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site. Unfortunately, dissent- The 1975 discovery of human burials in the borrow anthropologist to briefly examine the remains near by
ing viewpoints and armed area for the new Lewis Central School, just outside the site prior to their reburial.
confrontation produced Council Bluffs, again engaged law enforcement,
a standoff resulting in the Indian activists, and archaeologists. The new State Ar- This event marked a turning point in Indian-archaeol-
destruction of important chaeologist, Duane Anderson, contacted Maria Pear- ogists relations. The procedures followed in this case
cultural information from son for advice and assistance. She served as a liaison to identify, analyze, and report the discoveries set a
a burial complex where as with other Indian leaders who agreed to the removal precedent for the legal process still used in Iowa for
many as 200 individuals and reburial of the remains by a local undertaker. the handling and reburial of ancient human remains.
may have been interred. On learning that the disinterments would take place
via bulldozer and backhoe, the Indian leaders chose While the history of disease, injury, diet, population
Marine shell artifacts and archaeologists to remove the remains using hand demographics, social alliances, and warfare may be
pottery found with the dead tools instead. Indian leaders also permitted a physical written in the bones of ancient peoples, the study
indicated that their own-
ers, possibly late prehistoric Lewis Central School site.
residents of nearby Mill Creek communities, had
traded with Mississippian people hundreds of miles
to the east and south. Recently, the Iowa Natural
Heritage Foundation purchased remaining portions
of the Siouxland Sand and Gravel cemetery and sur-
rounding areas to incorporate into Stone State Park.
Base of an imported, incised, egg-shell thin vessel
from 13WD402.
University of Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist 29
