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ethics are needed not just for everyday living, but they are extremely important in the field of anthropology, ethics are needed because often times the archaeologist may be working in foreign countries and are working on indigenous lands. Which is where The Society for American Archaeology’s principle number eight comes into play, principle number eight states: “Given the destructive nature of most archaeological investigations, archaeologist must ensure that they have adequate training, experience, facilities, and other support necessary to conduct any program of research they initiate in a manner consistent with the foregoing principles and contemporary standards of professional practice.”

It is also important to report any and all objects, artifacts or burials that are found by archaeologist, otherwise what is the objective of the archaeologist if he or she does not report what he or she has discovered. The archaeologist must record and publish her or his findings to as many publication as possible. as it states in principle number 6 “The documents and materials on which publication and other forms of public reporting… archaeological sites  must be taken into account when publishing and distributing information about their nature and information.” For this reason we need ethics and principles in archaeology, because the public needs to know and learn what public or any type of archaeologist are doing.

Another principle is the respect of intellectual property. For example archaeologist discovers a tomb or a buried artifact he or she has the right to claim the principle founder of the object or place this is principle number five, however it follows principle number six very close. In doing so the archaeologist should not perceive it as personal possession of the objects or place in the ethics of archaeology it quotes the following about principle number five: “Intellectual property, as contained in the knowledge and the documents created through the study of archaeological resources, is part of the archaeological record. As such it should be treated in accord with the principles of stewardship rather than as a matter of personal possession. If there is a compelling reason, and no legal restrictions or strong countervailing interest, a researcher may have primary access to original materials and documents for a limited and reasonable time, after which materials and documents must be made available to others.”  Principle number five is closely related to principle number 5, because both principle require for findings to be publicly published.

The last principle in the ethics of archaeology is principle number nine, Safe Educational and Workplace Environments. Archaeology is a job/profession, obviously there must be rules in the workplace such as no sexual harassment. Furthermore, their should be no scrutiny on people based on their sexual orientation, religion, and ethnicity.  In addition ” Archaeologist in all work, educational, and other professional settings, including fieldwork and conferences, are responsible for training the next generation of archaeologist.” this i believe it to be one of the most important principles because i believe that upcoming archaeologist should be properly trained by well experienced archaeologist to pass on the great skills to keep up the excellent work this fairly new field of study.

 

public archaeology to me means that archaeologist are working on public land to preserve or excavate archaeological sites or as in our case trying to map out a cemetery. however, archaeology has both practice and theory, in practice it is a fairly new field of study that is gaining traction. public archaeology may be an umbrella term that encompasses various political, socio-economic, and of course public aspects, as quoted from the article. “Holtford Archaeology is a brand! The meaning of Archaeology in contemporary popular culture “offers three models for the practice of public archaeology: The ‘education model’ , the ‘public relations model’, and the ‘democratic model’. The ‘education model’ suggest that archaeologist need to support the public to ‘come see both the past and the occupation of the archaeologist in the same terms as the professional archaeologist themselves’. (The meaning of archaeology in contemporary culture. Oxford: Archaeopress). The ‘public relations model’ suggest that an increase in social, economic and political support for the professional archaeological sector will arrive only if the archaeologist can improve their public image.”

Public archeology does not just fall into one specific category but several, and as far as theory goes, it varies, because archaeology is also political, theories may vary from country some coountries may be more lenient in the way that public archaeologist carry out their work, while other countries may be more oppressive and leave little to no input on the public archaeologist input on how the archaeological work should be carried out. a quote from the articles states the following about theory in public archaeology “Differing theoretical approaches to archaeology can be found in different countries, depending on the history of the foundation of the national disciplinary tradition. These approaches have developed alongside the socio-economic and political circumstances under which publicly accessible and publicly understandable archaeology takes place, ad is subject to policy, which varies from nation to nation”. Our cemetery project align with this in both practice and theory for the following reasons. Dr. Rowe mentioned that they city of Edinburg reached out to map the public cemetery. they gave permission to do public archaeological work, the city was concerned that there are many unmarked graves which allows the public sector to work with public archaeologist for a common goal, to reunite families with their deceased loved ones.

