[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 168 (Wednesday, August 31, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 53487-53488]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-18738]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service

[NPS-WASO-NAGPRA-NPS0034426; PPWOCRADN0-PCU00RP14.R50000]


Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural Items: U.S. Army Corps of 
Engineers, Mobile District, Mobile, AL

AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and 
Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile 
District, intends to repatriate certain cultural items that meet the 
definition of unassociated funerary objects and that have a cultural 
affiliation with the Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations in 
this notice. The cultural items were removed from Troup County, GA.

DATES: Repatriation of the cultural items in this notice may occur on 
or after September 30, 2022.

ADDRESSES: Ms. Alexandria Smith, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile 
District, 109 St. Joseph Street, P.O. Box 2288, Mobile, AL 36628-0001, 
telephone (251) 690-2728, email [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This notice is published as part of the 
National Park Service's administrative responsibilities under NAGPRA. 
The determinations in this notice are the sole responsibility of the 
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District. The National Park 
Service is not responsible for the determinations in this notice. 
Additional information on the determinations in this notice, including 
the results of consultation, can be found in the summary or related 
records held by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District.

Description

    Between 1966 and 1968, the University of Georgia conducted 
excavations at the Burnt Village Site (9TP9), in Troup County, GA, in 
advance of the construction and subsequent inundation of the West Point 
Lake reservoir. Human remains were identified in a minimum of 20 
individual grave locations, but due to preservation issues, an unknown 
number of individuals were uncovered but not exhumed.
    Feature 153 was documented as a burial location. The collection 
from the Burnt Village site, which has been housed at the University of 
Georgia since the excavation, contains objects from Feature 153, but no 
human remains. Based on this circumstantial evidence, the human remains 
associated with these objects were never removed from the Burnt Village 
Site.
    The 95 objects under the control of Mobile District known to 
originate from Feature 153 include nine glass fragments, two lots of 
beads, nine individual beads (tube and seed), two lots of wood/
charcoal, five charred pieces of wood, one lot of charred seeds, three 
brass fragments, one iron fragment, one lead fragment, one unidentified 
metal fragment, 45 ceramic sherds, one lot of daub, six individual 
pieces of daub, two pieces of quartz, one lot of faunal remains, three 
individual faunal skeletal elements, and three unmodified rocks.

Cultural Affiliation

    The cultural items in this notice are connected to one or more 
identifiable earlier groups, tribes, peoples, or cultures. There is a 
relationship of shared group identity between the identifiable earlier 
groups, tribes, peoples, or cultures and one or more Indian Tribes or 
Native Hawaiian organizations. The following types of information were 
used to reasonably trace this relationship: geographical, 
archeological, linguistic, folkloric, oral traditional, historical, and 
expert opinion. Geographically, the Burnt Village site is the location 
of the historically known Creek Town of Okfuskeneena. The site is 
located within established Creek Indian territory on the western bank 
of the central Chattahoochee River in Troup County, GA. This area is 
both within treaty-designated Creek lands, and land known through 
historic and ethnographic accounts as being home to the Creek Indians. 
Archeological investigations of the site confirmed historical accounts 
of the village location, which was recorded as being attacked on 
September 27, 1793, by white settlers. Evidence includes diagnostic 
artifacts that correspond to those expected and described in historical 
accounts. Linguistic and folkloric evidence for settlements in the area 
reflect a Creek occupation of the central Chattahoochee River Valley, 
including the area of the Burnt Village site.
    Historic accounts indicate that the survivors of Creek Town of 
Okfuskeneena fled and were welcomed into neighboring Creek polities, 
which eventually became part of the Creek Confederations. Oral 
traditional information provided by tribal members further demonstrates 
that the descendants of the Town of Okfuskeneena currently reside 
within, and are part of, The Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

Determinations

    Pursuant to NAGPRA and its implementing regulations, and after 
consultation with the appropriate Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian 
organizations, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, has 
determined that:
     The 95 cultural items 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

[[Page 53488]]

been removed from a specific burial site of a Native American 
individual.
     There is a relationship of shared group identity that can 
be reasonably traced between the cultural items and The Muscogee 
(Creek) Nation.

Requests for Repatriation

    Additional, written requests for repatriation of the cultural items 
in this notice must be sent to Ms. Alexandria Smith, U.S. Army Corps of 
Engineers, Mobile District, 109 St. Joseph Street, P.O. Box 2288, 
Mobile, AL 36628-0001, telephone (251) 690-2728, email 
[email protected]. Requests for repatriation may be 
submitted by any lineal descendant, Indian Tribe, or Native Hawaiian 
organization not identified in this notice who shows, by a 
preponderance of the evidence, that the requestor is a lineal 
descendant or a culturally affiliated Indian Tribe or Native Hawaiian 
organization.
    Repatriation of the cultural items in this notice to a requestor 
may occur on or after September 30, 2022. If competing requests for 
repatriation are received, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile 
District, must determine the most appropriate requestor prior to 
repatriation. Requests for joint repatriation of the cultural items are 
considered a single request and not competing requests. The U.S. Army 
Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, is responsible for sending a copy 
of this notice to the Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations 
identified in this notice.
    Authority: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 
25 U.S.C. 3003, and the implementing regulations, 43 CFR 10.8, 10.10, 
and 10.14.

    Dated: August 24, 2022.
Melanie O'Brien,
Manager, National NAGPRA Program.
[FR Doc. 2022-18738 Filed 8-30-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4312-52-P