Susquehannock or Iroquois? Using Human and Animal Bones to Understand Cultural Identity April 16, 2009

Sponsored by the Michigan Archaeological Society. The speaker will be Dr. April Beisaw from Heidelberg College in Tiffin, OH. The title of her talk is "Susquehannock or Iroquois? Using Human and Animal Bones to Understand Cultural Identity"

In the 1960s, highway construction caused the grading of a knoll in New York State. That knoll contained over 200 human burials and artifacts spanning 5,000 years. The rushed nature of the excavation led to substandard record keeping and the artifacts sat virtually unstudied for 35 years. With the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, interest in the site was renewed. The Onondaga Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy sought to claim the remains for repatriation but the site may have been home to another group, the Susquehannock. Pottery and stone tool analysis failed to discern which culture the site belonged to but the bones provided a convincing answer, without DNA.

For more information about the Michigan Archaeology Society visit: www.miarch.com