Repatriation and Reburial of Sh*t Needs to Be Stopped

Through the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA),¹ the U.S. Department of the Interior’ National Park Service at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado plans to repatriate bags of human feces to tribes for reburial.

NAGPRA was passed in 1990 to assist federally recognized modern tribes in claiming affiliated human remains, funerary objects, sacred entities, and materials of cultural patrimony from federally funded institutes, such as museums, national parks, and universities. Human remains and these specific types of artifacts insufficiently linked to a modern tribe through a preponderance of evidence, which included historic documents, biological evidence like DNA, archaeological data, geographic links, and oral histories, were to remain at the institutes for further research and exhibition. 

Artifacts and other materials found at sites that were not funerary objects, sacred objects or objects of cultural patrimony, regardless of the links to modern tribes, were to remain in institutions for research and exhibition. The definitions for these categories are clear. Funerary objects are “objects that, as a part of the death rite or ceremony of a culture, are reasonably believed to have been placed with individual human remains either at the time of death or later.”² Thus, for an item to be a funerary object, the object had to be placed in the grave intentionally, for an individual deceased person. 

Since 2024, regulatory changes have required institutions to consult with tribes and to accept traditional indigenous knowledge without question, prior to displaying or researching any materials found at any archaeological site that may have been at one time occupied by indigenous peoples.³

The consultation allows tribal members to name what is a funerary object, what is a sacred object, and what is an object of cultural patrimony. With a consultation first strategy, everything at a site that cannot easily be placed into one of the other two categories (i.e., sacred object or object of cultural patrimony) is being listed as a funerary object by tribal knowledge keepers. 

Artifacts and other materials found at sites that were not funerary objects, sacred objects or objects of cultural patrimony, regardless of the links to modern tribes, were to remain in institutions for research and exhibition.

Prior to 2024, these decisions were made by archaeologists based on the archaeological record, historic documentation, and ethnographic data. Then, tribes were consulted about repatriation of the materials determined to fit into these categories. 

The consultation first system has led to a list of absurdities. The latest of which include a notice of inventory completion from Colorado that identifies “bags of human feces” as “funerary objects” and, thus, subject to repatriation.⁴ From Mesa Verde National Park, Montezuma County, Colorado: 

At site 5MV640 (Spruce Tree House) “[t]he 148 associated funerary objects are 91 human-chewed fiber quids, one bag of human feces, and 56 animal bones.”
At site 5MV650 (Square Tower House) “one bag of human feces” was listed as a funerary object.
At site 5MV1200 (Long House) “46 lots of human feces” were listed as funerary objects. 
At site 5MV1452 (Badger House) “one bag human feces” was listed as a funerary object. 

There are other sites with feces listed as funerary objects. From the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, “one lot of feces” from an unknown species of animal is listed as funerary objects.⁵ The College of Marin in Kentfield, California has listed “three pieces of feces” as funerary objects.⁶ And, since the 2024 regulatory changes, fifteen sites list “coprolites”, which is the term for fossilized feces, as funerary objects, including a swamp site in Florida that includes alligator feces as funerary objects.⁷

Most recently, two notices from California’s State Office of the Bureau of Land Management in Sacramento has listed animal feces (which is referred to as scat in the notices) as funerary objects. In Lassen County, California, associated funerary included “skat” [sic].⁸ In Washoe County, Nevada “37 lots of associated funerary belongings include lithic flakes, stone tools, charcoal fragments, faunal bone, and scat. The entire collection is considered associated funerary belongings.”⁹

Even before 2024, however, some museums, universities, and government institutes were consulting with tribes and going beyond compliance with NAGPRA rules, which resulted in the loss of materials never meant for inclusion in the repatriation process. This also likely lowered the resistance to the regulatory changes in 2024. For instance, in 2007, the Burke Museum at University of Washington in Seattle, Washington listed “2 lots of rodent feces” as funerary objects.¹⁰ From the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson, a 2021 correction likely resulting from ongoing consultation with tribes, raised the number of funerary objects from “50 associated funerary objects to 83 lots of funerary objects” and within those, “one lot of coprolites” were included.¹¹

Our ability to truly understand the past–and, therefore, our shared humanity–will be buried.

One may wonder whether Native Americans really did intentionally bury their ancestors with feces. Are feces funerary objects? No archaeological evidence of this practice exists in the Americas. There are many articles on coprolites, paleofeces, and feces in the archaeological literature, but none of them point to evidence that feces were funerary objects in the Americas. 

One possibility is that the feces were collected at a different part of the site than the burials; trash heaps are often excavated. Another possibility is that human remains were treated as waste in some cultures. When human remains are commingled with trash and feces, this is actually evidence that the human bodies were also considered waste. This is often the case where cannibalism has taken place. Evidence of cannibalism and evidence of treating human remains as waste have been found in Mesa Verde National Park, where the bags of human feces mentioned above originated from. According to Katherine Brooks, in 50 events that Shaped American Indian History: An Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic: 

A large number of the middens [i.e., trash pits] excavated were identified at the base of the cliff where the residents of the cliff dwellings disposed of their refuse. Trash heaps offer insight into the foods that were eaten, the products that were used, the animals that were hunted and consumed, and even the disposal of the dead. Human remains were frequently intermixed with garbage in the trash pits.¹²

In a 1996 review of the materials held by National Park Service’s Western Archeological and Conservation Center, James Dildine wrote about the vast number of artifacts and other materials at sites which would not be subject to NAGPRA because they were not funerary objects, objects of cultural patrimony or sacred objects. He wrote that this should provide some comfort to archaeologists who are worried that NAGPRA would greatly hinder archaeological research. He wrote: 

Many of the items cataloged in relationship to burials are organic materials not intentionally placed there as part of the burial rites, but useful in making archeological determination. These “fill” items include rodent feces, unworked rock and unworked fiber.¹³

Dildine rhetorically asked: “are mice feces to be considered grave goods, especially considering they probably occur in burials as a result of scavenging for human remains?” Unfortunately, he was wrong; even rodent feces are being repatriated as funerary objects. 

Feces are useful research materials because they may contain evidence of parasites¹⁴ and past meals,¹⁵ can be used for radiocarbon dating,¹⁶ and can even be used to obtain DNA.¹⁷ When human remains are reburied, the hope for some archaeologists may have been to continue research using feces and other waste materials. Unfortunately, these materials are being taken away from researchers too, perhaps because of the truths they reveal about the past. 

The field will be lost to activists–if it has not already been lost. Narratives about America’s past will be controlled by those with no interest in the truth. 

The reasons given by tribal consultants for repatriation of feces, especially animal feces, are perhaps unknowable because tribal consultants need not provide a reason for defining materials as funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony. NAGPRA regulations, going back as far as 1995 and strengthened in 2024, advise officials involved in repatriation efforts that since sensitive cultural information is not excluded from freedom of information requests, “the best way to prevent sensitive information from being released is to not write it down in the first place.”¹⁸ They also recommend that tribes may wish to prohibit audio or video recording of consultations. Yet, in the past, there have been actions to deny evidence of cannibalism.¹⁹

Regardless of the reason for the increase in repatriation of feces, there’s clear evidence that feces–whether human or other species–are not funerary objects. By accepting the repatriation and reburial of feces, archaeologists are opening the door to even more absurd repatriations. The field will be lost to activists–if it has not already been lost. Narratives about America’s past will be controlled by those with no interest in the truth.

When all the collections–from human remains to feces–are reburied, our ability to truly understand the past–and, therefore, our shared humanity–will be buried too.