[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 40 (Wednesday, February 28, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 14703-14704]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-04089]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service

[NPS-WASO-NAGPRA-NPS0037475; PPWOCRADN0-PCU00RP14.R50000]


Notice of Inventory Completion: University of California, 
Riverside, Riverside, CA and the California Department of Parks and 
Recreation, Sacramento, CA

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 University of California, Riverside and 
the California Department of Parks and Recreation has completed an 
inventory of human remains and associated funerary objects and has 
determined that there is a cultural affiliation between the human 
remains and associated funerary objects and Indian Tribes or Native 
Hawaiian organizations in this notice. The human remains and associated 
funerary objects were removed from Kings County, CA.

DATES: Repatriation of the human remains and associated funerary 
objects in this notice may occur on or after March 29, 2024.

ADDRESSES: Megan Murphy, University of California, Riverside, 900 
University Avenue, Riverside, CA 92517-5900, telephone (951) 827-6349, 
email [email protected] and Leslie Hartzell, NAGPRA Coordinator, 
California State Parks, 715 P Street, Suite 13, Sacramento, CA 95814, 
telephone (415) 831-2700, 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 
University of California, Riverside and the California Department of 
Parks and Recreation. 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 inventory or related records held by the University 
of California, Riverside and the California Department of Parks and 
Recreation.

Description

    At some time before 1992, human remains representing, at minimum, 
one individual were removed from the Tulare Lake Witt Site locale in 
Kings County, CA, by a private individual. The human remains were 
donated to the California Department of Parks and Recreation by the 
private individual and subsequently submitted to the University of 
California, Riverside Radiocarbon Laboratory for Uranium-series method 
dating tests. The collection was subsequently held in the UCR 
Radiocarbon Laboratory under the direction of Dr. R. Ervin Taylor. When 
he retired in 2003, the lab was decommissioned and its records and 
remaining sample materials were subsequently stored by Dr. Taylor in an 
off-campus storage facility, which he did not report to the campus 
Repatriation Coordinator at the time. The residual sample materials 
were rediscovered by UCR NAGPRA Program Staff during a collections 
inventory in February of 2021. At the time no documentation indicating 
who the individual was or where they were removed from was found and it 
was not until September of 2022, that UCR NAGPRA Staff were able to 
find publications that described human remains removed from the site 
and data-sample sheets produced by the laboratory that were consistent 
with this individual. It was also discovered in 2023 that the larger 
skeletal elements from which the samples were removed were present at 
California State University, Bakersfield since at least 2017 when Dr. 
Robert Bettinger (UCR Alumnus) likely transferred them from the 
University of California, Davis without the knowledge of the Tribe or 
any NAGPRA Program to Dr. Robert Yohe III at CSUB. The human remains 
are approximately 44 mineralized bone fragments/elements representing 
at least one cranium and at least one femur. No known individuals were 
determined to be represented by the human remains. Uranium-series 
method dates suggest a date between 11,390  70 and 15,800 
 380 BP. The three associated funerary objects are one lot 
of lithic/stone objects, one lot of soil samples, and one lot of faunal 
remains.

Cultural Affiliation

    The human remains and associated funerary objects 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

[[Page 14704]]

Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations. The following types of 
information were used to reasonably trace the relationship: tribal 
traditional knowledge, archeological information, geographical 
information, historical information, kinship, oral tradition, and 
expert opinion.

Determinations

    Pursuant to NAGPRA and its implementing regulations, and after 
consultation with the appropriate Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian 
organizations, the University of California, Riverside and the 
California Department of Parks and Recreation has determined that:
     The human remains described in this notice represent the 
physical remains of one individual of Native American ancestry.
     The three objects 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.
     There is a relationship of shared group identity that can 
be reasonably traced between the human remains and associated funerary 
objects described in this notice and the Santa Rosa Indian Community of 
the Santa Rosa Rancheria, California.

Requests for Repatriation

    Written requests for repatriation of the human remains and 
associated funerary objects in this notice must be sent to the 
Responsible Official identified in ADDRESSES. Requests for repatriation 
may be submitted by:
    1. Any one or more of the Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian 
organizations identified in this notice.
    2. 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 human remains and associated funerary objects 
in this notice to a requestor may occur on or after March 29, 2024. If 
competing requests for repatriation are received, the University of 
California, Riverside and the California Department of Parks and 
Recreation must determine the most appropriate requestor prior to 
repatriation. Requests for joint repatriation of the human remains and 
associated funerary objects are considered a single request and not 
competing requests. The University of California, Riverside and the 
California Department of Parks and Recreation are responsible for 
sending a copy of this notice to the Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian 
organizations identified in this notice.
    This notice was submitted before the effective date of the revised 
regulations (88 FR 86452, December 13, 2023, effective January 12, 
2024). As the notice conforms to the mandatory format of the Federal 
Register and includes the required information, the National Park 
Service is publishing this notice as submitted.
    Authority: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 
25 U.S.C. 3003, and the implementing regulations, 43 CFR 10.10.

    Dated: February 20, 2024.
Melanie O'Brien,
Manager, National NAGPRA Program.
[FR Doc. 2024-04089 Filed 2-27-24; 8:45 am]
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