[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 63 (Monday, April 2, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 19691-19694]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-7864]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service

[2253-665]


Notice of Inventory Completion: Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of 
Natural History, Norman, OK

AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History has completed 
an inventory of human remains and associated funerary objects, in 
consultation with the appropriate Indian tribes, and has determined 
that there is a cultural affiliation between the human remains and 
associated funerary objects and present-day Indian tribes. 
Representatives of any Indian tribe that believes itself to be 
culturally affiliated with the human remains and associated funerary 
objects may contact the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. 
Repatriation of the human remains and associated funerary objects

[[Page 19692]]

to the Indian tribes stated below may occur if no additional claimants 
come forward.

DATES: Representatives of any Indian tribe that believes it has a 
cultural affiliation with the human remains and associated funerary 
objects should contact the museum at the address below by May 2, 2012.

ADDRESSES: Dr. Michael Mares, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural 
History, 2401 Chautauqua, Norman, OK 73072, telephone (405) 325-8978.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Notice is here given in accordance with the 
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), 25 
U.S.C. 3003, of the completion of an inventory of human remains and 
associated funerary objects in the possession of the Sam Noble Oklahoma 
Museum of Natural History, Norman, OK. The human remains and associated 
funerary objects were removed from Le Flore County, OK.
    This notice is published as part of the National Park Service's 
administrative responsibilities under NAGPRA, 25 U.S.C. 3003(d)(3). The 
determinations in this notice are the sole responsibility of the 
museum, institution or Federal agency that has control of the Native 
American human remains and associated funerary objects. The National 
Park Service is not responsible for the determinations in this notice.

Consultation

    A detailed assessment of the human remains was made by the Sam 
Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History professional staff in 
consultation with the Oklahoma State Archeologist and representatives 
of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes 
(Wichita, Keechi, Waco & Tawakonie), Oklahoma. Representatives of the 
Osage Nation, Oklahoma, (formerly the Osage Tribe) and the Tunica-
Biloxi Indian Tribe of Louisiana were also contacted, but did not 
express an interest in being a part of the NAGPRA consultation.

History and Description of the Remains

    From 1936 to 1937, human remains representing, at minimum, 544 
individuals were removed from the Craig Mound, in Le Flore County, OK. 
The mound site was excavated by the Works Progress Administration 
(WPA), under the direction of the University of Oklahoma. Excavated 
items were brought to the University of Oklahoma laboratory for 
processing and cataloging. The human remains were deposited at the 
University of Oklahoma, whose collections were subsequently controlled 
and maintained by the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. No 
known individuals were identified.
    Many of the associated funerary objects were divided between the 
WPA project's funding institutions. The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of 
Natural History has 78,485 associated funerary objects, comprised of: 
963 points, 92 knives/knife fragments, 16 drills/perforator fragments, 
4 flake tools, 9 flakes, 3 hammerstones, 2 manos/fragments, 36 blade 
fragments, 16 celt fragments, 5 mace fragments, 7 spud fragments, 1 
monolithic ax handle, 1 boatstone, 4 groundstone fragments, 168 
earspools/fragments, 14 ear discs, 8 rings for earspools/ear discs, 1 
iron pyrite mass (ear plug?), 64 pendants/fragments, 21 pipes/
fragments, 58 pottery vessels, 6,018 pottery sherds, 1 unidentified 
