But as historian Lukas Rieppel and Oglala Sioux scholar Craig Howe argue in a new, groundbreaking research collaboration, the more we come to know about fossil excavation on Native lands, the clearer it becomes that this history was just one facet of colonial practices.
Reclaiming Native Narratives
A question persisted with Rieppel after his initial exploration of the history of dinosaur fossils and their museum displays: What did Native people in North America make out of the bones that had fossilized millions — even hundreds of millions — years ago before European colonizers brought over non-Native scientists to study them?
To fill this gap, Rieppel teamed up with Oglala Sioux Tribe citizen Craig Howe to examine the more nuanced case of the White River Badlands that cross South Dakota and Nebraska. As a result of their years of collaboration, which included trips to the Pine Ridge Reservation and from working with the Woksape Tipi Library and Archives, researchers were able to piece together a more complete view of what many members of the Lakota people have thought about excavating ancient fossils from their land.
Framed within the context of 19th-century U.S. history around Lakota history and culture, Howe and Rieppel is a direct challenge to bias and omission in the academic canon that speaks against the marginalized and missed Indigenous memories.
Confronting Colonial Legacies
We have shed light on the extractive colonial fossil excavations occurring in the late 1800s through our findings. The same summer these scenes were being described, they write, two notable expeditions took place in 1874 — just six years after the signing of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, recognizing Lakota sovereignty in the area.
In the first expedition, headed by General George Armstrong Custer, they were joined by scientists who recorded resources of geology in the area. Marsh returned later that year on the second expedition of 1874, when he removed two tons of prehistoric fossils from Sioux lands near Coffee Siding in present-day Montana; the rock was shipped to Yale University for subsequent generations of paleontologists to study.
The loss of these fossils, including the meaning and stories for the Lakota that went along with them, Howe and Rieppel said, makes it easy to think of this same material as evidence used in racist theories that rationalized American imperialism. Ultimately, this history highlights the urgency of natural history museums everywhere to reflect on their colonial links and begin a process of reconnection with Native communities.
Conclusion
The above is an excerpt from our previous interview with Rieppel and Howe who spoke explicitly to the complex, overlooked histories of fossil extraction within native land. By centering Lakota perspectives and shedding light on the extractive practices of the past, their work moves beyond simply revealing a legacy to set conditions for improved approaches toward studying and preserving our common natural heritage in a more equitable and inclusive manner.
