"I think we're finally going to nail down some rules of the road," said Stan Wilmoth, state archaeologist. "It's going to take some time, but a clear protocol is emerging."
The protocol, he said, will help his office work with Indian tribes when ancient burials are unearthed. Until now, the process has been, in the words of Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont, "confusing at best."
Once he figured out that the bones were far, far older than any local statutes of limitations, he called the state Historic Preservation Office, which called the archaeologists, who called the nearby Salish and Kootenai Tribes, who came and claimed the bones.
The hillside, it turned out, was full of human remains, and every time it rained hard enough or the nearby masonry company dug deep enough, Dupont was called back.
Finally, he started taking a shortcut, calling the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes directly.
But lately, a concern has emerged that Dupont's shortcut, while effective, is not in the best interest of the tribes, the bones or the historians. People have wondered whether the remains collected in Kalispell are, in fact, of Salish and Kootenai ancestry, and they have wondered what exactly this site atop the park really is.
It could be a burial site, Wilmoth said. It could be the site of a battle. It could even be the site of a settlement overwhelmed by disease. No one knows, he said.
And that's troubling to an archaeologist like Wilmoth, who is charged with protecting ancient sites.
In early February, he and other interested parties met with tribal representatives in Kalispell to begin hashing out a statewide protocol that determines who claims the bones, how the remains are collected and what tribal body will oversee the cataloging of ancient sites.
The first step, they decided, was to convene a meeting of the Burial Site Protection Board. The board was created by state law several years ago and is made up of representatives from the state's seven Indian reservations.
The board, however, has never been adequately funded and so has never really met. There's been no cash for travel, or even for long-distance phone calls between its members.
The state Department of Administration, however, has cobbled together a bit of cash for the board, and Thursday it met in Helena.
"We didn't talk specifically about the Kalispell site," Wilmoth said, "but, of course, that was the situation that had precipitated a lot of soul-searching."
The searching led Wilmoth to a stack of proposed rules written back in 1995 but never adopted. It also led the state attorney general's office to prepare two separate lists of rules regarding ancient sites.
Those rules, plus a flow chart to be followed by law enforcement and a form to be used to catalog field discoveries, were presented to the board Thursday.
According to Wilmoth, the board agreed to take the various rule protocols and "mesh them into something that works." It also agreed to take a look at the flow chart and the field form.
In addition, he said, the board voted to adopt a policy - which later will be rolled into the rule book - stating that all ancient human remains will be assumed to be part of a ceremonial burial unless evidence of a "natural" burial suggests otherwise.
Such evidence of a natural burial, he said, might be large-carnivore damage to the remains, or the fact that the remains are spread over a large area.
The decision, in effect, categorizes the Kalispell finds as ceremonial burials. Kalispell City Attorney Charlie Harball said labeling the area as a burial site puts the burden on the tribes to conduct some archaeological work to define what sort of site it is. They also must define a boundary around the site, he said.
"Once they tell us the boundaries," Harball said, "we'll do whatever they want us to do. We can fence it, whatever. It's entirely up to them."
Defining the boundaries, however, could prove tricky.
"It's not always easy to classify," Wilmoth said. "According to many Native Americans, the whole idea of a 'burial site' is troublesome."
Often, he said, the body was left in one place, while the ceremony took place elsewhere. That makes it tough to determine from bones alone whether the site is a ceremonial site or just a place where someone died.
In addition, he said, the board voted to recognize that the people of the nearest Indian reservation would represent the board in making field inspections and determining the final disposition of the bones.
That means that even if the remains in Kalispell are not of Salish or Kootenai heritage, the Salish and Kootenai will continue to handle the matter.
That move raised concerns that remains from one tribe could be claimed by other tribes, but the board felt there were no plausible alternatives, Wilmoth said.
The board's chairman, Carl Four Star of the Fort Peck Reservation, told those attending the meeting that his Assiniboine grandfather was killed near the eastern edge of what is now Glacier National Park while looking for horses in Blackfeet country. Under the new board policy, if his remains were found, the Blackfeet would wind up making a decision about Assiniboine remains.
"He was OK with that," Wilmoth said. "There's really no alternative."
The remains of Four Star's grandfather, if found, would certainly not have been buried according to Assiniboine custom, Wilmoth said, and making a scientific decision as to their heritage would prove impossible.
"You work with what you have and make the best decisions you can," he said.
Which is exactly what the board is doing in its attempt to craft rules for ancient Indian burial sites.
Thursday's meeting sparked the beginning of a rule-making process that is likely to take quite a while, Wilmoth said.
"When my agency made formal rules, it took what seemed like years," he said.
Meanwhile, the policy decisions voted in by the board will be used as guidelines statewide.
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com.
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