Another little thought...

Milner doesn't discuss this as much (though it looks like in the book I started last night, McMillin (the author of "Buried Indians," is going to), there is some controversy surrounding doing archaeological digs in mounds.

A secondary and smaller concern - and Milner refers to this when he wrote* about how some mounds were excavated in the early 1900s or even during the 1930s (as WPA projects) and techniques were not as advanced as they are now, and information was lost. By leaving mounds intact, who knows what advances might happen in archaeology in the future - maybe even something like a very, very improved form of ground-penetrating radar, where you could get images of the different layers without disturbing anything.

*(Interesting, I first wrote that as "talked." But I do think of books, particularly books I enjoy, as ones where the authors are "talking" to me.)

However, the greater concern involves the fact that these mounds WERE the final resting place of the mortal remains of fellow humans. I remember the controversy surrounding Dickson Mounds, in Illinois - there was a museum that had skeletons from the mounds on display. Some Native groups argued that it was disrespectful. They claimed the skeletons as their ancestors (there was some controversy about this, and I don't remember if it was ever definitively proven that they were the descendants of the people buried in the mounds or not - I know some of the opponents of re-interring the bones were saying that the people complaining were actually descended from other tribes). So I understand the need to be sensitive, especially given the history of how Native people were treated here.

(However - if someone doing research in France or Ireland or somewhere like that found the graves of my great-great-great-great grandparents, and wanted to examine what was left of the skeletons for research? I wouldn't have a problem with it. I'm not even sure I'd be concerned about the skeletons being put on (respectful) display in a museum, but then I suppose different belief systems come into play, seeing as I believe the bones are pretty much just biological material at this point and who the person was has moved on to Somewhere Else since then.)

My desire to go to Spiro or somewhere is more to see, and be able to walk around and observe, a more-or-less intact mound (unfortunately, the Spiro mound was damaged by grave-robbers in the 30s) than to really see the stuff that was IN the mound...

I wonder what modern-day Egyptians (and people from the South American cultures where mummies were discovered) think about the attention the remains of ancient people in their lands get. Do they feel the same way that some of the Native people here do, or do they see it as a chance to get tourist dollars, or do they feel so removed from the remains of the people (rather than, correctly or incorrectly, believing them to be direct ancestors) that it doesn't matter? As I said before, even if I knew one of my direct ancestors (that I had never met, who had died 100+ years before I was born) was being disinterred for research reasons, I'm not sure I'd be so troubled by it. (One of my grandparents, yes, but that was because I KNEW them.)