Another burial ground controversy

Development vs old Indian burials in Southern California, as reported in the NY Times:

The skeletons, most of them female, are being removed for the development of Playa Vista, a complex of condominiums, apartments and townhouses, some selling for more than $1 million. The burial grounds, which were discovered late last year, stand in the way of a proposed stream that opponents call a drainage ditch and that the developer more elaborately calls a riparian corridor.

So far, about 275 skeletons as well as countless artifacts and funerary objects have been unearthed, and no one knows how many remain.

Native Americans like Rhonda Robles, an elder of the Acjachemen, said the excavation was being conducted over her strenuous objections. "Our ancestors are being put in buckets and boxes, and they're being separated from the things they were buried with," said Ms. Robles, whose tribe is commonly known as the Juaneño.

Digging up cemeteries surely leaves many of us a bit uneasy. I'm not sure it is entirely a matter of an anti-Indian double standard, though, since developers have shown little compunction about clearing out non-native Americans' graveyards as well.

Posted by David on June 7, 2004 2:56 PM