[White]

Here's an abridged version of an Arizona Republic article on the excavation of pioneer graves in Maricopa County. Please follow the link below to the full article if you wish to read more about the history of some [white] historic Phoenicians. Any emphasis is added by us.

As you read this, think about the similarities and differences to the Amity Pueblo Desecration. 

Cemetery excavation unearths Phoenix’s past
Archaeologists find remains of pioneers (abridged, emphasis added)

By JJ HensleyThe Republic | azcentral.comSun Jul 28, 2013 1:44 AMhttp://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/20130726phoenix-cemetery-excavation-history.html?nclick_check=1

The graves had sat largely undisturbed for nearly 70 years, forgotten as generations of residents moved into the Valley and the city expanded from its beginnings as a 3-square-mile outpost. But a crew operating a piece of heavy machinery at the site of the Maricopa County sheriff’s new headquarters in downtown Phoenix last spring unearthed a scattering of human bones and, in the process, launched a study that would reveal the city’s lineage from supply camp to boomtown. When the study and reburials were done, at a cost to Maricopa County of nearly $250,000, archaeologists had discovered a Hohokam pit house with more than 200 prehistoric ceramics, 10 grave sites that included the remains of Phoenix pioneers and a detailed history of the residents and businesses near Fifth Avenue and Jackson Street.

“We study the past to learn how people lived — what they ate, how their houses were arranged in villages, so that tells us about social organization and hopefully (lets us) learn something that may be applicable to today,” said Todd Pitezel, a curator at the Arizona State Museum in Tucson and the administrator of the state’s Antiquities Act. Such discoveries of pioneer cemeteries and the prehistoric dwellings of those who came before them are not common, but they should not be unexpected in Arizona, Pitezel said. “Especially in the Phoenix and Tucson areas,” he said. “They have been inhabited for so long. People have been here continuously for thousands of years, so you’re going to find stuff.”

Pioneers started burying the dead in the small cemetery a decade before Phoenix was officially incorporated. Records indicate that as many as 87 people were buried in the plot between 1871 and 1884, with little regard to race, ethnicity or class.

...

Archaeologists determined there were 10 distinct features, which could include coffins and grave shafts, containing the remains of 11 people. Two of the remains were fetuses, one buried in a metal container and another interred with an adolescent, while another feature contained the remains of a child younger than 2 years old. Another held the remains of a juvenile and two adults.

“The remains cannot be associated with any of the graves excavated in the preserved portion of the cemetery and likely represent other graves destroyed during mass excavation,” according to the report. Researchers believe bones found in other graves were those of adults, though there were hardly enough to determine the age or ethnicity of many, much less their identities.

The team cross-referenced their discoveries with a list of more than 80 people believed to have been buried in the original cemetery to try to verify the identities of the dead based on factors including age ranges, ethnicity and year of death. The closest researchers came to confirming an identity came through the remains recovered in a narrow grave shaft on the site. Researchers believe most of the body was removed in the 1880s, though teeth and parts of the sternum were left behind. That was enough to allow archaeologists to place the person’s age between 35 and 50 years old and determine that the person was likely of European descent.

The lack of other remains led researchers to believe the body was mainly intact when it was moved to the new cemetery, which allowed archaeologists to narrow the burial date to a year or two before the original cemetery closed.
That left four possibilities: John A. Brown, Andrew J. Brawley, Donald D. Field/McKenzie and Francis Goodwin, according to the report.
The identities of the remaining dead are lost to time, thanks in part to the prevalence of wooden headstones, most of which were destroyed by insects and the elements.

...

The remains discovered there last year were boxed up and then reburied in the Pioneer and Military Memorial Park this summer, in a single grave with little ceremony and no fanfare. The Pioneers’ Cemetery Association is planning a more formal ceremony this fall to memorialize the rediscovered settlers.

Ok, so here's our summary compared to Amity:

• Both projects are on State Land (under the Arizona Antiquities Act [and much of other state law] all subdivisions of the State [county, municipal] are State Lands.
• Both projects involve the discovery of Human Remains during construction of a publicly funded project.
• White pioneer graves, inadvertently discovered during construction in 2012, are afforded a $250,000 study and reburial effort, including extensive genealogical and historical research and reburial in accordance with state laws. Remains not associated with individual graves are afforded the same respects as intact graves. Versus..
• Ancient Zuni graves at the Lee Valley Pond remains disinterred, investigated, desecrated. No attempts to identify individuals or genealogies or historic research have been attempted. Remains not associated with individual graves are afforded the same disrespects as intact graves.
• Both projects involve the Arizona State Museum's Todd Pitezel, who administers the parts of the Arizona Antiquity Act that spell out the timelines for reburial (more on that in a future post).

Those many of us who have been discussing the Amity Desecration since word-of-mouth news hit the cultural resource community have often said "if Game & Fish had tried to build a fishing pond on the Snow and Flake Pioneer Cemetery, this would have been resolved already."

The hard truth here is [white] archeologists have a different set of standards for dealing with these things. [White] pioneer graves are revered, to be treated with respect, they are part of our [white] heritage. We don't ever plan to dig them up unless there is "no prudent of feasible alternative." A fish pond, nor any other undertaking would ever be planned at [white] Snowflake Cemetery. And if it accidentally did happen, graves would be afforded at least a $250,000 study that leads to eventual respectful burial. 

 Indians, on the other hand, are data, not people.

Let that sink in.

Indians are data, not people.

Am I making you mad?

Archeology is the persuit of white man, although I am proud to know more than a few Native Archeologists who hold sacred their connections to this place and these ancestors. But the history of archeology and anthropology has always viewed Indians as the "savage native" worthy of study as the odd outlier of cultural evolution. The scientification of archeology takes it one step further. [Brown] people stop being people and become numbers, measurements, scatterplots, and confidence intervals. Unless they are [white].

How many times have I heard it. Among my [white] colleagues. "Damn Indians making things difficult..." "the Navajo have no claim to the Anasazi..." "the Hopi meddle in everything..." "don't hire Indian crews, they work to slow and their traditional beliefs get in our way..."

Racism is prevalent and runs very deep in the [white] field of Archeology. And it's high time that changes.

So, Todd Pitezel (pitezel@email.arizona.edu), tell us why you'll shag out to Sheriff Joe's construction site and make sure [white] pioneers get their respectful study and reburial within one year of an inadvertent discovery while the Amity Ancestors' souls lay exposed and desecrated for two years while you figure out who is going to pay for the "data recovery?"