Epilogue: A New and Different Archaeology?

A dozen years ago, in the aftermath of a disastrous meeting with the Executive Committee of the Society for American Archaeology,1 Jan Hammil of American Indians Against Desecration and I were commiserating about how difficult it would be to convince archaeologists to change their views regarding human remains. We were depressed about the prospects, and we agreed that attitudes probably would not change much within our lifetimes. Events over the past five years have proved us very wrong. Indeed, we probably would have considered the enactment of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to be impossible. Resistance within the anthropological community seemed so strong. Remarkably, as well documented by the papers in this special issue, dramatic change was possible, and in hindsight, some shifts of power were probably inevitable. More important than shifts of power have been the recent adjustments of attitudes by both American Indians and archaeologists. These portend more substantive changes. My task here is to try to predict what these changes might be and where the issue might be going, a difficult task given the rapidity of change. There are negatives and I will be blunt about them, but some positive trends are apparent as archaeologists and Indians find common ground.