NAGPRA Processing & Scanning for Preservation & Access

FAIN: PB-276494-20

Alabama Department of Archives and History (Montgomery, AL 36130-0100)
Kellie J Bowers (Project Director: May 2020 to August 2021)

The retention of one staff member, and hire of another, to research, organize, and record documentation on 170,000 funerary objects in the collection to provide access to tribes and researchers and to ensure that the institution’s collections are in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

The Alabama Department of Archives and History will use NEH CARES funding to support two full-time staff positions in its work to reach compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The two positions—one a new hire and the second a temporary, part-time employee transitioned to full-time—will build a database containing digitized archival records about the agency’s archaeological collection, enhancing access for Native American tribes and scholarly researchers. The project will reconnect contextual data created in the early twentieth century and contained in myriad analog formats with more than 170,000 funerary objects. As a result, tribes and researchers will more easily identify the cultural affiliation of objects in the collection and gain insight to cultural practices represented by the objects.