ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the several meeting points in Argentinean and Brazilian legislation in relation to indigenous people. The process of legal recognition of indigenous communities in Argentina initiated with the return of democracy changed considerably the perspectives of indigenous claims on human remains held in museum collections. In 1994, the amendment of the national constitution (NC) included valuable regulations in relation to heritage preservation and the recognition of indigenous community's rights, although some of them still require a national law to be operative. The federal constitution of Brazil of 1988 confirmed some basic rights for indigenous people, mainly the respect for ethnic and cultural diversity and the right to preserve part of their lands. Archaeological investigations in the famous fugitive site of the seventeenth century, Palmares, have had the institutional participation of the Afro-Brazilian center and, through this, of activists such as Zezito de Arajo. Nevertheless, since the democratization of the country in 1985, there have been significant changes in archaeologist's attitudes.
