KCRC Claim Chancellors House Burials

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KCRC ClaimChancellors House Burials

• 1976 field excavation under Professor Gail
  Kennedy of UCLA with a student crew from
  CSU-Northridge.
• Double burial found intact and in remarkably good
  condition a male, aged 33-44, and a female, aged
  40-54. The two were on their sides in a reversed,
  flexed position
• Calibrated dates from the Pretoria radiocarbon
  lab for the remains fall between 8,977 and 9,603
  years B.P. Represents some of the earliest known
  human remains from either North or South America.

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What is cultural affiliation?
NAGPRA 43 C.F.R. 10.2 (e)

• A relationship of shared group identity which can
  reasonably be traced historically or
  prehistorically between members of a present-day
  Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization and
  an identifiable earlier group.
• Established when the preponderance of the
  evidence reasonably leads to such a conclusion.
• Types of evidence geographical, kinship,
  biological, archeological, linguistic, folklore,
  oral tradition, historical evidence, or other
  information or expert opinion

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Criteria for cultural affiliationAll of the
following requirements must be met
NAGPRA 43 C.F.R. 10.14 (c)

• (1) Existence of an identifiable present-day
  Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization with
  standing
• (2) Evidence of the existence of an identifiable
  earlier group.
• (3) Evidence of the existence of a shared group
  identity that can be reasonably traced between
  the present-day and the earlier group.
• Evidence to support this requirement must
  establish that a present-day Indian tribe or
  Native Hawaiian organization has been identified
  from prehistoric or historic times to the present
  as descending from the earlier group.

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Culturally unidentifiable at this time

• We readily concede that an absence of evidence
  for cultural affiliation is not equivalent to
  affirmative evidence for non-affiliation.
• Five hundred generations of intervening time
  leave ample room for numerous episodes of genetic
  drift and decisive, even fundamental, cultural
  innovations and shifts.
• The highly imperfect and incomplete record of
  temporal sequencing of archaeological remains
  contains little to argue for or against such
  affiliation.
• Simply stated, our finding is that there is not
  a significant preponderance of evidence to
  support an affirmation of cultural identification
  or affiliation with any modern group.

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must establish that a present-day Indian tribe
has been identified from prehistoric times to the
present as descending from the earlier group

• The Folklore and Oral Tradition can be
  interpreted in several ways but it is not
  possible, at least at this time, to establish the
  time depth to which these traditions apply and
  how they relate, if at all, to the individuals
  who lived in the region 10,000 years ago.
• Cultural identity cannot be proved or disproved
  on the basis of folkore and oral tradition at a
  level beyond 2,000 years in the absence of
  written records, to the best of our knowledge.

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must establish that a present-day Indian tribe
has been identified from prehistoric times to the
present as descending from the earlier group

• Hokan is the oldest linguistic phylum among
  western North American languages with a time
  depth of ca. 8,000 years.
• Most of the other language families of California
  show substratal influence from one or more Hokan
  languages.
• However, the Yuman family of eight closely
  related languages diversified within the last two
  millennia.

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must establish that a present-day Indian tribe
has been identified from prehistoric times to the
present as descending from the earlier group

• In sum, the genetic evidence thus far argues for
  an original peopling of North America around
  15,000 years ago with rapid population expansion
  followed by isolation of local populations,
  presumably adapted to their specific
  environments.
• The combination of linguistic and genetic
  evidence argues for an ancient immigration (late
  Pleistocene or early Holocene) of the
  proto-Chumash along the Pacific Coast with
  settlement perhaps throughout central and
  southern California,
• followed by influxes of Hokan speakers, with
  subsequent movement of Uto-Aztecan and Yuman
  speakers into the region during the middle to
  late Holocene.

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must establish that a present-day Indian tribe
has been identified from prehistoric times to the
present as descending from the earlier group

• The Late Prehistoric pattern of San Diego is
  generally considered to have started between 1300
  and 800 B.P.
• Artifacts include small pressure-flaked
  projectile points with the introduction of the
  bow and arrow, inhumations are replaced with
  cremations, and ceramic technology appeared.
  Subsistence changes involved acorn processing and
  a shift to smaller resources that were more
  numerous.
• The appearance of new traits (particularly
  cremations, ceramics, and the bow and arrow)
  occurred earlier in the east than the west and
  very late or minimally on the coast.
• It appears likely that these technologies and
  customs spread westward with the Yuman speakers
  ancestral to the Kumeyaay.

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Minority position the problem of descent
NAGPRA 43 C.F.R. 10.14 (d) (f)

• (d) A finding of cultural affiliation should be
  based upon an overall evaluation of the totality
  of the circumstances and evidence pertaining to
  the connection between the claimant and the
  material being claimed and should not be
  precluded solely because of some gaps in the
  record.
• (f) Standard of proof. Lineal descent of a
  present-day individual from an earlier individual
  and cultural affiliation of a present-day Indian
  tribe to human remains must be established by a
  preponderance of the evidence. Claimants do not
  have to establish cultural affiliation with
  scientific certainty.

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cultural, not biologicaldescent

• Cultural argument Kumeyaay are the inheritors
  of the culture of the preceding population
  through a process of interaction that may never
  be precisely "scientifically" known. Took on
  responsibility towards this place and its
  peoples.
• Evaluation interdisciplinary analysis of NAGPRA
  categories of evidence to address whether
  Kumeyaay cultural world view expresses shared
  identity to identifiable early group.

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cultural, not biological

• Kumeyaay use of the area predates European
  settler society by a millennium.
• Agreed upon map of Kumeyaay occupation and
  cultural influence.
• Kumeyaay avow a deep sense of personal and
  communal responsibility for the recovery and
  proper reburial of all human remains of people
  who predate European settler society.
• Their approach towards the dead is documented in
• early Spanish accounts of the Kumeyaay
• anthropological literature of the last century .
• Cultural imperative expressed collectively by the
  KCRC through appointed repatriation
  representatives from each Kumeyaay tribe in San
  Diego County.

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next steps...

• educate campus about grounds for rejecting the
  UCAD NAGPRA ad-hoc advisory committees majority
  recommendation
• urge campus administration to appeal the case to
  the NAGPRA Review Board in partnership with KCRC