User:K8Carleton/Moundville

Moundville Archaeological Site Human Remains Controversy
In accordance with the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), institutions such as universities and museums are required to document any discovered human remains and return them to the appropriate indigenous tribes. However, there is debate surrounding if modern tribes have a substantial claim to the human remains found at American excavation sites.

In the case of Moundville, currently 7 tribes are laying claim to the 5,892 human remains that have been excavated there. Those tribes being :

• The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

• The Chickasaw Nation

• The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana

• The Muscogee (also known as the Creek) Nation

• The Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town

• The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma

• The Seminole Tribe of Florida

All of the tribes claim that they are culturally and/or linguistically descended from the culture that lived in Moundville, since that society predates their own. Therefore, the tribes want to have autonomy of the artifacts and human remains that were excavated in Moundville returned to them, as well where they will then decide what to do with them. Often times, the remains are ceremonially reburied according to the respective tribe's traditions, as many believe that the exhumation of the graves to be unethical and disrespectful. Many institutions fear that returning the the human remains to the tribes entails no longer being able to study, but this is not necessarily the case. Rather, the tribes would be in control of what artifacts are studied, as well as be included in those same studies. However, many institutions hold onto the artifacts, claiming that the aforementioned tribes are not culturally and linguistically similar enough to the culture that inhabited Moundville.