ABSTRACT
The perennial social function of archaeology has been to satisfy curiosity about what happened in the past. The most striking social feature of North American prehistoric archaeology remains its alienation from native people. In many areas native people have demanded, and won, the right to approve and license the excavation of all prehistoric sites and that all human skeletons be returned to them for reburial. This has produced widespread tension between native people and archaeologists, and legal conflicts in some jurisdictions. The willingness of Euro-Canadian and Euro-American archaeologists to promote this will test their view of the role that native people should play in their discipline and their willingness to rescue North American archaeology from the last shackles of its colonialist origins. In the long run prehistoric archaeology has had a liberating influence. The negative consequences of nationalistic archaeology have greatly outweighed the positive ones.
