Notice2022-18738
Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural Items: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, Mobile, AL
Primary source
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Published
August 31, 2022
Issuing agencies
Interior DepartmentNational Park Service
Abstract
In accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, intends to repatriate certain cultural items that meet the definition of unassociated funerary objects and that have a cultural affiliation with the Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations in this notice. The cultural items were removed from Troup County, GA.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 87 Issue 168 (Wednesday, August 31, 2022)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 168 (Wednesday, August 31, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 53487-53488]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2022-18738]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
National Park Service
[NPS-WASO-NAGPRA-NPS0034426; PPWOCRADN0-PCU00RP14.R50000]
Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural Items: U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, Mobile District, Mobile, AL
AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile
District, intends to repatriate certain cultural items that meet the
definition of unassociated funerary objects and that have a cultural
affiliation with the Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations in
this notice. The cultural items were removed from Troup County, GA.
DATES: Repatriation of the cultural items in this notice may occur on
or after September 30, 2022.
ADDRESSES: Ms. Alexandria Smith, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile
District, 109 St. Joseph Street, P.O. Box 2288, Mobile, AL 36628-0001,
telephone (251) 690-2728, email <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#a3e2cfc6dbc2cdc7d1cac28ded8df0cecad7cbe3d6d0c2c0c68dc2d1ceda8dcecacf"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="e2a38e879a838c86908b83ccacccb18f8b968aa29791838187cc83908f9bcc8f8b8e">[email protected]</span></a>.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This notice is published as part of the
National Park Service's administrative responsibilities under NAGPRA.
The determinations in this notice are the sole responsibility of the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District. The National Park
Service is not responsible for the determinations in this notice.
Additional information on the determinations in this notice, including
the results of consultation, can be found in the summary or related
records held by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District.
Description
Between 1966 and 1968, the University of Georgia conducted
excavations at the Burnt Village Site (9TP9), in Troup County, GA, in
advance of the construction and subsequent inundation of the West Point
Lake reservoir. Human remains were identified in a minimum of 20
individual grave locations, but due to preservation issues, an unknown
number of individuals were uncovered but not exhumed.
Feature 153 was documented as a burial location. The collection
from the Burnt Village site, which has been housed at the University of
Georgia since the excavation, contains objects from Feature 153, but no
human remains. Based on this circumstantial evidence, the human remains
associated with these objects were never removed from the Burnt Village
Site.
The 95 objects under the control of Mobile District known to
originate from Feature 153 include nine glass fragments, two lots of
beads, nine individual beads (tube and seed), two lots of wood/
charcoal, five charred pieces of wood, one lot of charred seeds, three
brass fragments, one iron fragment, one lead fragment, one unidentified
metal fragment, 45 ceramic sherds, one lot of daub, six individual
pieces of daub, two pieces of quartz, one lot of faunal remains, three
individual faunal skeletal elements, and three unmodified rocks.
Cultural Affiliation
The cultural items in this notice are connected to one or more
identifiable earlier groups, tribes, peoples, or cultures. There is a
relationship of shared group identity between the identifiable earlier
groups, tribes, peoples, or cultures and one or more Indian Tribes or
Native Hawaiian organizations. The following types of information were
used to reasonably trace this relationship: geographical,
archeological, linguistic, folkloric, oral traditional, historical, and
expert opinion. Geographically, the Burnt Village site is the location
of the historically known Creek Town of Okfuskeneena. The site is
located within established Creek Indian territory on the western bank
of the central Chattahoochee River in Troup County, GA. This area is
both within treaty-designated Creek lands, and land known through
historic and ethnographic accounts as being home to the Creek Indians.
Archeological investigations of the site confirmed historical accounts
of the village location, which was recorded as being attacked on
September 27, 1793, by white settlers. Evidence includes diagnostic
artifacts that correspond to those expected and described in historical
accounts. Linguistic and folkloric evidence for settlements in the area
reflect a Creek occupation of the central Chattahoochee River Valley,
including the area of the Burnt Village site.
Historic accounts indicate that the survivors of Creek Town of
Okfuskeneena fled and were welcomed into neighboring Creek polities,
which eventually became part of the Creek Confederations. Oral
traditional information provided by tribal members further demonstrates
that the descendants of the Town of Okfuskeneena currently reside
within, and are part of, The Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
Determinations
Pursuant to NAGPRA and its implementing regulations, and after
consultation with the appropriate Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian
organizations, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, has
determined that:
<bullet> The 95 cultural items described above are reasonably
believed to have been placed with or near individual human remains at
the time of death or later as part of the death rite or ceremony and
are believed, by a preponderance of the evidence, to have
[[Page 53488]]
been removed from a specific burial site of a Native American
individual.
<bullet> There is a relationship of shared group identity that can
be reasonably traced between the cultural items and The Muscogee
(Creek) Nation.
Requests for Repatriation
Additional, written requests for repatriation of the cultural items
in this notice must be sent to Ms. Alexandria Smith, U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, Mobile District, 109 St. Joseph Street, P.O. Box 2288,
Mobile, AL 36628-0001, telephone (251) 690-2728, email
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#4b0a272e332a252f39222a6505651826223f230b3e382a282e652a39263265262227"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="efae838a978e818b9d868ec1a1c1bc82869b87af9a9c8e8c8ac18e9d8296c1828683">[email protected]</span></a>. Requests for repatriation may be
submitted by any lineal descendant, Indian Tribe, or Native Hawaiian
organization not identified in this notice who shows, by a
preponderance of the evidence, that the requestor is a lineal
descendant or a culturally affiliated Indian Tribe or Native Hawaiian
organization.
Repatriation of the cultural items in this notice to a requestor
may occur on or after September 30, 2022. If competing requests for
repatriation are received, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile
District, must determine the most appropriate requestor prior to
repatriation. Requests for joint repatriation of the cultural items are
considered a single request and not competing requests. The U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, is responsible for sending a copy
of this notice to the Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations
identified in this notice.
Authority: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,
25 U.S.C. 3003, and the implementing regulations, 43 CFR 10.8, 10.10,
and 10.14.
Dated: August 24, 2022.
Melanie O'Brien,
Manager, National NAGPRA Program.
[FR Doc. 2022-18738 Filed 8-30-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4312-52-P
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