Hidden toxins contaminate America's archaeological treasures

Saturday, October 01, 2016 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: heavy metals, toxic contamination, archaeological treasure

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(NaturalNews) In between the Trinity Alps and the coastal ranges of Northern California's Humboldt County, the Trinity River has etched a narrow, verdant valley, where the Hoopa people have lived for thousands of years.

There, redwood trees share space with oaks, ancient traditions co-exist with modern culture, and the reservation's small Hoopa Tribal Museum holds scores of treasures ranging from obsidian blades to woven reed hats, reports High Country News. Nearly all of the artifacts can be checked out by members of the 3,000-person tribe and used in ceremonies.

"The museum is for the people," curator Silis-chi-tawn Jackson said. "It's not about the people."

The report continued:

On a warm February day, Jackson arranges a dozen Hoopa relics on a glass countertop for a handful of people to see. "What was this used for?" asks Charles "Chuckie" Carpenter of the Hoopa cultural committee, two long braids dangling as he points to a necklace made of shells and deer hooves. "I was told this is what Indian doctors wore," Jackson replies. "They didn't wear no big sign saying: 'I'm a doctor.' "

As Jackson examines a hide headband, small filaments break free into the air. "Whenever I touch anything," he says, "all of these little tiny feathers fly everywhere." Carpenter cautiously steps back.

He does so because, unlike most artifacts in the Hoopa museum, those particular objects -- all of which were retrieved from Harvard University's Peabody Museum -- are coated in dangerous amounts of mercury, arsenic, DDT and lead. Normally, the tribal museum keeps the objects wrapped in plastic and quarantined.

"Just working here, I consider it to be a health hazard," Jackson said, as he turned on some air conditioning for extra ventilation.

'Dirty little secret'

In the previous two centuries, state and national museums, reports High Country News, used more than 90 different pesticides on artifacts to protect them from rodents and bugs. As a result, it is believed that as much as 80 percent of all U.S. ethnographic collections are contaminated with heavy metals, which pose dangers to staff, visitors and, since the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1992, tribes who have sought out the safe return of their artifacts.

"It's been the museum world's dirty little secret for decades," Peter Palmer, a San Francisco State University chemist and leading expert on the issue, told the paper.

What's more, it's an expensive problem as well. That's because screening for such toxins requires the use of equipment that is anything but cheap. And tribes that are cash-strapped must often just accept their repatriated artifacts and keep them locked away in quarantine.

That is ironic and painful for the Hoopa, because handling artifacts and using them in ceremonies is supposed to ensure longevity and health for the people.

Emerging research, however, could make it easier for tribes to clean up their poisoned relics.

"If it works, it would be wonderful. These things were meant to dance, and now they sit in this box," Jackson said.

Before Europeans settled the area, the Hoopa were united by religion; dancing, according to custom, was a form of prayer. For instance, the 10-day jump dance, in which participants wore deer-hide headdresses and grass skirts, was held every year on the Trinity's banks as a means of restoring balance to the earth.

'These would be dust'

But after gold prospectors arrived in the mid-1800s, these traditions were nearly lost. And pollution from mining killed off the Hoopa's staple food, salmon. In addition, Hoopa children were sold off as slaves, and disease decimated their numbers. And while many Hoopa died prematurely, many other California tribes were systematically exterminated. By 1900, California's indigenous population fell to just 17,000, a 60-fold decrease.

Nevertheless, despite the decline in tribal populations all over the country, demographers, historians and scientists worked to collect the physical aspects of their lives in a bid to preserve the remnants of what they saw as vanishing cultures. One of the most ambitious and tireless of these scientists was Charles Wilcomb of Connecticut, who dipped everything he found in a solution of gasoline and mercuric chloride.

The Oakland Museum of California now displays much of his collection, including Hoopa artifacts. "These would be dust without his secret formula," said Louise Pubols, senior curator of history. And while the century-old artifacts are very well preserved, they are stored in glass cases, and gloves and dust masks are recommended for handling them.

Sources:

http://www.hcn.org

http://www.hoopa-nsn.gov

http://cenblog.org

http://science.naturalnews.com