Best Practices

The CNO has identified evidence of the extent of ancestral Choctaw footprint within present-day Alabama. As a reminder, CNO defines their ancestral homelands in Alabama as the following modern-day counties: Baldwin, Bibb, Choctaw, Clarke, Conecuh, Dallas, Escambia, Greene, Hale, Marengo, Mobile, Monroe, Perry, Pickens, Sumter, Tuscaloosa, Washington, and Wilcox, and a portion of Jefferson County. 

The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma Historic Preservation Department conducts extensive research and  produces resources for their tribal members that archaeologists working in the Choctaw ancestral homeland should find informative and beneficial (see links on the CNO Sources page and the Choctaw Item Set). 

• In discussions with CNO Historic Preservation staff regarding compliance archaeology in Alabama, they too often find little, or no, acknowledgement of the presence, or even potential presence, of Choctaw or ancestral Choctaw in Alabama. This includes not only the Cultural Context sections of Section 106 reporting, but background reviews and interpretations.
• Examining the area around an APE for Choctaw place names (e.g., GNIS), conducting more extensive historical map searches, as well as simply acknowledging the potential presence of the Choctaw regardless of archaeological findings all serve as ways to address this issue.
• Project APEs should be examined as part of a broader landscape, evaluating the potential of the landscape for resources important to people in the past. (For example, LandFire's Biophysical Settings are useful for a more holistic perspective to precontact vegetation systems.) Fieldwork and reporting would be better served if archaeologists examined the area for sources of toolstone or clays for producing ceramic vessels, noting remnant cane breaks, or the presence of mast producing groves. Cherts and clay deposits can be identified through geological maps and reports available from the Alabama Geological Survey, or by examining cut banks and stream beds during fieldwork. Observations on the presence of potential source materials in the field may come to bear on the current archaeological work/project, and serve to build knowledge about the landscape and provide context for archaeological resources in the surrounding area.
• Archaeologists should be thinking at the scale of a town, rather than individual archaeological sites (CNO [2023], Choctaw Town of Hobvk Itopa or Hakha Aiola as examples of this approach or Blitz's 1985 study).
• Collaboration with Tribal Nations is the most direct path to gaining a better understanding of Tribal culture, lifeways, and heritage. Collaboration is different than consultation. Reaching out to the Choctaw Historic Preservation staff, establishing working relationships, and asking questions will result in better compliance archaeology. 
• Words matter, and they certainly matter for CRM reporting.
  • Avoid amalgamations, use specific Indigenous nation's names or tribes when possible.
  • Use precontact rather than prehistory.
  • The CNO does not find Indian, Native American, or American Indian particularly offensive, but this can vary on a case-by-case basis, and from person to person.
  • The Choctaw Nation uses the terms "ancestral Choctaw" and "ancestral Muskogean." Thompson (2025) provides insight into these terms:
    Choctaw people traditionally reckoned ancestry through the female line (Bossu 1771:308). Their communities were also matrilocal, meaning when a couple got married, they went to live with the wife's side of the family. In such a setting, language and culture pass mostly through the female line. While Choctaw women occasionally adopted individuals who were not biologically related into their families and clans, the core of Choctaw society continued to be these matrilineal connections. In the Choctaw language, the term hattak intikba refers to ancestors and ancestral societies. It can be understood in context as “mankind’s maternal ancestors” (Byington 1915:139,194). Opposite from archaeology, this perspective begins with communities in the present and works backwards. People of the past who shared the same female line—and by extension are a part of the same cultural and linguistic lineages as today’s Choctaws— have a shared group identity with today’s Choctaw people. It doesn’t matter if they called themselves something other than “Choctaw”. It makes little difference if a group that is ancestral to the Choctaw people was also ancestral to another, modern Tribe. If a past group of people had these connections with today’s Choctaw community, they are recognized and respected as Choctaw ancestors. Such a perspective emphasizes the dynamic nature of human society and the connectedness across deep time. It contrasts with the traditional perspective of archaeology that tends to divide. It doesn’t matter if they called themselves something other than “Choctaw”. It makes little difference if a group that is ancestral to the Choctaw people was also ancestral to another, modern Tribe. If a past group of people had these connections with today’s Choctaw community, they are recognized and respected as Choctaw ancestors. Such a perspective emphasizes the dynamic nature of human society and the connectedness across deep time. It contrasts with the traditional perspective of archaeology that tends to divide.
  • SAA (Style Guide rev. 2023), SEAC (SEAC Image Policy and discussion), and other professional associations have revised their style guides and editorial policies, and the Native Governance Center has produced a style guide that specifically deals with the use of words in publications. In keeping with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma's policies and protocols, this site does not promulgate the display and dissemination of materials that are culturally sacred, including human remains, associated funerary or sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. For more insight into this topic, please see articles by Matherly (2022) and Byrd and Thompson (2024).