The Wichita and Affiliated Tribes have a long history of occupation in what is now known as Oklahoma. This includes evidence of habitations along Camp Creek and Sugar Creek near Anadarko in Caddo County. Here Wichita peoples camped, built grass houses and arbors, and held social gatherings leading up to and following the passing of the General Allotment Act in 1887. After allotment, communal camp and dance grounds were especially important focal points for community building. These places, such as the ichaskhah camp and dance ground discussed in this article, are critical to understanding the multigenerational connections between ancestral and living Wichita peoples. This history is also important to the community today. However, archaeological research of the Allotment period is exceptionally rare in this region. By using collaborative and Indigenous archaeological methodologies, this work documents the complexities of these places, challenging traditional assumptions of allotment-era cultural loss and assimilation.

Many Indigenous groups in Taiwan, including the Bunun, inhabited remote mountainous regions. Beginning in the 1930s, all mountain settlements were relocated to lower-lying areas by the colonial authorities. These groups lost the territories where they used to hunt, practice slash-and-burn agriculture, and carry out other social and cultural practices. Having being separated from their ancestral lands for decades, their knowledge of their former settlements and traditional ways of life is gradually disappearing. In recent years, there is a tendency among the younger generation of Indigenous people to organize and participate in roots-seeking expeditions. As their knowledge about the former settlements is limited, they seek help from the elderly—and archaeologists. Since 2014, I have collaborated with Bunun communities, recording their ancestors’ lands in the Lakulaku River Basin by joining archaeological surveys on roots-seeking trips. During these surveys, I had to learn Bunun values and gain knowledge of the Lakulaku River Basin via the bodily experience of moving through and being in the landscape with its traditional inhabitants. By applying remote-sensing technologies such as airborne lidar in our surveys, our team managed to identify and record settlements that were unfamiliar to the Bunun.

In much of the Western world, collaborative research undertaken by settler archaeologists readily lends itself, at least in part, to a continuation of the colonial project. Yet, against this backdrop, Australia's First Nations’ peoples continue to work with researchers and to drive systemic change in research practice. Community-engaged archaeology, defined here as codeveloped studies of ancestral places (following Schaepe et al. 2017), is directed to improving relationships between Indigenous peoples and archaeologists. Even so, the practice of archaeology with and for nonsettler communities remains underdeveloped with regard to institutional priorities and funding agency bureaucracies. Here, we (Mirarr Traditional Owners, Mirarr employees, and settler archaeologist researchers) reflect on these issues as part of our ongoing research on the ochres and bim (rock art) of the well-known Madjedbebe rockshelter in the Alligator Rivers region, Northern Territory, Australia.

In the province of Ontario, Canada, it is estimated that 80% of archaeological sites are Indigenous, yet there are very few Indigenous archaeologists involved in management and decision-making about Indigenous heritage. Systemic barriers, particularly around licensing and regulations for curatorial facilities, continue to prevent Indigenous people from directly managing and protecting their own cultural heritage. Recognizing that Indigenous communities in northeastern Ontario have had little exposure or opportunity to learn about archaeology, for several years we have been involved in educational programs to train Indigenous youth, staff in First Nations government offices, and others. We illustrate with two examples: the monitor training program undertaken in northeastern Ontario and a project to catalog artifacts from the legacy collection from the La Cloche site.

In Mexico, archaeological heritage belongs to all members of society, according to section XXV of Article 73 of the Mexican Constitution and Article 27 of the federal law on monuments and archaeological sites. The Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) was founded in 1939 as a federal government agency for the research, protection, and dissemination of archaeological heritage. Although this heritage belongs to all, stringent rules and procedures create an unequal relationship between career professionals and the diverse communities interested in the past (i.e., collectors, local museums, descendant communities). It is long due to begin practicing an inclusive archaeology that considers all the various knowledge systems (i.e., academic, technical, local, and traditional) of the communities interested in the past. Here, we describe case studies from Sonora, Mexico, to propose the implementation of several far-reaching activities with artifact collectors, Indigenous communities, researchers, archaeologists, and INAH Sonora authorities. Our pilot proposal needs to be implemented in other areas of Mexico that continue to prioritize archaeological narratives over other narratives about our past.

For tribes whose preservation values and mitigation strategies for managing cultural heritage are built on an ethic of avoidance and minimal disturbance, geophysical technologies can be key components of the research design. These technologies, most notably ground-penetrating radar, have been used with great success in identifying and evaluating the depth, extent, and composition of some of those resources for heritage research and management purposes, easing tensions when working with sensitive ancestral places. Additionally, research in archaeological geophysics has shifted from feature finding in order to excavate targets of interest to the recognition that geophysical survey can provide data and interpretations for whole sites and landscapes complementary to or beyond that of excavation, especially regarding the intactness and sensitivity of cultural heritage sites. This use of geophysics as a primary method for research rather than a precursor to archaeological research has empowered tribes with another tool to advocate for low-impact investigation of ancestral sites and landscapes that position tribes as pro-science. Geophysical technologies provide scientifically rigorous yet minimally impactful strategies for investigating heritage while satisfying the requirements of academic and compliance archaeology in ways that can also be culturally appropriate for a much broader spectrum of tribal cultural heritage under consideration.

Although remote sensing techniques are increasingly becoming ubiquitous within archaeological research, their proper and ethical use has rarely been critically examined, particularly among Native American communities. Potential ethical challenges are outlined, along with suggested changes to archaeological frameworks that will better address Native American concerns. These changes center on a revised view of remote sensing instruments as being potentially invasive and extractive, even if nondestructive. Understanding the potentially invasive and extractive nature of these tools and methods, archaeologists are urged to work closely with Native/Indigenous communities to create more holistic practices that include community knowledge holders and to actively discourage stereotypes that pit archaeologists and Native/Indigenous communities against one another. Considering the speed at which remote sensing is being used in archaeology, these changes need to be embraced as soon as possible so that future work can be conducted in an ethical manner.

