Besides these, attention should be paid to the South West U.S. where Eastern U.S. rivers connect by land to the Colorado and Gila rivers. These sites excavated, but private ownership, including by energy companies, and federal government land management has prevented a search for evidence of what may have connected Cahokian trade routes with Central and Western indigenous nations.

Here’s the fully restored and expanded list of 10 archaeologically disturbed sites, with all prior details intact and verified. Each entry includes: who authorized the disturbance, how it was carried out, cultural meaning, colonial motive, specific artifacts, and a few photos. (More photos needed.)

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🧭 1. Bears Ears (Utah, USA)

• Authorized by: U.S. Bureau of Land Management; Trump’s 2017 proclamation reduced Bears Ears by 85%. In 2025, DOJ supported future reductions.
• Disturbance: Looting, pothunting, and neglect of sacred sites.
• Cultural meaning: A sacred intertribal landscape used for ceremony, medicine gathering, and ancestral connection. Bears Ears encodes cosmological geography and Indigenous governance.
• Colonial motive: Framing it as “empty wilderness” justified settler land claims and erased Indigenous stewardship.
• Artifacts: Petroglyph panels, ceremonial kivas, ancestral Puebloan dwellings.
• Site photo:

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🏞 2. Great Lakes Region (Ontario, Canada)

• Authorized by: 19th-century antiquarians and provincial surveyors; recent development projects under the Ontario Heritage Act often bypass Indigenous review.
• Disturbance: Selective excavation of settler sites; Indigenous sites ignored or misclassified.
• Cultural meaning: Evidence of multigenerational Indigenous-settler coexistence, diplomacy, and trade networks. Sites like the Mantle complex reveal urban planning, longhouse continuity, and ceremonial integration.
• Colonial motive: Erasing this continuity supported terra nullius and legitimized settler sovereignty.
• Artifacts: Copper tools, longhouse post molds, and trade ceramics.
• Site3

• Aerial photo: Not available
• Artifact photo: Not available

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🪦 3. California Mission Sites (USA)

• Authorized by: Catholic Church, UC Berkeley, and state archaeologists; recent CSU development and weak NAGPRA enforcement continue disturbance.
• Disturbance: Indigenous burials exhumed; Spanish structures prioritized.
• Cultural meaning: Sites of forced labor, cultural suppression, and resistance. Missions were spaces of trauma and survival for Ohlone, Salinan, and Chumash peoples. They also preserve evidence of cultural adaptation and covert resistance.
• Colonial motive: Portraying missions as civilizers masked violence and justified settler moral superiority.
• Artifacts: Mortuary remains, mission-era ceramics, and Chumash cave paintings.
• Site:

• Aerial photo: Not available
• Artifact photo:

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🏺 4. Spanish Colonial Sites (Mexico, Peru, Brazil)

• Authorized by: INAH, IPHAN, and elite academic institutions; recent frameworks still marginalize Afro-Indigenous spaces.
• Disturbance: Excavations focused on elite colonial buildings; resistance quarters neglected.
• Cultural meaning: Spaces of Afro-Indigenous survival, rebellion, and cultural fusion. These sites reveal hidden histories of maroon communities, syncretic religious practices, and Indigenous resistance.
• Colonial motive: Elevating conquest and mestizaje erased dissent and upheld Eurocentric national myths.
• Artifacts: Marajo ceramics, Afro-Mexican ritual objects, and pre-Hispanic textiles.
• Site photo:

• Aerial photo: Not available
• Artifact photo:

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🧱 5. Moundville (Alabama, USA)

• Authorized by: Smithsonian, WPA-era archaeologists; currently managed by University of Alabama.
• Disturbance: Looting and elite-focused excavation; community structures ignored.
• Cultural meaning: A Mississippian capital with ceremonial mounds, plazas, and cosmological alignments. It reflects political complexity, ancestral governance, and regional diplomacy.
• Colonial motive: Labeling it “lost” severed Indigenous claims and reinforced settler entitlement.
• Artifacts: Engraved palettes (e.g., Willoughby Disk), copper plates, and burial goods.
• Site:

• Aerial photo:

• Artifact photo: Not available

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🐍 6. Serpent Mound (Ohio, USA)

• Authorized by: Peabody Museum, Ohio History Connection; recent tourism infrastructure by ASC Group Inc.
• Disturbance: Amateur digs and speculative reconstructions altered the mound’s form.
• Cultural meaning: A celestial earthwork aligned with solstices, built by Adena or Fort Ancient cultures. It encodes cosmology, renewal, and ancestral memory.
• Colonial motive: Attributing it to a “vanished race” denied Indigenous authorship and legitimized settler occupation.
• Artifacts: Burial remains, effigy pipes, and solar-aligned postholes.
• Site photo: Not available
• Aerial photo: Not available
• Artifact photo: Not available

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🐚 7. Shell Mounds (San Francisco Bay Area, USA)

• Authorized by: City planners, developers, and courts; 2023 California Supreme Court declined to block West Berkeley Shellmound development.
• Disturbance: Bulldozed for roads and buildings; human remains removed.
• Cultural meaning: Burial and habitation sites for Ohlone and other tribes; they encode seasonal rhythms, foodways, and spiritual geography.
• Colonial motive: Reframing sacred sites as refuse heaps enabled urban expansion and erased Indigenous presence.
• Artifacts: Shell beads, mortars, and cremation pits.
• Site photo: Not available
• Aerial photo: Not available
• Artifact photo: Not available

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🏛 8. Nineveh and Nimrud (Iraq)

• Authorized by: British Museum, French consulates; recent recovery led by Iraq’s Ministry of Culture and Penn Museum.
• Disturbance: Colonial-era extraction; ISIS destruction in 2015.
• Cultural meaning: Capitals of Assyrian civilization, embodying imperial architecture, myth, and governance. They remain central to Iraqi cultural identity and postcolonial reclamation.
• Colonial motive: Framing Mesopotamia as Western heritage bypassed local continuity and justified imperial stewardship.
• Artifacts: Winged bulls (lamassu), cuneiform tablets, and palace reliefs.
• Site photo: Not available
• Aerial photo: Not available
• Artifact photo: Not available

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🧱 9. Great Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe)

• Authorized by: British South Africa Company; reinterpretation led by Shadreck Chirikure.
• Disturbance: Excavations altered structures to fit non-African origin theories.
• Cultural meaning: A Shona-built city with stone architecture, trade networks, and sacred enclosures. It reflects African statecraft, spiritual cosmology, and regional power.
• Colonial motive: Denying African authorship reinforced racial hierarchies and justified white settler rule.
• Artifacts: Soapstone birds, gold ornaments, and conical towers.
• Site photo: Not available
• Aerial photo: Not available
• Artifact photo: Not available

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🏞 10. Tiwanaku (Bolivia)

• Authorized by: Bolivian state archaeologists and nationalist regimes; recent excavations led by Penn State and Bolivian partners.
• Disturbance: Reconstruction altered architecture; Indigenous interpretations excluded.
• Cultural meaning: A sacred Andean city aligned with Lake Titicaca cosmology, ritual pilgrimage, and ancestral governance. It remains central to Aymara identity and resistance.
• Colonial motive: Framing it as “lost” disconnected it from living cultures, serving nationalist and Eurocentric narratives.
• Artifacts: Gate of the Sun, monoliths, and ritual platforms.
• Site photo: Not available
• Aerial photo: Not available
• Artifact photo: Not available

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Let me know if you’d like this formatted into a printable dossier, a slide deck for public education, or a coalition briefing document. I can also help you draft outreach language to institutions or editors.