81 FR 89146 - Notice of Intent To Repatriate Cultural Items: Fowler Museum at the University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
National Park Service

Federal Register Volume 81, Issue 237 (December 9, 2016)

The Fowler Museum at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), in consultation with the appropriate Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations, has determined that the cultural items listed in this notice meet the definition of unassociated funerary objects. Lineal descendants or representatives of any Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization not identified in this notice that wish to claim these cultural items should submit a written request to the Fowler Museum at UCLA. If no additional claimants come forward, transfer of control of the cultural items to the lineal descendants, Indian tribes, or Native Hawaiian organizations stated in this notice may proceed.

[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 237 (Friday, December 9, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 89146-89147]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2016-29535]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service

[NPS-WASO-NAGPRA-22483; PPWOCRADN0-PCU00RP14.R50000]


Notice of Intent To Repatriate Cultural Items: Fowler Museum at 
the University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Fowler Museum at the University of California Los Angeles 
(UCLA), in consultation with the appropriate Indian tribes or Native 
Hawaiian organizations, has determined that the cultural items listed 
in this notice meet the definition of unassociated funerary objects. 
Lineal descendants or representatives of any Indian tribe or Native 
Hawaiian organization not identified in this notice that wish to claim 
these cultural items should submit a written request to the Fowler 
Museum at UCLA. If no additional claimants come forward, transfer of 
control of the cultural items to the lineal descendants, Indian tribes, 
or Native Hawaiian organizations stated in this notice may proceed.

DATES: Lineal descendants or representatives of any Indian tribe or 
Native Hawaiian organization not identified in this notice that wish to 
claim these cultural items should submit a written request with 
information in support of the claim to the Fowler Museum at UCLA at the 
address in this notice by January 9, 2017.

ADDRESSES: Wendy G. Teeter, Ph.D., Fowler Museum at UCLA, Box 951549, 
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1549, telephone (310) 825-1864, email 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Notice is here given in accordance with the 
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), 25 
U.S.C. 3005, of the intent to repatriate cultural items under the 
control of the Fowler Museum at UCLA that meet the definition of 
unassociated funerary objects under 25 U.S.C. 3001.
    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 cultural items. The National Park Service is not responsible 
for the determinations in this notice.

History and Description of the Cultural Items

    In 1978, 132 cultural items were removed from Lindero Canyon (CA-
VEN-606) in Ventura County, CA. Collections from the site derive from a 
survey and excavation led by Dr. William Clewlow, Jr., during the North 
Ranch Inland Chumash research project. A second investigation was 
conducted in 1979 under the direction of Holly Love and Rheta Resnick. 
Excavations took place on land privately owned by the Prudential 
Insurance Company. The collections were curated at UCLA in 1979. The 
site has been dated to the Late Period, A.D. 1300-1650. During 
excavations a cemetery was discovered and 13 burials were uncovered and 
left in-situ, but burial objects were removed for study. Funerary 
objects were identified as being removed from six burials (MM, HH, LL, 
EE, KK, and 2). The unassociated funerary objects are 126 objects and 6 
bags of artifacts, including 12 pieces and 4 bags of shell fragments, 2 
shell beads, 62 stone flakes, 1 cobble, 3 quartz crystals, 41 pieces 
and 2 bags of unmodified animal bone, 4 ochre fragments, and 1 charcoal 
lump. Since the represented burials were left in situ the curated 
burial items are unassociated funerary objects.
    The site detailed in this notice has been identified through 
consultation to be within the traditional territory of the Chumash. 
These locations are consistent with ethnographic and historic 
documentation.
    The Chumash territory, anthropologically defined first on the basis 
of linguistic similarities, and subsequently on broadly shared material 
and cultural traits, reaches from San Luis Obispo to Malibu on the 
coast, inland to the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley, to the 
edge of the San Fernando Valley, and includes the four Northern Channel 
Islands. The site listed in this notice is located in Ventura County 
and falls within the geographical area identified as Chumash. Some 
consultants state that these areas were the responsibility of regional 
leaders, who were themselves organized into a pan-regional association 
of both political power and ceremonial knowledge. Further, these 
indigenous areas are identified by some consultants to be relational 
with clans, or associations of traditional practitioners of specific 
kinds of indigenous medicinal and ceremonial practices. Some 
consultants identified these clans as existing in the pre-contact 
period, and identified some as also existing in the present day. Other 
consultants do not recognize present-day geographical divisions to be 
related to clans of traditional practitioners. Ethnographic evidence 
suggests that the social and political organizations of the pre-contact 
Channel Islands were primarily at the village level, with a hereditary 
chief, in addition to many other specialists who wielded power.
    The unassociated funerary objects are consistent with funerary 
objects placed by groups ancestral to the present-day Chumash people. 
The material culture of those earlier groups living in the geographical 
areas mentioned above is characterized by archeologists as having 
passed through developmental stages over the past 10,000 years. Many 
local archeologists assert that the changes in the material culture 
reflect evolving ecological adaptations and related changes in social 
organization of the same populations, and do not represent population 
displacements or movements. The same range of artifact types and 
materials were used from the early pre-contact period until historic 
times. Native consultants explicitly state that population mixing, 
which did occur on a small scale, would not alter the continuity of the 
shared group identities of people associated with specific locales. 
Based on this evidence, continuity of occupation by the Chumash people 
can be traced for the site listed in this notice.

Determinations Made by the Fowler Museum at UCLA

    Officials of the Fowler Museum at UCLA have determined that:
     Pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001(3)(B), the 132 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 been removed from a specific burial site of a Native 
American individual.
     Pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001(2), there is a relationship of 
shared group identity that can be reasonably traced between the 
unassociated funerary objects and the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash 
Mission Indians of the Santa Ynez Reservation, California.

Additional Requestors and Disposition

    Lineal descendants or representatives of any Indian tribe or Native 
Hawaiian

[[Page 89147]]

organization not identified in this notice that wish to claim these 
cultural items should submit a written request with information in 
support of the claim to Wendy G. Teeter, Ph.D., Fowler Museum at UCLA, 
Box 951549, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1549, telephone (310) 825-1864, email 
[email protected], by January 9, 2017. After that date, if no 
additional claimants have come forward, transfer of control of the 
unassociated funerary objects to Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission 
Indians of the Santa Ynez Reservation, California may proceed.
    The Fowler Museum at UCLA is responsible for notifying the Santa 
Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians of the Santa Ynez Reservation, 
California that this notice has been published.

    Dated: November 28, 2016.
Melanie O'Brien,
Manager, National NAGPRA Program.
[FR Doc. 2016-29535 Filed 12-8-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4312-52-P