ceramic object, 43 baked clay/daub, 3,806 shell fragments (56 worked), 
692 shells (engraved, including gorget and cup fragments), 1 spoon, 1 
shell figurine, 63,892 beads, 17 bone awls, 1 bone digging stick 
fragment, 1 bird effigy (bone), 479 animal bone fragments (16 polished/
worked), 290 copper fragments/samples, 1 copper maskette, 6 copper 
pins/fragments, 2 copper plates, 4 copper discs, 206 pigment samples, 
31 clay samples, 3 ash samples, 1 seed, 6 soil samples, 1 litter post 
impression (soil matrix), 131 material samples (textile/organic/
matting/basketry/cordage), 1 fused mass of cremation and green froth, 2 
froth fragments, 9 clinkers/slag, 3 matting impressions, 8 human hair 
samples, 10 leather/hide samples, 35 charcoal samples, 65 wood samples, 
5 cedar poles, 2 wood effigy head/faces, 1 wood mask, 1 wood stick with 
red pigment, 1 hematite discoid, 1 polishing stone, 55 galena, 3 
hematite, 1 limestone, 1 mastodon tooth fragment, 1 fossil, 20 mica, 7 
quartz, and 1,126 non-cultural rocks.
    The burial lots from Craig Mound (site 34Lf40) contain sizeable 
quantities of funerary offerings and relics associated with religious 
practices of the Spiro phase (A.D. 1350-1450) people. These items are 
clearly of prehistoric manufacture and point to the preponderance of 
burials at Craig Mound being of prehistoric Native American origin. 
Cultural affiliation and designated tribal consultations have been 
derived through the archeological record, ethnohistoric and 
ethnographic data on Native American territories and homelands as 
documented by Europeans at the time of initial contact, and through 
tribal oral histories.
    There are no lineal descendants for the prehistoric inhabitants of 
Craig Mound. Ceremonial use of the site was abandoned by circa A.D. 
1450. The area surrounding this site continued to be occupied by Spiro 
descendents and, intermittently, by other native immigrants into the 
seventeenth century. By the time of European exploration in this area 
(the eighteenth century), there were no residents at the Craig Mound 
site, although various groups (e.g., Caddo, Osage and Wichita) were 
living nearby. Thus, establishing the cultural affiliation for the 
residents of Craig Mound must be derived from the archeological record, 
tribal oral histories and logical inference.
    Since the 1950s, the term ``Caddoan'' has been used by 
archeologists to refer to the cultural tradition associated with the 
Spiro phase people and mound building groups in eastern Oklahoma. In 
other words, this term refers to a distinct set of material culture 
attributes, rather than the Caddoan language family. South of the 
Ouachita Mountains in Oklahoma, the term ``Caddo'' is more widely 
embraced due to historic continuity and direct lineal relationship 
between the archeological record and historic European encounters with 
the Caddo. North of the Ouachita Mountains, especially in the Arkansas 
River Basin, no such continuity exists, and the term ``Caddoan'' 
remains more applicable.
    The origins of the Spiro culture are linked archeologically to the 
preceding inhabitants of the area (Fourche Maline), based on material 
culture and Coles Creek ceramics from the lower Arkansas River valley 
in early grave lots at the Craig Mound site. Exotic goods and relics 
were transported to the site throughout the ceremonial center's period 
of use (circa A.D. 850-1450). While their presence reflects interaction 
between the inhabitants of Craig Mound and groups from other regions, 
they do not prove a direct cultural affiliation of any of these groups 
with these sites. Thus, the Spiro or other Arkansas River Basin 
individuals buried at Craig Mound are considered local, and are not 
culturally affiliated with more distant groups.
    Similarities exist in the ceremonial practices of groups occupying 
the Arkansas River and Red River drainages. However, there are also 
significant distinctions as well. Arkansas River drainage ceremonial 
sites, including Craig Mound, tend to have more formalized layouts 
around a distinct plaza area, which is absent for Caddo sites south of 
the Ouachita Mountains in Oklahoma. Although the Caddo did practice 
mound-building, the practice of accretional interment of deceased 
individuals on common floors in

