WSU: Indian remains repatriation

Members in the NEWS: "Roderick Sprague, a retired University of Idaho anthropologist, was included in an Associate Press story that moved May 31, 2006. 'American Indian remains to be reburied' covered the repatriation of remains from 150 individuals studied and stored at the University of Idaho and Washington State University. The remains were exhumed, under Sprague's direction, in 1964 to make way for flooding behind a Snake River dam. Sprague was paraphrased as saying that at the time of the dig, getting answers to scientific questions took precedence over offending descendants of the deceased. 'We took the position that we weren't going to keep any more Indian burials. It was 1967 when we really started asking questions,' he was quoted as saying. Former AAA member Mark Warner, an archaeologist with UI, described Sprague as being at the beginning of a trend to question grave excavations. 'There's been an unfortunate history of archaeologists digging up remains. Rick Sprague was way ahead of the curve in repatriating those remains,' Warner was quoted as saying."