ABSTRACT
One frustrating and disappointing aspect of the Ancient One controversy for me, a white, Euro American anthropologist, is the behavior of the “plaintiff scientists.” No matter how the public or judiciary justify to themselves that the Ancient One is not a Native American and not affiliated with the claimant tribes, the plaintiff scientists made statements and supported positions that, by training and practice, they know are false, untrue, or unethical. They were unrelenting in their position, no matter how many studies and tests were done on the human remains and in the face of conclusions by the secretary of the interior that the remains were Native American and affiliated with the claimant tribes. Interior's decisions were based on expert findings and a preponderance of the evidence. What happened to cultural relativism and emic perspective? What happened to the professional ethics of the American Anthropological Association, the World Archaeological Congress, and the Register of Professional Archaeologists?
