González-Ruibal et al. raise challenging issues that seem frightening in their implications. In both their specificity and their wider theoretical contexts, I had previously given these issues little thought, and some I had not even recognised. I share fully the authors’ concern that archaeologists must seek ways to engage people influenced by ‘reactionary populism’, people who “are diverse, fragmented and complex”, and who may be “greedy, patriarchal, xenophobic or uninterested in the past” (González-Ruibal et al. above). The authors find fault with the multi-vocal, multi-cultural approaches of epistemic populist archaeologies that tend to exclude most of those who fit this description. I could object to some of the details of the authors’ critiques of epistemic populism and heritage studies, but their core arguments are mostly correct and powerful. At the same time, at least within a North American context, I think that archaeologists have generally reacted to the various populist pressures of the past century and that we have already started to do what the authors suggest.

Researchers have increasingly promoted an emerging paradigm of Indigenous archaeology, which includes an array of practices conducted by, for, and with Indigenous communities to challenge the discipline's intellectual breadth and political economy. McGhee (2008) argues that Indigenous archaeology is not viable because it depends upon the essentialist concept of “Aboriginalism.” In this reply, we correct McGhee's description of Indigenous Archaeology and demonstrate why Indigenous rights are not founded on essentialist imaginings. Rather, the legacies of colonialism, sociopolitical context of scientific inquiry, and insights of traditional knowledge provide a strong foundation for collaborative and community-based archaeology projects that include Indigenous peoples.

The most recent opinion in the so-called Kennewick Man or Ancient One (as many American Indians choose to call the skeleton) case by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unfortunately resurrects some very old and contentious issues in America. Indians mostly view the opinion as one more echo of the same old story of Native American property issues raised in the courts, but they also understand that some implications may be broader. The most direct impact of the opinion is that the Umatilla people will not be allowed to return the Ancient One to the earth, but others could be portents of a larger resurgence of anti-Indian sentiment and scientific colonialism in America. Specifically, though not directly stated as such, the court's opinion supports a notion that archaeological materials are a public heritage, no matter their culture of origin. In addition, by affirming the plaintiffs' position, the court essentially declared archaeologists and associated scientists to be the primary stewards of that heritage, much to the chagrin of many American Indian people. Along the way, the court reinforced the idea that scientifically generated evidence has greater validity than oral tradition in court, outright denying oral tradition's validity and undercutting a major intention of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Worse still, the court reflects—and by its decision supports—an idea that there may be a “white” or European history for the Americas that predates the arrival of Indians. The most damaging and long-term impact is that the decision reinforces fundamentally erroneous definitions and stereotypes about Indians as tribes, which has plagued Indian-white relations for generations.