BLM ties remains of at least 35 people held in Arizona to Native Village of Akutan

The Bureau of Land Management has determined that the remains of at least 35 people are culturally affiliated with the Native Village of Akutan, according to a federal notice filed Tuesday. BLM also determined the remains are of Native American ancestry.

Repatriation may occur on or after Dec. 12, 30 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register on Thursday.

The ancestors were excavated or collected between 1970 and 1973 from four sites on Akun and Akutan islands in the eastern Aleutians. They are held at Arizona State University's Center for Archaeology and Society Repository. They include 20 individuals from Chulka, 10 from Saa, two from Amatanan and two from Siskena, plus one from either Saa or Siskena.

No associated funerary objects are present. Some remains bear a clear coat of an unknown substance that may be polyvinyl acetate, which the university's Laboratory of Physical Anthropology used in the 1980s, the notice said.

Under federal repatriation rules, cultural affiliation means a reasonable connection between remains and a tribe based on shared group identity. BLM based the affiliation on the remains' geographic location or acquisition history and on consultation results, the notice says. Melanie O'Brien, manager of the National NAGPRA Program, signed it Oct. 29. The National Park Service publishes these notices but said the determinations belong to BLM alone.

Earlier notices have also covered Aleutian ancestors. A February notice said the Field Museum in Chicago had identified one individual removed from the Aleutian Islands and found a connection to the Native Village of Akutan, the Native Village of Atka and the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska. A June BLM notice connected two individuals removed from Unalaska Island in 1973 and later deposited at Arizona State University to the Qawalangin Tribe.

The Native Village of Akutan may file a written request for repatriation, as may a lineal descendant or another tribe that shows, by a preponderance of the evidence, that it is a descendant or culturally affiliated.

If competing requests arrive, BLM must decide the most appropriate requestor before any return. Joint requests count as one.