Native Americans, Archaeologists, and the Mounds

Barbara Alice Mann. Native Americans, Archaeologists, and the Mounds. Foreword by Ward Churchill. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. 520 pp. Paper, $29.95.

Written at the behest of Elders by a "Seneca-descended" scholar, this monograph adds to the growing number of Indigenous-written works that explore historical and contemporary Native American attitudes toward archaeology. Most recent academic surveys of the relations between archaeologists and Native Americans affirm the scientific utility of the discipline or promote collaboration between these two groups to bridge controversial cultural differences regarding the study of spiritual sites and human remains. Illustrating the deep roots of these differences and advocating political activism to surmount them, Native Americans, Archaeologists, and the Mounds is a fascinating accompaniment to this literature.

In an occasionally sarcastic tone which scholars are sure to find either humorous or offensive, Mann begins by widely surveying Western explanations of the Native American racial characteristics and origins that some have used to deny that they were capable of constructing the mounds found in the Ohio valley. Her...