The lines of investigation that I am interested in pursuing is finding out exactly how many graves are unmarked. Because it comes to show just how poverty we have in the  Rio Grande Valley. Dying is a very expensive process, and to get buried it includes funeral services that are estimated at ten thousand dollars including the casket and burial. plenty of families do not have the financial stability to lay to rest their loved ones. which is why i am interested in seeing just how many graves  there are that are unclaimed. because, there might be a correlation between poverty  and the number of unmarked graves there are in the Hope Cemetery. with any luck our group might be able to mark the graves.

Mortimer Wheeler said, ‘It is the duty of the archaeologist, as of the scientist, to reach and impress the public, and to mould his words in the common clay of its forthright understanding’. I completely agree with this! What is the point of investigating the past if we do not somehow report our findings to others? My opinion here definitely doesn’t agree with the readings, I really don’t like the complication of adding a new label for everything we do! I believe that the term public archaeology is any archaeological pursuit which identifies the public at large as its primary consumer- irrelevant of the source of funding or political context in which it operates. If I am being completely honest, I would say that this means that ALL archaeology is inherently public archaeology. Even privately funded CRM salvage excavations which do not publish their findings immediately, can and do periodically publish summaries or compilations of their excavations in a region. The process of systematically collecting and maintaining excavation records and artifact repositories allows for a future use of such data for dissemination to the public. The primary intent of an archaeological excavation may not be to immediately create a public presentation of some sort, but if the data exists it has the potential to be repackaged into a publicly consumed product in the future. The act of recording an excavation, doing some sort of an analysis, and maintaining these records belies the understanding that this data is meant for others. And in my opinion, “others” and “the public at large” are the same thing. Therefore, I think it’s a superfluous label, we are quibbling over divisions on a spectrum again. Having said that, I very much appreciate the need for archaeologists to focus on the public as its primary consumer; I truly wish ALL archaeologists would agree that this is fundamental to archaeology. There is no point to what we do if we don’t share it with others.

 

Our project aligns with the goals of public archaeology in a very clear way, we have specifically stated that the intent of this project is to share our findings with as many people as we possibly can. We have created online databases so that people can see the data we collect, and we are compiling this data into formats which highlight interesting or informative aspects. We aren’t simply cataloging information and making pretty pictures, we want to provide context and identity to a forgotten piece of our local history and then tell as many people as we can what we learned! I am most interested in providing stories to attach to the graves, I truly feel that more than anything we learn about social trends or discriminations, personal stories will be the most impactful thing that we can provide to the relatives and the community. We already know this area was rife with inequality, it still is. I think the relatives of the people we are studying will appreciate their stories being told, more than anything else. I do think we can find those stories by investigating trends, so we need to do big picture as well as individual focuses. One of the things I’m also interested in is looking through the newspapers to find big stories of social unrest or other movements in the area, and trying to find some of the key players involved. Maybe I can focus on a decade and see if I can find any names we have recorded so far mentioned in a newspaper? I like the idea of being a forensic investigator!

