Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and the Battle for Native American Identity

“Though technically built around the discovery of and controversy surrounding the Kennewick Man in the 1990s, I found this to be a thorough, balanced book about Indigenous people in North America in the past and present. Hurst Thomas also explores the fraught relationship between archaeology and people still recovering from the brutal, genocidal campaign waged by the United States (and includes noted voices like that of Vine Deloria Jr). Yes it was published in 2000, and yet I keep coming back to it because it is continually fascinating how we have treated the study of Native people as the study of dead cultures for so long. If you read any other books about settler colonialism on this continent, Skull Wars remains relevant.”