ABSTRACT
Two high-profile cases from the Pacific Northwest of the United States provide a detailed look into the dynamic situations that arise when archaeological resources are discovered during a construction project. In the first case, a community began an expansion of its municipal sewage treatment plant with a loan from a federal agency. The cultural sensitivity of the area in and around the existing plant was well understood, and the project manager obtained archaeological expertise to help the project through the archaeological approval process. Archaeological sampling and data recovery were completed, and the project was approved to go forward, with construction monitoring by archaeologists. Soon after construction began, the heavy equipment operator encountered the ethnohistoric cemetery that many knew was in the area. About 60 full and partial graves were removed in hasty fashion, and no one notified the local tribe as required by a previous agreement with project proponents. When the local tribe discovered that the ancestral remains were being removed, tribal members called state officials and the project was shut down. The tribe was furious to learn that 20 boxes of bones had been transported to an out-of-state laboratory, which also violated the agreements regarding procedures for handling remains. The project was abandoned, million-dollar settlements were reached, and the community had to find a new location to construct its water treatment plant.
