During the second half of the 19th century, the United States dispatched legions of survey geologists to Lakotan treaty lands, where they mapped the location and abundance of valuable resources for economic extraction. In the course of this work, scientists also unearthed countless prehistoric fossils in the Badlands of what are now South Dakota and Nebraska, which were then accessioned to the “permanent collections” of museums in urban centers such as Chicago and New York. As they journeyed across the United States, these fossils were stripped of their original meanings and inserted into a new, teleological narrative about the evolutionary history of life on earth. By composing an Earth history they billed as North America’s one true creation story, survey geologists effectively sought to assert mastery over newly colonized lands. In this presentation, we make a case for why prehistoric fossils taken from Lakotan treaty lands should return home. In addition, we also sketch a new kind of exhibit about Fossils in the Lakotan world. Featuring contemporary Lakotan artists alongside the material remains of prehistoric animals, it serves as a case study for how to interpret fossils from American Indian lands. This exhibit explicitly foregrounds the lands, philosophies, and citizens of a specific tribal nation whose ongoing presence is central to a fuller understanding of extinct animals that are currently on display all over the world, the site where they had been for millions of years, and their journey to imperial museums of natural history.

Speakers: Craig Howe, founder and director of the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies (CAIRNS), earned a Ph.D. in architecture and anthropology from the University of Michigan. He served as Deputy Assistant Director for Cultural Resources at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and Director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History at the Newberry Library in Chicago. Howe has authored articles and book chapters on numerous topics, including tribal histories, Native studies, museum exhibitions, and community collaborations. He has developed innovative tribal histories projects and creative museum exhibitions, lectures on American Indian topics across the U.S., and provides professional development and cultural awareness training to schools and organizations. Howe was raised and lives on his family’s cattle ranch in the Lacreek District of the Pine Ridge Reservation where he is designing and building Wingsprings, an architecturally unique retreat and conference center that is featured in New Architecture on Indigenous Lands. He is a citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

Lukas Rieppel is a historian of science, capitalism, and museums at Brown University, where he also directs the Program in Science, Technology, and Society. He published Assembling the Dinosaur in 2019 and he is currently a Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellow, researching how the Earth sciences contributed to the imperial expansion of the United States during the long nineteenth century. Rieppel is currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Department Knowledge Systems and Collective Life at the MPIWG.