They lived, died and were buried along the banks of the Kanawha River. But the American Indians' skeletons wouldn't stay under the soil forever.
They lived, died and were buried along the banks of the Kanawha River. But the American Indians' skeletons wouldn't stay under the soil forever.
In 1963, West Virginia's first state archaeologist began a two-year excavation in Buffalo, less than a mile from the present-day Toyota plant. Crews unearthed countless artifacts and the outlines of homes and a stockade - remnants of a village where people had lived 400 to 500 years before.
They also dug up more than 500 graves.
The skeletal remains passed through several institutions. In the mid-1990s, they ended up in storage at the Ohio State University.
Over the past decade or so, some have advocated for the return and reburial of the remains - out of what they say is respect for the dead and Indian spirituality.
Now, the fate of the bones is at a critical point. Last month, Ohio State transferred legal control of the skeletal remains of about 600 American Indians to the Putnam County Commission. Commissioners want the remains to be reburied at a site near the original graves.
But some archaeologists say the reburial would wipe out the chance of future scientific discoveries about the Buffalo people.
"It's crucial to the understanding of the history of West Virginia," said Bob Maslowski, president of the Council for West Virginia Archaeology. "Basically what they want to do is destroy a lot of potential information that can eventually identify these people."
Under a 1990 federal law called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, known as NAGPRA, federally recognized tribes can reclaim human remains and artifacts from museums and universities.
Scientists have determined that the Buffalo remains are "culturally unidentifiable," meaning they cannot be linked to modern-day tribes.
County commissioners notified several federally recognized tribes, including the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the Absentee Shawnee, but none expressed interest in the remains, said County Commissioner Joe Haynes.
Next month, Haynes and Beverly Wright of the American Indian Council of West Virginia will go before the NAGPRA review committee, which will recommend how to proceed.
Archaeologists in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and elsewhere are paying close attention, Maslowski said.
"Archaeologists don't oppose repatriation," he said. "But this isn't repatriation."
Some are questioning the legality and ethics of reburying the remains before DNA analysis can be done to determine their cultural identification, he said. He believes the remains should go to the state's new Grave Creek Mound archaeological collections facility, where they could be preserved while technology advances.
"This could turn out to be a major disaster for the County Commission," he said. "I don't think the Putnam County Commission realizes what they've gotten into. It could be a long, drawn-out, expensive process."
Some others also are concerned about the Buffalo reburials.
"The County Commission is not literate in NAGPRA law," said David Cremeans, president of the Native American Indian Federation in Huntington.
Cremeans said he agrees with the commission that the remains should be reburied: "I'm just really concerned that they're not going to be handled properly."
Cremeans, who is of Cherokee descent, questioned why Wright's group should be the one to represent Indians' interest.
Wright did not return messages seeking comment.
"Each tribe has its own spiritual beliefs," Cremeans said. "They were human beings. They should be treated with respect based on the culture of their own people."
Haynes admits he is no expert on NAGPRA. County officials are acting as "facilitators," and will follow whatever advice the national review committee gives, he said. They want to keep the reburial completely out of the public eye, out of respect for the dead.
"We're by no means trying to dictate," he said.
'They were going in the trash'
Efforts to rebury the Buffalo people are not new. Various Indian groups, Putnam residents, Buffalo town officials and even the Buffalo United Methodist Church have campaigned for their return.
The excavation in the early 1960s uncovered numerous artifacts: tools, jewelry, thousands of mussel shells.
They lived, died and were buried along the banks of the Kanawha River. But the American Indians' skeletons wouldn't stay under the soil forever.
In 1963, West Virginia's first state archaeologist began a two-year excavation in Buffalo, less than a mile from the present-day Toyota plant. Crews unearthed countless artifacts and the outlines of homes and a stockade - remnants of a village where people had lived 400 to 500 years before.
They also dug up more than 500 graves.
The skeletal remains passed through several institutions. In the mid-1990s, they ended up in storage at the Ohio State University.
Over the past decade or so, some have advocated for the return and reburial of the remains - out of what they say is respect for the dead and Indian spirituality.
Now, the fate of the bones is at a critical point. Last month, Ohio State transferred legal control of the skeletal remains of about 600 American Indians to the Putnam County Commission. Commissioners want the remains to be reburied at a site near the original graves.
But some archaeologists say the reburial would wipe out the chance of future scientific discoveries about the Buffalo people.
"It's crucial to the understanding of the history of West Virginia," said Bob Maslowski, president of the Council for West Virginia Archaeology. "Basically what they want to do is destroy a lot of potential information that can eventually identify these people."
Under a 1990 federal law called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, known as NAGPRA, federally recognized tribes can reclaim human remains and artifacts from museums and universities.
Scientists have determined that the Buffalo remains are "culturally unidentifiable," meaning they cannot be linked to modern-day tribes.
County commissioners notified several federally recognized tribes, including the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the Absentee Shawnee, but none expressed interest in the remains, said County Commissioner Joe Haynes.
