![]() ![]() Scott Marsden, Executive Director, Haida Gwaii Museum, Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada Laura Raicovich, Director, Queens Museum, Queens, NY.Beka Economopoulos, Director, The Natural History Museum, Brooklyn NY.James Powell, Former President and Director of the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum and former President of the Franklin Museum of Science.Suzan Shown Harjo, President, The Morning Star Institute, Guest Curator, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian, Recipient of a 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom.Meister, President & CEO, Dayton Society of Natural History, Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, SunWatch Indian Village/Archaeological Park, Fort Ancient Earthworks and Nature Preserve ![]() ![]() Patsy Phillips, Cherokee Nation, Director of IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM.Phil, Director, Museum of Anthropology, Professor of Anthropology, Vancouver, BC, Canada Jill Hartz, President, Association of Academic Museums and Galleries.Ben Garcia, Deputy Director, San Diego Museum of Man.Parzen, Ph.D., J.D., Chief Executive Officer, San Diego Museum of Man Luke Swetland, President and CEO, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.Richard Lariviere, PhD, President and CEO, The Field Museum, Chicago, IL.Brenda Toineeta Pipestem, Chair, Board of Trustees, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.We stand with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and affirm their treaty rights, tribal sovereignty, and the protection of their lands, waters, cultural and sacred sites, and we stand with all those attempting to prevent further irreparable losses. We call on the federal government to abide by its laws and to conduct a thorough environmental impact statement and cultural resources survey on the pipeline’s route, with proper consultation with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. If constructed, this pipeline will continue to encourage oil consumption that causes climate change, all the while harming those populations who contributed little to this crisis. The destruction of these sacred sites adds yet another injury to the Lakota, Dakota, and other Indigenous Peoples who bear the impacts of fossil fuel extraction and transportation. Many of us put countless hours into developing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) to prevent burial desecration of this type, yet the pipeline was approved without a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), and the cultural resources survey did not involve proper consultation with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other tribes in the region. We are familiar with the long history of desecration of Indigenous People’s artifacts and remains worldwide. In one day, our sacred land has been turned into hollow ground.” The ancient cairns and stone prayer rings there cannot be replaced. “These grounds are the resting places of our ancestors. The construction crews, flanked by private security and canine squads, arrived just hours after the Standing Rock Sioux tribal lawyers disclosed the location of the recently discovered site in federal court filings.įormer tribal historic preservation officer Tim Mentz called the discovery of the site “one of the most significant archeological finds in North Dakota in many years.” “This demolition is devastating,” Tribal Chairman David Archambault II said. On Saturday, September 3, 2016, the company behind the contentious Dakota Access Pipeline project bulldozed land containing Native American burial grounds, grave markers, and artifacts–including ancient cairns and stone prayer rings. We join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in denouncing the recent destruction of ancient burial sites, places of prayer and other significant cultural artifacts sacred to the Lakota and Dakota people. To President Obama, the United States Department of Justice, Department of the Interior, and the Army Corps of Engineers:Īs archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and museum workers committed to responsible stewardship, we are invested in the preservation and interpretation of archaeological and cultural heritage for the common good. New York Times (online and print), The Guardian, TeleSUR, Art Forum, Hyperallergic, ArtNet News, ArtFix Daily, The Art Newspaper, Common Dreams, Popular Resistance, NativeNewsOnline, Indigenous Rising, IndianCountryToday, LRInspire, Colorlines, Clearwater Tribune, Daily Kos, RT, KFYR TV (Bismarck), Nonprofit Quarterly Open Letter & Signatories If you are an archaeologists, anthropologist, historian or museum worker you are invited to add your name by emailing Media coverage The Natural History Museum initiated this sign-on letter concerning the destruction of Native American burial grounds and sacred sites by the Dakota Access Pipeline company. ![]()
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