Last year Hidalgo County Officials contacted UTRGV’s Anthropology Department to assist in identifying graves at the Hidalgo County Pauper’s Cemetery. The cemetery had been virtually abandoned since it had not been used since the 1990’s. Information of individuals buried there had not been kept up with or were lost due to water damage at the facility housing the records. Over vegetation had taken over the cemetery grounds and damaged headstones as well as grave offerings/decorations. Hidalgo County provided a cleanup team to clear the area for Archaeology students in 2017. Many graves had headstones that showed signs of biological damage as well as weathering. Some graves had no identifying markers but were able to be identified as a grave by an obvious slump. These areas were then verified as a grave with the aid of human remains detection dogs. Use of GPR has not yet been applied; hopefully this semester our class will have the opportunity to practice using the GPR and perhaps even more unidentified graves can be found.
Many of the graves encountered have headstones composed of different types of stone, wood, and different types of metal. The type of headstone can possibly give an insight to the individuals’ family and their social status. Most of the headstones of the neighboring cemetery seem to be made of marble and granite while those of the Pauper’s Cemetery are mostly made of inexpensive materials. Most wooden crosses of HCPC no longer bare the name of the individual who is buried in the plot, and some wooden crosses have broken and fallen onto or into the grave. Some headstones appear to be homemade with cement and pebbles. Grave offerings and decorations can be found all through the cemetery. Children and infants usually have toys or angels while adults mostly have flowers and/or other items. Some other items include candles, jars, voo-doo dolls, and other religious materials.
Descriptions of each individual grave are being recorded for data collection. This information will be entered into a data base where the public will have access to find lost buried relatives. Some students have been approached by families that come to visit the cemetery to ask what the group is doing. When families are made aware of this project they are usually glad to hear what we are doing and will ask if we can find their family members. So far most of the public doesn’t know about the project but we are hoping to change that and make the community aware. With the help of the community we can learn the stories of the individuals buried in the cemetery. We have noticed many children and infants from the 1960’s and 1970’s are buried at HCPC. Some of the infants have the same birth and death date. This could indicate that the infant was stillborn or possibly born with life threatening complications which led to death shortly after birth. I personally would like to know the stories of these young lives lost. What was happening in the area at the time these children and infants died? What improvements have been made to decrease infant mortality?

Once when doing Archaeology in Belize, I got the question from a local worker that was participating in his community public archaeology; “ Why are you here?” He knew about the research taking place and how we were there to discover new findings of the Maya civilization. What he did not understand is why a person would fly over the lands and sea to study some region and culture that does not pertain to their own. This question remained with me since and I been trying to understand it myself. Back then I did not have an answer but now working at the Hidalgo County Public Cemetery Project (HCPCP) I seem to find the archaeologist’s motive.  We are here to help both us and the community, to gain new knowledge, preserve and enjoy the cultures. Or as Ervin states, we are here to create “ a greater awareness of community members’ own resources’ (Ervin 2000: 200).” In relation, two great writers, Fred McGhee and John Jameson, go into detail of how to achieve public archaeology.

McGhee’s 2012 work consists of using the Participatory Action Research (PAR) whereas Jameson’s older work of 2003 speaks of public education and outreach. Firstly, what PAR consist of is to “transform communities for the better and where positive social change is an explicit goal (McGhee 2012: 213).” PAR is considered to be revolutionary for its goal is to commit to the region’s political struggles in order to become part of the community’s collective memory, build solidarity and knowledge (McGhee 2012: 218-219). This is done by having the community work hand in hand with the archaeologists. Differently, Jameson aims for the archeologist to work more with instructors, officials, leaders rather than the common locals (Jameson 2003: 158). The first one seems to be more directed towards the community self-learning while the other view is to first spread towards a smaller group of people that can then teach the community.  This difference in public archaeology approach shows how ethical principles are becoming more embraced and understandable over time. Now that the world has more connections, like social media, it is easier to see and learn from the different and similar ethics. Also, we have become more racially mixed and even live next to multi-diverse cultures. This will further make anthropology researchers closer to the people. In fact, the HCPCP has been building their work to be available to the public by providing the resources online like https://hcpcp.wordpress.com/ and being published in the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) press release and the main end goal to make a publicly accessible database of each individual grave. What seems to be missing is for the project to be even more open to the public by sending out volunteer opportunities to the community. There does seem to be a number of people approaching the project participants (UTRGV students) that are interested in what we are doing in the area. Maybe providing them with a flyer of the project they could explore the website and contact us for more information or even suggest to help out with the project. I believe that can make the project become more PAR.   

It doesn’t matter where archaeology takes places, what matters is the resources that are contributed to the people. Therefore, the work that we are doing at the HCPCP will help the community and others that have moved farther away to find their relatives. What we gain from here is giving the available resources to the public as well as better understanding the cemeteries cultural aspects. Here the cemeteries preservation has been reignited and hopefully the graves cultural notions will become alive as how the other nearby graves stand. I really like Jameson’s explanation that the ultimate goal of archaeology is “to improve people’s lives by helping them to enjoy and appreciate their cultural heritage (Jameson 2003: 161).”   

