ANCIENT DNA: A LINK TO THE PAST

Breaking the Glass Case | Alexandra Forand 

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It would not be a stretch for me to say that one of museums’ major roles is to illuminate human history. Many museums do this by using timelines or installing a linear progression through exhibits. The first thing audiences see when entering The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) is the massive, multimedia timeline with 100 points in history. While the CMHR’s timeline spans the globe there are timelines that focus on a particular topic, such as a place, a phenomenon, or a certain group of people. For instance, the Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM) First Nations Gallery traces the history of the first peoples in Saskatchewan, starting nearly 6,000 years ago to present day.

The CMHR's gallery with the timeline on the left (Source).

The timeline that is present the RSM shows a direct link between the people who were present 6,000 years ago to the people present on the land today. With the employment of science when conducting historical and archeological research, especially the study of DNA pulled from ancient humans (known as aDNA), this idea has become doubly enforced. You see, aDNA promotes a different kind of timeline.

The study of, understanding, and potential for ancient DNA has rapidly advanced, providing important insights into a range of biological, historical, and social questions. The study of aDNA has illuminated many answers to questions such as disease, migration patterns, impacts of European colonization and much more, it isn’t without its controversies—namely the ethical issues of collecting human genetic material of the past. 

A hotly debated topic amongst scientists is the peopling of North America, a question aDNA could potentially answer (Source). 

There have been numerous instances reported where scientists have used samples without permission, disregarded customs of communities, and resisted obtaining any form of consent from the people involved in studies (in some cases, these people were involved involuntarily). In 2013, Ian Mosby, an assistant professor at Ryerson, revealed that a number of highly unethical nutritional experiments were performed on children at six residential schools between 1942 and 1952. In turn, Indigenous communities have had to become sceptical of any sort of scientific and social testing to protect themselves, communities, and autonomy.

Ripan Malhi, a molecular anthropologist at the University of Illinois, is part of an effort to change this relationship. In 2011, Malhi helped found the Summer Internship for Indigenous Peoples in Genomics (SING), a weeklong program funded by the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The program both aims to train indigenous scientists, but also so bring their much needed perspective to the research. In 2018, SING faculty and alumni publishes ethical guidelines for genomics studies, which call for community engagement, pose questions to tackle, and protocols on how to handle samples and data. You will notice these protocols are very much focused on the present communities and the future of genomics research. But, what about the science of the past? The ethical concerns of research are often not applied to aDNA studies, even though they have implications rooted in the present.

But this is changing.

In October of 2019, the National Science Foundation has awarded 350, 882$ to a collaborative team from the University of Connecticut, The Denver Museum of Nature and and independent scholars across the United States, Europe and Canada. 

(Source.)

“In many cases, aDNA studies continue to fall in a gray area of ethical oversight, despite greater awareness by researchers of the potential pitfalls,” says Deborah Bolnick, associate professor of anthropology at UConn. “With this project, we will include Indigenous leaders in the conversation alongside researchers to attempt to build an ethical framework that encourages positive, collaborative relationships between scientists and Indigenous communities.”

The team hopes to develop resources to enable informed decision making for researchers and indigenous communities in North America.
Both this project and SING inform how research is being done with, for, and by Indigenous communities pertaining to tracing history through DNA. The significance of these interventions cannot be over stated and affect the way the general public understands certain histories of Indigenous communities.

What are your thoughts? I really want to know! Leave a comment or if Twitter and Instagram are more your speed my handle on both is @Ally_but_online.

FINDERS KEEPERS?: WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU FIND AN ARTIFACT BY CHANCE

Breaking the Glass Case | Alexandra Forand 

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Imagine, you are outside walking on a beautiful sun-shining day and you catch a glint of light in your peripheral vision. You take a closer look and you see it’s a quartz arrowhead! You pick it up, it is blue grey in color and about the size of your palm. The tip is chipped off. Perhaps the hunter who knapped this arrow head did this accidently and discarded it. Your first thought is probably, “this should be in a museum!” But… is that the right instinct? This exact scenario happened to my friend Kirsten, who works in and around different lakes in Saskatchewan. While on the job, Kirsten regularly finds amazing treasures, such as fossils, bones, and cultural heritage items. This is no surprise since lakes and rivers have been the heart of social interactions for Prairie peoples. Kirsten has built herself a collection made up of artifacts and pictures of specimens she has left behind.

The arrowhead that started it all. Photo curtesy of Kirsten Sepos. 

This scenario is actually quite common in rural areas, like the Prairie provinces. Chances of finding heritage items (arrow heads, medicines wheels, spear points, stone axes, hammerstones and tipi rings) are quiet high. This is because the Prairie provinces were (and still are) significant places for Indigenous communities to live, hunt, trade, and celebrate for nearly 400 generations! So it is no surprise that Indigenous material culture is densely deposited across the land.

Today, farmers, fishers, conservation officers, gardeners, and people enjoying nature find these remnants of ancient (and sometimes modern) Indigenous communities. So the question remains: what do you do when you find these objects?

Bodies of water, such as Lake Diefenbaker, were and are significant meeting areas in Saskatchewan (source.)

The province of Alberta is taking steps to answer this question. One of the first things they recommend is reporting the spot you found the artifact on the Alberta culture website. Here, they ask you to include a digital photograph, a location, your personal information (phone number, email, address, etc), and a description and circumstance of how you came across the artifact. After you submit this information, an Archeological Information Coordinator will confirm this is a new archeological site, which will be entered into the Archeological Site Inventory database.


While I was writing this piece, I came across an instance where construction of a road was being halted because of the uncovered Indigenous objects. Jim Gilroy, the farmer whose land the construction was taking place on, contacted the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) and together they signed a memorandum of understand which signified the groups commitment to protecting the land. Both parties hope the land will be designated as a heritage site and see this partnership as an act of reconciliation.

It is not uncommon for farmers to have an extensive collection of artifacts which have been collected over the years (source.)

But that does not answer the question at hand. Let us return to Kirsten, her arrow head, and what she should do. In Saskatchewan the protocol is much less clear. If you want to donate your artifact to a museum, there is a good possibility they will not accept the object. Some of the larger museums in Saskatchewan such as the Western Development Museum, focuses on collecting artifacts from the 20thcentury. The Royal Saskatchewan Museum, does collect artifacts from all time periods, but they too may say no. Artifacts such as arrowheads, hammerstones, and spear points tend to be extremely common in Prairie museums and often have little, or no known history associated with the artifact.



So for now Kirsten curates her small collection and when she comes across an artifact in the bush, she reflects on the fact that she might be the first person in one thousand years to touch this object.

Have you ever found anything on your adventures? I want to know! Contact me at allyforand@gmail.com or if Twitter and Instagram are more your speed my handle on both is @Ally_but_online.