Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: Reconsidering the Legacies of Colonialism in Native North America (January 2013) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection Author: Lee Panich Published: January 2013 # of Pages: 19 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

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ARCHAEOLOGIES OF PERSISTENCE: RECONSIDERING THE LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM IN NATIVE NORTH AMERICA Lee M. Panich This article seeks to define common ground from which to build a more integrated approach to the persistence of indigenous societies in North America. Three concepts are discussed—identity, practice, and context—that may prove useful for the development of archaeologies of persistence by allowing us to counter terminal narratives and essentialist concepts of cultural identity that are deeply ingrained in scholarly and popular thinking about Native American societies. The use of these concepts is illustrated in an example that shows how current archaeological research is challenging long-held scholarly and popular beliefs about the effects of colonialism in coastal California, where the policies of Spanish colonial missionaries have long been thought to have driven local native peoples to cultural extinction. By exploring how the sometimes dramatic changes of the colonial period were internally structured and are just one part of long and dynamic native histories, archaeologies of persistence may help to bring about a shift in how the archaeology of colonialism presents the histories of native peoples in North America—one that can make archaeology more relevant to descendant communities. Este articulo define los puntos comunes para construir un enfoque integral sobre la persistencia de sociedades indigenas en Norteamérica. Tres conceptos son discutidos—la identidad, la prdctica, y el contexto—que puede resultar util para el desarrollo de las arqueologias de persistencia, permitiéndonos contradecir las narrativas terminales y el esencialismo de identidad cultural que son inculcadas profundamente en el pensamiento arqueolégico y popular sobre sociedades indigenas americanas. Para ilustrar el uso de dichos conceptos, este articulo examina las maneras en c6mo las presentes investigaciones arqueolégicas estan desafiando las creencias populares y antropoldgicas acerca de los efectos del colonialismo en la costa de California, donde se ha pensado que las politicas de misioneros coloniales espajioles exterminaron las culturas nativas locales. Explorando cémo los cambios dramdticos del periodo colonial fueron estructurados internamente y el hecho de que son solamente una parte de historias nativas, dindmicas y largas, las arqueologias de persistencia pueden ayudar a producir un cambio en cémo la arqueologia del colonialismo presenta las historias de pueblos nativos en Norteamérica—uno que puede hacer la arqueologia mds pertinente para comunidades indigenas actuales y futuras. n considering how Native American groups North America, often seen in terms of demohave negotiated Euro-American colonialism, archaeologists often focus on the topic of change, whether it is cultural, demographic, or environmental. Yet hundreds of Native American communities have persisted into the present despite repeated popular and academic claims of their imminent demise (McGuire 1997). By examining multiple scales of analysis—daily practices as well as long-term processes— archaeologists can provide important insights into the interconnected nature of continuity and change in indigenous polities and identities. Current archaeological research directly challenges conventional wisdom about the legacies of colonialism in graphic collapse and cultural extinction, by examining how changes in native societies were internally structured and how such transformations may have in fact facilitated continuity. I call these frameworks archaeologies of persistence. As the plural form archaeologies suggests, archaeologists interested in such questions come from diverse theoretical and professional backgrounds. This article seeks to establish common ground from which we may move toward a more integrated approach to the study of how indigenous peoples in North America, and elsewhere, negotiated the constraints and opportunities of colonialism. I review recent developments in Lee M. Panich ™ Department of Anthropology, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, California 95053 ([email protected]) American Antiquity 78(1), 2013, pp. 105-122 Copyright ©2013 by the Society for American Archaeology 105