During week seven, I have come to realize that all historic items served a significant purpose for the Indigenous people. None of their artifacts were made by mistake. While researching for my Four Views project, I have stumbled upon many different artifacts that I believe to have great value. When it comes to these items, I do believe that there is a difference between a physical artifact and its digitized version. I believe that holding/ viewing the physical object makes the item seem more sentimental to the person. For example, people can go online and look up geographic landmarks and see historical sites online. However, seeing that site in person makes for a much more meaningful experience. The only reason I believe this to be true is because I have found an arrowhead while fishing in the Illinois River, and that was a pretty cool event.
One challenge that I would say I have encountered so far is that I can not actually hold the artifact when I am studying it. This is challenging because I can’t physically feel or see what the artifact is like. I am also unable to determine the weight of the artifact which I feel like says a lot about it. It determines whether it was used to slowly craft resources or if it was used for destroying resources. While the pictures do occasionally show the relative size of an artifact, it can still be challenging to tell the accurate size of it. Museums definitely make it a lot easier for people to truly understand how historic items were used and crafted.
While reading the article on the Native American Graves Repatriation Protection Act, it made me realize how important other people view historic preservation. I really appreciate the fact that people do try to preserve history. While it may not be the most interesting topic for most people, there are still people who find it significant. Preserving history can be challenging since the items have aged and will most likely be fragile. Without this protection act, many historic items and artifacts would not intact today.
Hi Ben! Thank you so much for sharing these thoughts. It is interesting to think about the difference between physical and digital items, as well as how our experience changes when interacting with these sources. Although search engines can make our research infinitely easier, there are critical limitations with such technology. Especially when grappling with Native history, we need to be aware of how these platforms might replicate colonial systems of preserving and presenting knowledge. As we increasingly “do history” in a digital age, we can work to make these platforms/collections more representative, collaborative, and equitable for all.