Adeline Mary Sam Fredin (1934–2018) was an American archaeologist, tribal member, Director and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. She is best known as one of the first 12 accredited Tribal Heritage Preservation Officers in the United States and for her contributed efforts to the repatriation of Kennewick Man and furthering tribal engagement as an Indian Country leader in Cultural Resource Management. Fredin was a self-taught pioneer in the protection of Native American heritage and rights to the preservation of prehistoric artifacts and human remains. The Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation describes Fredin's contributions to the field of archaeology as formative to the relationship between anthropology and tribal histories. Fredin was rumored a force to be reckoned with who maintained relationships with the Secretary of Interior, the White House and the Pentagon, perceived as an attorney of sorts when it came to Indian law.
Contributions to cultural resource management
In 1974 she established the first tribal repository. In 1976, Fredin became director of the Archaeology department for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. In 1990, she was a loud proponent of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and in 1996, Fredin became one of the first 12 Tribal Historic Preservation Officers accredited and recognized by the US Federal government. When the tribe began a cultural program, Fredin was instrumental in converting it into a History department and ultimately the History and Archaeology Department. According to her colleagues, she was a well-respected, intelligent woman who used the National Historic Preservation Act along with other cultural resource laws, regulations, and protections to its full extent in order to fight for Native rights. Fredin retired in 2003, but continued to actively speak out in support of DNA testing The Ancient One (Kennewick Man) well into 2005. Fredin's early reburying of unearthed human remains as a result of high water levels and erosion after the installation of the Grand Coulee Dam and her persistent fight for Native American human and civil rights earned her respect nationally, both in Indian Country and amongst non-native people as well.
Repatriation of The Ancient One (Kennewick Man) and controversy
On July 28, 1996, a nearly complete skeleton was recovered from the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington. The archaeologist who recovered the remains, James Chatters, controversially fought against tribal parties reclaiming the remains, pushing for them to be housed at the Smithsonian Institution. He reported incorrectly that a few markers of the 350 bone fragments exhibited Caucasoid traits, not Native American morphologies and attempted to have them relocated to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Adeline Fredin fought hard against the head of Archaeology at the Smithsonian Institution, Dennis Stanford, asserting that the Ancient One's remains stay under the guardianship of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington.
Amidst the lengthy legal battle between the Army Corps of Engineers and associated tribes, Fredin toured nationally where she spoke publicly about the Ancient One and how she believed the tribes involved were being excluded from their own history. In 2004, on February 4, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit panel denied the Upper Columbia Basin Tribe's appeal to have the remains returned on the basis that they could not provide sufficient physical evidence of kinship despite oral traditions that indicated a strong connection to ancient peoples of the region. After nine years in litigation, the collective efforts of the Colville, Yakama, Wanapum, Nez Perce and Umatilla tribes along with Fredin's familiarity with NAGPRA made her an asset to the successful repatriation of the Ancient One.
In 2014, members of the Confederated Tribes of Colville provided DNA samples to be tested against that of Kennewick Man. This was an especially significant feat because of the tribe's distrust of Western science and traditional neglect of tribal needs. In June 2015, a DNA analysis done by the University of Copenhagen in Denmark claimed that the genetic makeup of Kennewick Man was very likely to be connected to descendant Native Americans, most closely the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. It was then formally announced that the results of 22 contributed DNA samples were enough to allow for the return of Kennewick Man's remains to the Upper Columbia Basin Tribes.