ABSTRACT

Pawnee historian James Riding In (1992) calls it “imperial archaeology”—the proposition that European “discovery” of the Americas conferred the right to, not only the soil, but also the bodies of the people buried in that soil. This attitude toward Indian graves manifested itself early on, famously in the graverobbing excursion from the Mayflower (Mourt 1622:33–34) and the “scientific” excavation of an Indian burial mound by Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826:223–226). The origins of this disrespect for the dead are not immediately obvious because it did not extend to European dead.