Civic Center excavations: Board clears way for city to rebury artifacts

Archaeologists say state law mandates analysis of findings

Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican

1/16/2008 - 1/17/08

Despite objections from three archaeologists, the Museum of New Mexico Board of Regents agreed Wednesday to let the city of Santa Fe rebury artifacts unearthed near City Hall.

Four years ago, excavations to prepare for tearing down Sweeney Convention Center and building the new civic center in its place turned up remains of a prehistoric village.

City officials began negotiations with Tesuque Pueblo, which said the ruins were associated with its ancestors.

This led to an agreement to excavate the items, study them and then rebury them on the site. City and pueblo officials have declined to discuss the disposition of human remains, but they are believed to have been reburied there.

On Wednesday, the museum regents were asked to approve a "deaccession" of nonburial items recovered from the floors of four kivas on the site: ceramics, stone and bone tools, shell ornaments and pollen samples.

Archaeologists Glenna Dean, Sarah Schlanger and Signa Larralde, who each were given one minute to address the board, argued the city had no right to bury the artifacts because they belong to the state.

Dean, who works as an archaeologist for the state Historic Preservation Division, stressed she was speaking as an individual — not in her capacity as a state archaeologist.

"The city doesn't own these items," she said, "so it cannot give them to anybody."

Dean said she is not suggesting publicly displaying these "ordinary artifacts" and believes many of them may have been deposited in the kivas long after they were used. But she said there has been no analysis of the artifacts as required by state law.

"That's been foreclosed now because the items are going to be reburied, under concrete I might add, to where they are not going to be accessible," Dean said in a telephone interview later in the day. "It just has every indication of a closed-doors, out-of-sunlight series of decisions made without benefit of law or anything like that or even the interests of the public."

Tesuque Gov. Robert Mora and former Gov. Mark Mitchell, however, urged the board to approve the plan they had negotiated with city officials.

"This is very important to us that these items be left buried," Mora said. "Any items found in a previously established settlement are very important to us."

"We have to make sure these items don't go to scientific purposes," Mitchell said. "These don't need to be broken down and carbon-dated. If that should happen, you are erasing my past."

Santa Fe Mayor David Coss also recommended approval of the reburial. "The reason I am here is that I made an agreement, and (former) Mayor (Larry) Delgado made an agreement (with the pueblo), and I think it is important to keep that agreement," he said.

Like Dean, archaeologists Schlanger and Larralde said the board's approval would set a poor precedent. But state Cultural Affairs Secretary Stuart Ashman said the board would be setting a good precedent "by complying with an agreement with an indigenous group."

The regents then unanimously approved the deaccession.

Staff writer Elizabeth Cook-Romero contributed to this report.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.