
stone bowl fragments, 3 tarring pebbles, 414 chipped stone flakes and 
tools, 36 ground stone tools, and 63 stone fragments.
    The sites detailed in this notice have been identified through 
tribal consultation to be within the traditional territory of the 
Chumash people. These locations are consistent with ethnographic and 
historic documentation of the Chumash people.
    The Chumash territory, anthropologically defined first on the basis 
of linguistic similarities, and subsequently on broadly shared material 
and cultural traits, reaches from San Luis Obispo to Malibu on the 
coast, inland to the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley, to the 
edge of the San Fernando Valley, and includes the four Northern Channel 
Islands. At the southern and southeastern boundaries of the territory 
there is evidence of the physical co-existence of Chumash, Tataviam, 
and Gabrielino/Tongva languages and beliefs systems. At the northern 
boundary of the territory there is evidence of the physical co-
existence of Chumash and Salinan groups. The sites in this notice are 
located in northwestern Los Angeles County and fall within the 
geographical area identified as Chumash. Some tribal consultants state 
that these areas were the responsibility of regional leaders, who were 
themselves organized into a pan-regional association of both political 
power and ceremonial knowledge. Further, these indigenous areas are 
identified by some tribal consultants to be relational with clans or 
associations of traditional practitioners of specific kinds of 
indigenous medicinal and ceremonial practices. Some tribal consultants 
identified these clans as existing in the pre-contact period and 
identified some clans as also existing in the present day. Other tribal 
consultants do not recognize present-day geographical divisions to be 
related to clans of traditional practitioners. However, they do state 
that Chumash, Tataviam, and Gabrielino/Tongva territories were and are 
occupied by socially distinct, yet interrelated, groups which have been 
characterized by anthropologists. Ethnographic evidence suggests that 
the social and political organization of the pre-contact Channel 
Islands were primarily at the village level, with a hereditary chief, 
in addition to many other specialists who wielded power.
    The unassociated funerary objects described in this notice are 
consistent with those of groups ancestral to the present-day Chumash, 
Tataviam, and Gabrielino/Tongva. The material cultures of earlier 
groups living in the geographical areas mentioned in this notice are 
characterized by archeologists as having passed through stages over the 
past 10,000 years. Many local archeologists assert that the changes in 
the material culture reflect evolving ecological adaptations and 
related changes in social organization of the same populations and do 
not represent population displacements or movements. The same range of 
artifact types and materials were used from the early pre-contact 
period until historic times. Tribal consultants explicitly state that 
population mixing, which did occur on a small scale, would not alter 
the continuity of the shared group identities of people associated with 
specific locales. Based on this evidence, continuity through time can 
be traced for all sites listed in this notice with present-day Chumash 
people, specifically the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians of 
the Santa Ynez Reservation, California.

Determinations Made by the California Department of Parks and 
Recreation

    Officials of the California Department of Parks and Recreation have 
determined that:
     Pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001(3)(B), the 8,477 cultural items 
described in this notice 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.
     Pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001(2), there is a relationship of 
shared group identity that can be reasonably traced between the 
unassociated funerary objects and the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash 
Mission Indians of the Santa Ynez Reservation, California.

Additional Requestors and Disposition

    Lineal descendants or representatives of any Indian tribe or Native 
Hawaiian organization not identified in this notice that wish to claim 
these cultural items should submit a written request with information 
in support of the claim to Leslie Hartzell, Ph.D., NAGPRA Coordinator, 
Cultural Resources Division Chief, California State Parks, P.O. Box 
942896, Sacramento, CA 94296-0001, telephone (916) 653-9946, email 
[email protected], by February 26, 2016. After that date, if 
no additional claimants have come forward, transfer of control of the 
unassociated funerary objects to Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission 
Indians of the Santa Ynez Reservation, California, may proceed.
    The California Department of Parks and Recreation is responsible 
for notifying the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians of the 
Santa Ynez Reservation, California, that this notice has been 
published.

    Dated: December 21, 2015.
Melanie O'Brien,
Manager, National NAGPRA Program.
[FR Doc. 2016-01597 Filed 1-26-16; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4312-50-P