FR Doc 2010-18434[Federal Register: July 28, 2010 (Volume 75, Number 144)]
[Notices]               
[Page 44280]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr28jy10-102]                         


[[Page 44280]]

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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service

 
Notice of Intent to Repatriate Cultural Items: U.S. Department of 
Agriculture, Forest Service, Coconino National Forest, Flagstaff, AZ, 
and American Museum of Natural History, New York City, NY

AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice.

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    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 in the control of the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture, Forest Service, Coconino National Forest, Flagstaff, AZ, 
and in the possession of the American Museum of Natural History, New 
York City, NY, 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 cultural 
items. The National Park Service is not responsible for the 
determinations in this notice.
    The four cultural items are two fragments of cotton cloth 
wrappings, one fragment of yucca matting and one cotton roll in two 
pieces (one of which is an extra-weft textile with an embroidered 
design in brown). According to museum records, the four items were 
removed by Earl Morris from an infant burial in a cave, in Clear Creek, 
AZ, in 1926. All items are curated at the American Museum of Natural 
History and have been in the possession of the museum since their 
excavation.
    Archeologists who examined the cloth date the pieces to the late 
Prehistoric Period (between A.D. 1300 and A.D. 1400). Continuities of 
oral traditions, ethnographic materials, technology and architecture 
indicate that the prehistoric peoples of the upper Verde River Valley 
are ancestral to the Hopi Tribe of Arizona.
    Officials of the American Museum of Natural History and the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Coconino National Forest, 
have determined that, pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001(3)(B), the four 
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. Officials of the American 
Museum of Natural History and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 
Forest Service, Coconino National Forest, also have determined that, 
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 Hopi Tribe of Arizona.
    Representatives of any other Indian tribe that believes itself to 
be culturally affiliated with the unassociated funerary objects should 
contact Dr. Frank E. Wozniak, NAGPRA Coordinator, Southwestern Region, 
USDA Forest Service, 333 Broadway Blvd., SE, Albuquerque, NM 87102, 
telephone (505) 842-3238, before August 27, 2010. Repatriation of the 
unassociated funerary objects to the Hopi Tribe of Arizona may proceed 
after that date if no additional claimants come forward.
    The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Coconino 
National Forest, is responsible for notifying the Hopi Tribe of 
Arizona; Yavapai-Prescott Tribe of the Yavapai Reservation, Arizona; 
and the Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Reservation, New Mexico, that this 
notice has been published.

    Dated: July 22, 2010
Sherry Hutt,
Manager, National NAGPRA Program.
[FR Doc. 2010-18434 Filed 7-27-10; 8:45 am]
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