Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

The Organization of Cuban Archaeology / 57
lege, London (Graham et al. 2000). Project oversight is shared between the
Cuban and British institutions; codirectors are David Pendergast (IOA) and
Jorge Calvera (CITMA), and subdirectors are Elizabeth Graham (IOA) and
Juan Jardines (CITMA).
Throughout the 1990s, attempts were made (and continue to be made) to
create collaborative projects with U.S. museums and universities. In the early
1990s, an agreement between the Montané Museum and the Carnegie Museum
of Natural History resulted in joint ¤eldwork in Pinar del Rio and the
publication of an elegantly illustrated book on the prehistory of Cuba by the
University of Pittsburgh Press (Berman 1999; Dacal Moure and Rivero de la
Calle 1996; Gnivecki 1998). Other collaborators (the authors included) sought
grant funds in the mid-1990s to conduct research in central Cuba, but U.S.
policy, which expanded the scope and severity of its sanctions after 1995, intensi¤ed
the amount of paperwork involved in obtaining visas and licenses,
making it nearly prohibitive to undertake projects there.
On a more positive note, the return of human remains to a Taíno community
in Caridad de los Indios (eastern Cuba) in January 2003 is bringing
new meaning to archaeological collaborations between Cuba and the United
States. Following six years of discussion between Smithsonian and Cuban archaeologists
and the Cuban government, Cuban Taíno remains, believed to
be from seven individuals, were returned and reburied in a ceremony attended
by Cuba’s Taíno descendants, staff from the National Museum of the American
Indian (Smithsonian), representatives from several U.S. Indian tribes, and
Taíno descendants living in the United States (Bauzá 2003). Cuban archaeologists
are now requesting the return of artifacts collected by Harrington, but
the Smithsonian’s policy is to return artifacts to native communities, not to
universities or museums. According to the NMAI repatriation coordinator,
the Cuban Taínos themselves must claim these in order to begin repatriation
proceedings (Bauzá 2003).
Another response on the part of Cuban archaeologists has been to organize
international conferences to connect with scholars from other countries and
intellectual traditions, which may also bring much-needed U.S. dollars and
other forms of Western currency to the island. Numerous meetings brought
North American, European, Latin American, and Cuban scientists and avocational
archaeologists together to discuss rock art, physical anthropology, colonial
archaeology, and prehistoric archaeology during the 1990s. Other conferences
such as the Sixth Iberian-American Symposium of Terminology, held