Next month, Haynes and Beverly Wright of the American Indian Council of West Virginia will go before the NAGPRA review committee, which will recommend how to proceed.
Archaeologists in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and elsewhere are paying close attention, Maslowski said.
"Archaeologists don't oppose repatriation," he said. "But this isn't repatriation."
Some are questioning the legality and ethics of reburying the remains before DNA analysis can be done to determine their cultural identification, he said. He believes the remains should go to the state's new Grave Creek Mound archaeological collections facility, where they could be preserved while technology advances.
"This could turn out to be a major disaster for the County Commission," he said. "I don't think the Putnam County Commission realizes what they've gotten into. It could be a long, drawn-out, expensive process."
Some others also are concerned about the Buffalo reburials.
"The County Commission is not literate in NAGPRA law," said David Cremeans, president of the Native American Indian Federation in Huntington.
Cremeans said he agrees with the commission that the remains should be reburied: "I'm just really concerned that they're not going to be handled properly."
Cremeans, who is of Cherokee descent, questioned why Wright's group should be the one to represent Indians' interest.
Wright did not return messages seeking comment.
"Each tribe has its own spiritual beliefs," Cremeans said. "They were human beings. They should be treated with respect based on the culture of their own people."
Haynes admits he is no expert on NAGPRA. County officials are acting as "facilitators," and will follow whatever advice the national review committee gives, he said. They want to keep the reburial completely out of the public eye, out of respect for the dead.
"We're by no means trying to dictate," he said.
'They were going in the trash'
Efforts to rebury the Buffalo people are not new. Various Indian groups, Putnam residents, Buffalo town officials and even the Buffalo United Methodist Church have campaigned for their return.
The excavation in the early 1960s uncovered numerous artifacts: tools, jewelry, thousands of mussel shells.
Then-state archaeologist Dr. Edward McMichael led the dig, fearing that development would destroy any future chance to study the site. College students, volunteers and men on public assistance worked on the site, using earth-moving equipment borrowed from the state's Division of Highways.
So how did the skeletal remains end up at Ohio State?
"They had passed through a number of hands, and perhaps as many as three universities before they ended up at University of Toledo," said Earle Holland, a spokesman for Ohio State.
Ohio State anthropology professor Paul Sciulli learned that the remains were in danger of being lost forever.
"They were going in the trash, literally," said Clark Larsen, chair of the anthropology department of Ohio State.
Sciulli arranged to bring the remains to his university in Columbus, where they still sit in storage.
About seven years ago, there was serious talk in Buffalo of returning the remains to Putnam County. American Electric Power today owns the site. Both the town of Buffalo and a national group called the Archaeological Conservancy had asked the to company donate the 25-acre site to them.
Some people wanted to rebury the remains, create a memorial and build an educational center. Conservancy representatives, including Maslowski, wanted to preserve the site, and keep the skeletal remains in storage for future study.
None of those plans ever came to fruition.
Haynes, who is the community relations manager at AEP's John Amos power plant, said he got interested in the issue around 2001. He had learned that AEP owned the site of the excavation. (The company did not own the site when McMichael's crews excavated in the 1960s.)
"That's what piqued my interest," he said. "I just wanted to see how AEP was being portrayed."
Ethical questions
When Haynes signed the letter that legally transferred control of the remains to the county, he called the return "the right thing to do."
Many American Indians feel that scientists and others have treated the remains of their ancestors with disrespect - as subhuman specimens, not human beings.
While scientists have long studied the skeletons that belong to people of other cultures, they often reburied those, said Tim McKeown, a program coordinator at the national NAGPRA office.
"With Native American remains, often they would wind up in museum collections," he said.
Congress unanimously passed the final version of the NAGPRA law.
"It was a compromise where there was no compromise before between scientists and Native Americans," said Larsen of Ohio State. "And it was important."
Maslowski points out that archaeologists study the skeletons of many groups of people.
"Now, it's common practice to analyze European cemeteries," he said. "If you look at the Smithsonian, they have African-American, European remains."
Haynes questioned why some are now saying the remains hold the key to critical scientific evidence: "They've had 40 years to study them," he said.
But money is not always available for research, Maslowski said. And West Virginia never had proper storage space for the remains until the new facility in Moundsville was built, he said.
Earlier this month, Maslowski wrote to the state's Division of Culture and History, asking them to step in. Under NAGPRA, return of remains can be delayed if "such items are indispensable for completion of a specific scientific study, the outcome of which would be of major benefit to the United States."
But state Culture and History Commissioner Randall Reid-Smith told Maslowski that his agency was not aware of any ongoing or imminent research that would involve the Buffalo remains.
Haynes said the archaeologists "want to put these people on display, and we want to put them back in their permanent resting place."
"They don't see the value to reburying people," Haynes said. "And I think there's an intrinsic value to putting people back in their final resting ground, whether they died 10 years ago or 600 years ago."
To contact staff writer Alison Knezevich, use e-mail or call 348-1240.
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