The Pueblo of Acoma in New Mexico recently made claim to a human skull found in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.
A hiker found the cranium and its detached lower mandible about a year and a half ago while recreating in the monument. They contacted authorities instead of moving it themselves, said Ray O’Neil, the monument manager at Canyons of the Ancients.
“As soon as you pick up things and move them, they lose value in many ways,” O’Neil said.
Once a prehistoric object or individual is moved, and if there’s not extensive documentation of where they were found, they lose the context in the archaeological record.
Based on how the skull was found, they believe it was placed recently and had been sitting on the ground for the past few years, O’Neil said.
The Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office, Bureau of Land Management law enforcement and an archaeologist got together to determine the skull was, in fact, prehistoric.
The skull had “distinct occipital flattening,” also known as cradle boarding, which “is commonly found in prehistoric Puebloan remains throughout the Four Corners region of the American Southwest,” according to the Federal Register notice.
Therefore, it’s likely the individual lived between 1050 and 1295 BCE and is an ancestor of modern Puebloan people.
Because it was found in isolation – nothing else was found – it “prevents further determination of cultural affiliation but does indicate that the location was not the site of an intentional prehistoric burial,” according to the notice.
The other 20 Pueblo tribes that trace ties to the area have the next 30 days to claim the cranium and its detached lower mandible, as part of the 1990 Native American Graves and Repatriation Act.
“It’s really a social justice initiative,” said O’Neil. “It gives tribes ownership and control of ancestors and grave objects … and it should be their decision. It’s their ancestors, their objects.”
The law also is significant in that “Congress recognized that human remains of any ancestry ‘must at all times be treated with dignity and respect,’” according to the National Park Service.
Tribes most often request that the object or individual be returned to the ground, though they have the option to take it or let the institution that found it, hold it, O’Neil said.
“I’m not an expert, but it’s fair to say they’d want their objects and individuals to continue on their journey and not live on a shelf somewhere,” O’Neil said.
O’Neil has been in his managerial role for more than three years. He said it’s common for people to bring in objects, but not so common to find human remains.
“The big picture is that these are individuals and objects,” said O’Neil. “What happens to them should be the tribe’s decision.”