Archaeologists have long been called on to use geophysical techniques to locate unmarked graves in both archaeological and forensic contexts. Although these techniques—primarily ground-penetrating radar (GPR)—have demonstrated efficacy in this application, there are fewer examples of studies driven by Indigenous community needs. In North America, the location of ancestors and burial grounds is a priority for most Indigenous communities. We argue that when these Indigenous voices are equitably included in research design, the practice of remote sensing changes and more meaningful collaborations ensue. Drawing on Indigenous archaeology and heart-centered practices, we argue that remote-sensing survey methodologies, and the subsequent narratives produced, need to change. These approaches change both researchers’ and Indigenous communities’ relationships to the work and allow for the inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) in interpretation. In this article, we discuss this underexplored research trajectory, explain how it relates to modern GPR surveys for unmarked graves, and present the results from a survey conducted at the request of the Chipewyan Prairie First Nation. Although local in nature, we discuss potential benefits and challenges of Indigenous remote sensing collaborations, and we engage larger conversations happening in Indigenous communities around the ways these methods can contribute to reconciliation and decolonization.

The Huron-Wendat have had their ancestors’ villages and burial sites investigated archaeologically for over 170 years. Past and ongoing land disturbance and invasive archaeological excavation have erased dozens of Huron-Wendat village sites in Ontario, hindering Huron-Wendat duty to care for their ancestors. Consequently, over the last 20 years, in addition to large-scale repatriation of ancestral remains, the Huron-Wendat have requested that archaeologists make every effort to avoid any further excavation of ancestral sites. This poses a new challenge for archaeologists about how to learn about the Huron-Wendat past with minimal disturbance to ancestral sites. Honoring the cultural responsibilities of the Huron-Wendat, the authors have employed minimally invasive remote sensing methods of investigation on Ahatsistari, a forested early seventeenth-century Huron-Wendat village site in Simcoe County, Ontario. Remote sensing methods (e.g., magnetic susceptibility survey, high-resolution soil chemistry sampling, and metal detector survey) have revealed village limits and the possible location and orientation of longhouses, providing essential information in support of the Huron-Wendat imperative to find, assess, and preserve as many of their archaeological sites as possible. This is to protect the ancestors, learn from the ancestors, and preserve ancestral sites and related landscapes for future generations.

Were the ancient Coast Salish farmers? Conventional anthropological wisdom asserts that the ethnographically known communities of the Northwest Coast of North America were “complex hunter-fisher-gatherers” who lacked any form of concerted plant food cultivation and production. Despite decades of extensive ethnobotanical and paleoethnobotanical study throughout the Pacific Northwest demonstrating the contrary, this “classic anomaly” is still a cornerstone of anthropological and archaeological canons. The recent discovery of a spectacularly preserved wetland wapato (Indian potato, Sagittaria latifolia) garden, built 3,800 years ago in Katzie traditional territory near Vancouver, British Columbia, has helped recast this picture, alongside evidence for other forms of resource management practiced by Northwest Coast peoples. This article examines “origins of agriculture” stories from three distinctive perspectives: Coast Salish Katzie people who cultivated wapato for millennia; settlers who colonized the Fraser River Delta historically, bringing with them their own ideas about what constitutes farming; and archaeologists, who are challenged by these data to reevaluate their own understandings of these cultural constructs. These perspectives have critical bearing on the historical appropriation of lands and waterways by settler communities in British Columbia as well as contemporary questions of sovereignty and stewardship in this region and well beyond.

For the past six years, the Pueblo of Pojoaque and University of Colorado Boulder have been working together to investigate ancestral sites on and adjacent to Pojoaque land. Through our partnership, we believe we have learned some important lessons about the potential of archaeology for tribal communities, how archaeologists and tribal members can work together as coinvestigators, how such partnerships improve archaeological practice, and how the incorporation of traditional knowledge leads to better archaeology in both its humanistic and scientific dimensions. In addition, we believe it is a more sustainable and ethical model to engage the cultures in which archaeologists work. In this article, we share the story of our partnership, consider how it relates to existing perspectives on archaeology and Native communities, present a few results from our work at the ancestral site of K'uuyemugeh, and offer some reflections on our efforts to put a partnership model into practice.

Post-colonial thought affects the heart of Western science. Although there is comparatively little engagement with post-colonial theory in the fields traditionally concerned with human origins or human evolution, it should be of critical importance to Palaeolithic archaeology and human evolutionary studies. Examination of recent literature dealing with so-called modern human origins highlights key neglected aspects of this discourse, namely the status of nature and rationality, and demonstrates how these aspects are entangled with ongoing political and colonial influences on the production of knowledge.

Archaeological investigation in India begins conventionally with the interest of Europeans. But India's own historical texts reveal examples of indigenous, curiosity-driven fieldwork as early as the sixteenth century. Describing the systematic search for lost sacred images and sites in places associated with Krishna's earthly pastimes, the author makes a spirited case for regarding this activity as real archaeology, comparing it with today's heritage projects.

The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), the Smithsonian Institution’s new facility on the National Mall in Washington DC, challenges the very notion of what constitutes a museum. Probably the most theoretically informed museum in North America, this is no shrine to the past: it is a museum that claims both past and present to shape a decolonised future for Indigenous populations.