Afarensis: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Taino: An Abuse of Power

Search this blog

Profile

Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called Transitions:The Evolution of Life His previous blog can be found here.
My blog banners were designed by pough - frequent commenter and Photoshop wizard, Bill Clark, and Chris Whitehouse. Thanks, you all do excellent Photoshop work!

My Amazon Wishlist

Other Information

Order the Book!

Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

Moonbat courtesy of Creek Running North

View My Openlab Entry

View My Openlab Entry

Aphorisms

"Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul..."
Mark Twain

"Ideology is a poor substitute for rational thought..."
Afarensis

"It isn't faith that makes good science...it's curiosity"
Prof. Jacob Barnhardt, The Day the Earth Stood Still

"This man wishes to be accorded the same privilege as a sponge. He wishes to think!"
Clarence Darrow, Inherit the Wind

"...I become fearful when I see people substituting fear for reason..."
Klaatu, The Day the Earth Stood Still

"I want you to grab life by its little bunny ears and get in its face..."
The Simpsons

"This is between me and the vegetable..."
Seymour Krelborn, The Little Shop of Horrors

"There are bad laws and cruel laws and the people who enforce them are both bad and cruel..."
Thea, Isle of the Dead

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." Jean- Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation

"But the limit of tolerance for these human foibles is obtained when the proponent of a questionable scientific doctrine endeavors to maintain it against all possible odds by misrepresentation, misinformation and suppression of contradictory data, and by insinuating unfairness in opponents of his views."
Franz Weidenreich, Morphology of Solo Man

"Man stands alone in the universe, a unique product of a long, unconcious, impersonal material process with unique understanding and potentialities. These he owes to no one but himself, and it is to himself that he is responsible. He is not the creature of uncontrollable and undeterminable forces, but his own master. He can and must decide and manage his own destiny."
George Gaylord Simpson, Life of the Past

Yeah he's the Dick to the Dawk to the phd, he's smarter than you he's got a science degree! Yeah he's the Dick to the Dawk to the phd, he's smarter than you he's got a science degree!
Unknown

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
Frederich Nietzsche

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The Declaration of Independence

View My Stats

Subscribe via Email

Stay abreast of your favorite bloggers' latest and greatest via e-mail, via a daily digest.

Sign me up!

« Primate Canines: Weapons or Display? | Main | The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same »

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Taino: An Abuse of Power

Category: Anthropology • Archaeology • Cultural Resource Management • Repatriation
Posted on: July 2, 2008 10:54 PM, by afarensis, FCD

The Voice of the Taino People Online has an interesting post up concerning the discovery of a five acre site near Jácana, Puerto Rico:

The ancient petroglyph of the woman was found on a five-acre site in Jácana, a spot along the Portugues River in the city of Ponce, on Puerto Rico's southern coast. Among the largest and most significant ever unearthed in the Caribbean, archaeologists said, the site includes plazas used for ceremony or sport, a burial ground, residences and a midden mound -- a pile of ritual trash.

The site was discovered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the construction of a dam. The Corps called in an American salvage archaeology crew and a large number of artifacts were shipped to the US for storage. A legal argument could be made that this was the correct thing to do, however, in terms of cultural sensitivity this has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. The people of Puerto Rico were justifiably pissed. Enough of a fuss has been made that the Corp is planning on returning what it took:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers promises the collection sent to Georgia will be returned to Puerto Rico. Some 75 boxes of skeletons, ceramics, small petroglyphs and rocks were sent via Federal Express in two double-boxed shipments for analysis.

Apparently NAGPRA meant squat to the Corps, which is surprising considering they went out of their way to prevent further excavations at the Kennewick site...At any rate, follow the link above and read the entire story.

Find more posts in: Humanities & Social Science