Archaeological Collaboration with American Indians: Case Studies from the Western United States

North American archaeologists engage with American Indians in a variety of ways to further the research and preservation goals of both groups. Some projects simply include the participation of individual consultants, while others engage formal collaboration with tribal organizations that help determine research design, project methodology, and interpretation of results (Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson 2008). Research done for and with Indian tribes is expanding the repertoire of questions investigated, changing the manner in which research is conducted, and influencing the evaluation of results (Kerber 2006; Silliman 2008). Much of this work takes place in the context of providing information needed for historic preservation and management of cultural resources, but some cooperative projects develop beyond legislatively mandated research. An increasing number of tribes play an active role in archaeological research that identifies ancestral sites and traditional cultural properties and clarifies the cultural values that make such places significant. Archaeologists responding to tribal initiatives are training students in collaborative processes so that this type of research can be carried forward in future projects.

This article describes two collaborative projects with tribes in the western United States. The first examines traditional uses of eagles by the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation). Our second example considers the involvement of Western Apaches in heritage resource management on the Coronado National Forest. These two research projects, conducted by Wendi Field Murray and Nicholas Laluk, graduate students at the University of Arizona (UA), exemplify the diverse ways in which collaboration can be achieved. Both students were part of a field school offered cooperatively by the University of Arizona and the White Mountain Apache Tribe in which collaboration was embedded in the curriculum (Mills et al. 2008), and we briefly describe how that training helped to frame their subsequent research. The goals and process of these collaborative research projects elucidate the principles underlying fundamental changes in the conduct and teaching of contemporary archaeology in the western United States.

The work we discuss here is similar to other collaborative research conducted with Indian tribes at the University of Arizona. The work of María Nieves Zedeño, Richard Stoffle, Diane Austin, and their students working for the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology employs similar collaborative principles, and several former UA Field School students work on those projects as well (e.g., Stoffle et al. 2001; Zedeño 2007; Zedeño and Laluk 2008; Zedeño et al. 2006, 2009). In addition, the American Indian Studies Interdisciplinary Program has both core and affiliated faculty who regularly teach collaborative research methods based on their work. The healthy exchange of theoretical and methodological concepts between faculty and students working on different projects at the UA benefits the overall program of collaborative research, and in fact it is this density of involvement that we think is beginning to foster a major shift in student interests and awareness about how work with and for American Indian communities can be incorporated into their training.

White Mountain Apache Tribe and University of Arizona Archaeological Field School

Wendi Field Murray and Nick Laluk attended the UA Archaeological Field School during its three-year collaboration with the White Mountain Apache Tribe (WMAT; Mills et al. 2008). The collaboration was initiated by Barbara Mills, director of the Field School, who wished to replace the annual site visits of tribal members that had been conducted before 2001 (Mills 2000) with a more intensive project in which goals were set by the WMAT. The WMAT Historic Preservation Program helped design archaeological projects that could be incorporated into the field training in a manner congruent with tribal objectives. Specific projects were identified that would assist with tribal heritage management: (1) assistance in ruins stabilization at Kinishba, a pueblo dating to AD 1250-1400; (2) an archaeological survey of the Forestdale Valley to provide a basis for tribal management during future development; (3) mapping of archaeological sites damaged from looting; and (4) damage assessment and restoration of areas that...