[[Page 19693]]

multiple-lobed burial mounds in the Arkansas River drainage system 
(like at Craig Mound) is absent in the Red River drainage. In the Red 
River drainage (occupied by Caddo people), burials in mounds were 
commonly in shaft tombs dug into these mounds. Other cultural practices 
present in the Arkansas River drainage are also absent in the 
temporally subsequent Red River sites (such as a unique form of fronto-
occipital cranial deformation, and the use of T-shaped platform pipes). 
These distinctions have resulted in archeologists acknowledging that 
the Arkansas and Red River groups may share material expressions of a 
common political/religious practice, but that they cannot be seen as 
necessarily representing groups that are directly related to one 
another.
    Historically identified tribes that have been archeologically 
documented as present prior to and at historic contact (or somewhat 
later) in eastern Oklahoma include the Caddo and the Wichita. Mound 
building groups of the prehistoric and historic Caddo occupied 
southwest Arkansas, northeast and east Texas, northwest Louisiana and 
southeast Oklahoma. Villages thought to be part of the Kadohadacho 
confederacy were encountered by Hernando de Soto in the vicinity of Hot 
Springs in 1541. There are also numerous encounters by the French and 
Spanish with various groups of the Kadohadacho, Natchitoches, and 
Hasinai confederacies from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries in 
the region. While there appears to be a direct link between the late 
prehistoric village and mound sites south of the Ouachita Mountains in 
southeast Oklahoma and the Caddo, there are no early historically 
documented Caddo villages in southeast Oklahoma. Despite the presence 
of ceramics from the Red River interred with burials at Craig Mound, 
there is no historical evidence to support the presence of the Caddo 
north of the Ouachita Mountains in eastern Oklahoma.
    Oral histories of the Caddo and Wichita contain numerous myths and 
legends with symbolic referents that also are found in the iconographic 
imagery at the Craig Mound site. However, this imagery is expansive 
throughout many late prehistoric eastern U.S. cultures and, thus, 
cannot be exclusively tied to the Craig Mound site. There are also no 
specific legends or myths from either tribe that can be directly 
related to the sites in the Arkansas River valley.
    The Wichita is a general term used to refer to a number of 
societies encountered by the Spanish and, later, the French in Kansas 
and Oklahoma. By historic times, the Wichita were semi-nomadic bison 
hunters/farmers who did not practice mound building. Various groups of 
the Wichita met with the Frenchman, Bernard de La Harpe, in 1719, 
somewhere north of the Arkansas River. The 1937 Indian and Pioneer 
history map drafted by Tom Meagher depicts a number of historic 
Tawakonie villages in the Three Forks area near Muskogee, Oklahoma 
(some 55 miles west of the Craig Mound site). The Tawakonie represent 
one of the Wichita subgroups, thus giving some credence to the historic 
presence of the Wichita in the eastern Arkansas River basin. It has 
been proposed that the Fort Coffee phase (circa A. D. 1450-1660) 
represents the presence of the Kichai in eastern Oklahoma in the 
sixteenth- seventeenth centuries. They may represent a Plains Village 
society that moved east to escape prolonged droughts in south-central 
Oklahoma. From the archeological data, it appears that the Kichai 
became integrated with Spiro phase people. However, the Kichai moved 
from the area and by the eighteenth century were found on the Red 
River, upstream from known Caddo settlements. The Kichai were socially 
tied to the Wichita tribe during historic times, and were formally 
included with the Wichita through a treaty agreement with the U.S. 
Government in 1835.
    Arkansas researchers suggest that the ``Tula'' encountered by 
Hernando de Soto in 1541, somewhere between Ozark and Fort Smith in the 
Arkansas River Valley, were remnants of the Fort Coffee phase. One 
problem with this model is that the Tula encountered by DeSoto 
practiced an extreme form of cranial modification similar to that noted 
on some Spiro individuals. By contrast, to date, no Fort Coffee phase 
remains have been found that exhibit this modification. As the ties 
between the historically identified Kichai of northeast Texas and the 
Fort Coffee phase are material culture-based, there is not a direct 
cultural affiliation that can be further qualified by historic 
documentation or tribal histories. However, it is clear that a Wichita 
and Kichai presence in eastern Oklahoma may extend back into 
prehistoric time.
    DNA and craniometrical data have been used to derive some degree of 
biological relationship between prehistoric populations and known 
historic tribes. Regrettably, no such data exists for Craig Mound. 
There is a general acknowledgement that there is some commonality among 
late prehistoric Caddoan and Plains Village populations on the Southern 
Great Plains and that these may relate to known groups such as the 
Caddo and Wichita. Further refinement to establish a biological 
relationship between the Craig Mound and historically identified tribes 
would require extensive sampling and measurement of the Spiro phase 
skeletal population, as well as comparative data for other prehistoric 
and historic populations.
    Archeologically, the material culture and practice of the Craig 
Mound residents resembles some of those of the Caddo, but there are 
also distinct differences. Historically, the Wichita/Kichai appear to 
have resided in the Arkansas River valley in the area of Craig Mound at 
the time of internment, although there is no direct evidence to support 
this (archeologically or historically). This evidence, when paired with 
the extensive literature referring to these residents as Caddoan, has 
led the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History to determine the 
cultural affiliation of these human remains and associated funerary 
objects to the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma and the Wichita and Affiliated 
Tribes (Wichita, Keechi, Waco & Tawakonie), Oklahoma.

Determinations Made by the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History

    Officials of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History have 
determined that:
    <bullet> Pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001(9), the human remains described 
in this notice represent the physical remains of 544 individuals of 
Native American ancestry.
    <bullet> Pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001(3)(A), the 78,485 objects 
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.
    <bullet> Pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001(2), there is a relationship of 
shared group identity that can be reasonably traced between the Native 
American human remains and associated funerary objects is to the Caddo 
Nation of Oklahoma and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes (Wichita, 
Keechi, Waco & Tawakonie), Oklahoma.

Additional Requestors and Disposition

    Representatives of any Indian tribe that believes itself to be 
culturally affiliated with the human remains and associated funerary 
objects should contact Dr. Michael Mares, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of 
Natural History, 2401 Chautauqua Ave, Norman, Oklahoma, 73072, 
telephone (405) 325-8978, before May 2, 2012. Repatriation of the human 
remains and associated funerary objects to the Caddo Nation of

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Oklahoma and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes (Wichita, Keechi, Waco & 
Tawakonie) may proceed after that date if no additional claimants come 
forward.
    The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History is responsible for 
notifying the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma and the Wichita and Affiliated 
Tribes (Wichita, Keechi, Waco & Tawakonie), Oklahoma that this notice 
has been published.

    Dated: March 28, 2012.
Sherry Hutt,
Manager, National NAGPRA Program.
[FR Doc. 2012-7864 Filed 3-30-12; 8:45 am]
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