#shpo

Despite being fully funded by Congress in March 2025 through a Continuing Resolution, Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 appropriated dollars for the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) still haven’t been released. This delay threatens the work of State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, puts historic places at risk, and could halt preservation projects nationwide.

Additionally, the Administration’s proposed FY 2026 federal budget would slash the HPF almost entirely — a devastating blow to the people and programs that safeguard our shared heritage.

Congress needs to hear from you.

📢 Take Action Today:

Urge your federal elected officials to:  

Immediately release FY25 HPF funding so states and Tribes can continue their critical, federally mandated work. 

Robustly fund the HPF in FY26 to support preservation ahead of our nation’s 250th anniversary to tell the full American story. 

Contacting your local State Historical Preservation Office (SHPO) or Tribal Historical Preservation Office (THPO) would be a great place to start! They will probably be the best positioned to give you further instruction. I'll tag @midden-maiden who has some experience working for SHPO.

Hi there, this questions isn't bothering me at all, but I may not be the best equipped person to answer it. I'm going to tag @midden-maiden and @art-thropologist because they might have some good insights.

I think that the response you give depends on whether the artifacts you are seeing fall under the category of looting (having been dug up or removed from a site) or replicas (things made to look like Indigenous artifacts but have been made recently). I don't know enough to give you advice for telling them apart.

You can contact your State Historical Preservation Office (SHPO). These are archaeologists who work for the state governments, and they might be able to direct you to the appropriate forum for your inquiry. There is also the Tribal Historical Preservation Office (THPO) which serves the same function as SHPO, but deals exclusively with Indigenous artifacts and Indigenous land.

Unfortunately, there may not be a whole lot that you can do to affect change in this situation. Both SHPO and THPO tend to be overworked and understaffed, and tracking artifacts is a time and resource intensive task. The artifacts that have the best chance of getting attention will be those that fall under NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which concerns human remains, artifacts associated with burials, and artifacts of cultural patrimony.

If you feel so inclined, and are able to do so, I would suggest going and buying something from an Indigenous artist or craftsperson. This is perhaps the best way you as an individual can support Indigenous communities by putting money in their pockets and sustaining their traditional practices.

As always, if anyone has relevant information to share, please feel free to do so.