Exploring Indigenous Methodological Perspectives in Cultural Resource Management: The Case Study of the Ram’s Head Medicine Tree

Abstract

This thesis suggests that the state of cooperation between Native American peoples and the archaeological community today is a product of historical circumstances. The historical situation is characterized by the frustration felt by Native American communities as to the treatment of cultural resources. Two questions were posed: How can an indigenous methodological perspective operate effectively within state and federal Cultural Resource Management (CRM) frameworks concerning the identification, evaluation, assessment, and treatment of cultural properties? How are the laws and practices that regulate indigenous and scientific communities in the practice of archaeology and CRM, adaptable to the ideals of an indigenous methodological perspective? This thesis aims to clarify distinctions between western scientific and indigenous methodological perspectives within the practice of cultural resource management. The basis of the discussion is centered on authority and cultural values, and illustrated in the case study of the Ram’s Head Medicine Tree. A landscape perspective is utilized as a bridge for understanding, which accounts for scientific and traditional knowledge systems. Ultimately this thesis suggests that an indigenous methodological paradigm concerning the research and management of traditional cultural properties can contribute to archaeological knowledge and understanding of indigenous peoples within the western scientific archaeological community.