El Podcast

I Got Canceled for Studying Bones… Here’s What Happened | Dr. Elizabeth Weiss (E191)

Episode Summary

Anthropologist Dr. Elizabeth Weiss argues that growing repatriation rules and identity-focused trends are limiting access to skeletal collections, weakening hands-on training, and shifting anthropology away from science and toward activism.

Episode Notes

Anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss argues that expanding repatriation policies and identity-driven academic trends are restricting access to skeletal collections and reshaping anthropology away from empirical science.

Guest bio
Elizabeth Weiss is a physical anthropologist and professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at San José State University. She studies skeletal remains, taught human osteology and forensic anthropology, curated the Ryan Mound collection, and is the author of On the Warpath: My Battles with Indians, Pretendians, and Woke Warriors and Repatriation and Erasing the Past.

Topics discussed

• NAGPRA and the expansion of repatriation rules
• Loss of skeletal collections in universities and museums
• How repatriation affects research, teaching, and forensic anthropology
• Kennewick Man and the reburial of ancient remains
• The shift from physical anthropology toward identity politics
• “Pretendians,” academic cancellation campaigns, and administrative pressure
• The effect of DEI bureaucracy on universities and anthropology departments
• Why students increasingly go abroad to study osteology and archaeology
• The future of anthropology in the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe

Main points

• Weiss says repatriation has moved far beyond its original purpose and now threatens to remove not just human remains, but also associated materials, replicas, scans, and even teaching collections.
• She argues that once skeletal collections are lost, future research is permanently limited, especially in biological anthropology, archaeology, and forensic science.
• Teaching with real bones matters because students need hands-on experience identifying fragments, variation, and differences between human and non-human remains.
• Weiss sees Kennewick Man as a major turning point, saying his reburial helped open the door to repatriating other very ancient remains.
• She argues that traditional knowledge is increasingly being treated as overriding scientific evidence in repatriation decisions.
• According to Weiss, the field has shifted away from intellectual curiosity and scientific rigor toward identity politics, activist scholarship, and moral posturing.
• She says university administrators can still pressure tenured professors by cutting off resources, access, and institutional support, even if outright firing is difficult.
• Weiss also argues that higher education bureaucracy benefits from expanding categories like homelessness, food insecurity, and identity classification.
• Despite her criticism, she still believes anthropology is too fascinating to abandon and hopes the field can recover.

Books discussed

• On the Warpath: My Battles with Indians, Pretendians, and Woke Warriors — Elizabeth Weiss
• Repatriation and Erasing the Past — Elizabeth Weiss and James Springer

Laws and policies discussed

• Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
• California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (CalNAGPRA)