It is important to note that the Rio Grande Valley has more Hispanic people than any other ethnicity. Therefore, the HCPCP is conducted by diverse cultures with most of the research participants and burials being of Hispanic descent. I believe that with these same or similar cultural backgrounds, the project is easier to understand and determine valid results, for we can understand the forms of burials conducted in the area by comparing with our own lives. With that said the stakeholders are both the community and the researchers since there is a connection with the culture and society. Of course, this does not leave out other cultures that are integrated, buried nearby, who we are able to learn as well as understand, such as Hispanic culture. The end result is to record, analyze, provide and revive the cemeteries’ descendants and memorial region.

Communities in the Rio Grande Valley are mainly Hispanic but there are diverse cultures. One way we can glimpse at this is by viewing the nearby Black descent cemetery. This shows that others besides Hispanics have been living in Edinburg, Texas since the earlier days. Even so, there are mainly Hispanics buried in this region as there are more Hispanics living here in present times. The reason for this is that the Rio Grande Valley is neighbor to Mexico and the land became part of the United States after the Treaty of Guadalupe of Hidalgo in 1848. The cemetery has dates going back as far as the late 1700s. It shows that the start of burials was during the time that the land belonged to Mexico. Such acknowledgment raises the question: does this cemetery have older descendants than the other three neighboring cemeteries? As stated before, there is another cemetery nearby that has black burials whereas the other well maintained (compared to the one we are working on) Hillcrest Memorial Park and Monuments cemetery. It is interesting how the Hillcrest cemetery is so well maintained with paved roads, integrated water sprinklers, trash cans, restrooms and so on.  What happened to the HCPC? Is it much older than the Hillcrest? Is there a difference in the hierarchy? This is important to know so we can determine what communities should be more reached out to. It is like how Cheryl LaRoche and Michael Blakey’s African Burial Ground project in New York shows how the work gave a testimony of the African-American contribution and suffering in that region (LaRoche and Blakey 1997: 100). Here we might find a connection to the regions past participants of what they represented and who they were.

   Having Hispanic students conducting research with the HCPCP there is obvious cultural affiliation. It would be great if we could work with communities around us especially those who are families from the descendants. However, “all people put value on objectivity in certain contexts” and no one should be rejected or forced to use the data collected (Kanne Pyburn 2009: 163). By placing the information online, whoever wants to go and see is free to do so. I do believe that there needs to be cultural affiliation involved for the project to function. This does not mean that the leader of the project should be someone that has a decedent in the cemetery. What I mean here is that it makes it easier to have some people that know about the culture. With that, the researcher can teach the others something they know about the burial materials or forms that are difficult to see if not part of that culture. Together they learn and understand the cemetery. Cultural affiliations can as well ease tension with the community who at times dislike non-Hispanic people to research their region. Something similar to the African Burial Ground project problematic situations of questioning if white people should study black people (LaRoche and Blakey 1997: 93).  Now if we have Hispanics in the project there will be more comfortable with the communities. In all, I think working with diverse cultures is good for there are so many different views and interpretations that can work together to find the cultural significance of the cemetery.

The stakeholders for the HCPCP are the community and researchers. Both should have some control over the research to share with each other what comes out from the project. What they end up gaining is knowledge of the regions ancestors, culture, and social changes. In fact, the power dynamics of the project is to make the cemetery a better place in order to maintain the cultural importance of the living and the dead. By working together, the attention to continue maintaining the cemetery will increase, for people will become aware of this forgotten graveyard. Going back to HCPCP stakeholders, not only does the researcher need to know the community but the community needs to get to know the researchers in order to understand each other. It is how Pyburn states: “It is important to be known, as to know (Pyburn 2009:174).” In other words, by knowing each other we can place trust and respect on the region and the work that is being done.