The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGRPA)

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The debate of the reburial of excavated Native American sites has been going on for quite some time now. I believe that the wealth of knowledge gained from these discovered artifacts and bones yield much more valuable information than simply placing them back into the ground, causing them to be lost forever. The remains of Pre-Columbian Native Americans should not be reburied and should be studied and documented for the sake of history and a better understanding of it.

After many years of looting of Native American burial sites, the Federal Government established The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990 and is the primary federal legislation pertaining to graves and human remains in archaeological contexts. It was created to protect cemeteries on federal and tribal lands, and to provide a way to return the human skeletal material and associated funerary objects in the nation's scientific and museum collections to culturally affiliated tribes.
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However, I feel this act forces archeologists to halt further investigations and possibly damages lost records of history. Returning these artifacts and bones prevents them from being preserved a...

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