Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Hard

PT101 S4 P2 Q12 Explanation

Native American Burials

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsInferenceLaw

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Passage

Many Native Americans view the archaeological excavation and museum display of ancestral skeletal remains and items buried with them as a spiritual desecration. A number of legal remedies that either prohibit or regulate such activities may be available to Native American communities, if they can establish standing in such cases. In disinterment however, common law may provide a basis for some Native American claims against archaeologists and museums.

Property law, for example, can be useful in establishing Native American claims to artifacts that are retrieved in the excavation of ancient graves and can be considered the communal property of Native American tribes or communities. In Charrier v. Bell, a United States appellate court ruled that the common law doctrine of graves should be returned to representatives of tribal groups who can establish standing in such cases.

More generally, United States courts have upheld the distinction between individual and communal property, holding that an individual Native American does not have title to communal property owned and held for common use by his or her tribe. As a result, museums cannot assume that they have valid title to cultural property in good faith by an individual member of a Native American community.

What this question is testing

Inference

Your task

Find what must be true based on what the passage or stimulus states.

Common trap

Answers that are plausible or likely but not actually guaranteed by the text.

Winning move

Keep only the choice the statements fully support — eliminate anything that requires an extra assumption.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
12.

The passage suggests that in making the ruling in Charrier v. Bell the Court is most likely to have considered the answer to which

Answer choices

  1. No Connection to Support Window5% picked this

    Are the descendants of the deceased

    We can't connect this answer choice to any of the three things we were told about the court: - buried property isn't abandoned - abandonment doctrine doesn't apply - treating it as such would lead to immediate grave robbing (it wouldn't technically be robbing!)

  2. Correct42% picked this

    What was the reason for burying the objects

    Why this is right

    The passage says The court ruled that the practice of burying items with the body of the deceased "is not intended as a means of relinquishing ownership to a stranger". The court was asking itself, "What is the intent of burying items with the body of the deceased?"

    Skill tested: Inference · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

  3. No Connection to Support Window4% picked this

    How long after interment had buried objects been claimed by

    We can almost connect this answer choice to the third detail we hear about the court: - treating the buried objects as abandoned would lead to immediate grave robbing But there the court was asking itself "what would happen if we ruled that buried objects were intended as relinquishing ownership to strangers"? This answer choice is using the past tense, as though the court was asking about a specific timeline for when buried objects were claimed by a stranger in a particular case. We never hear anything like that.

  4. No Connection to Support Window6% picked this

    Did the descendants of the deceased remain in the neighborhood of

    We can't connect this answer choice to any of the three things we were told about the court: - buried property isn't abandoned - abandonment doctrine doesn't apply - treating it as such would lead to immediate grave robbing This answer choice is just trying to take advantage of word "neighborhood", which appears in the 3rd and final sentence of our Support Window.

  5. Out of Scope: abandoned land43% picked this

    Could the property on which buried objects were found be legally considered to

    The court was definitely asking itself, Could the property/objects being buried with the deceased be legally considered to be abandoned property? But this answer choice is talking about "the property on which buried objects were found". Let's say I found your great-grandma's pearl necklace, which was buried with her. I found it in the graveyard. This court case was about whether that necklace could be considered abandoned property. This answer is about whether that graveyard could be considered abandoned property. The graveyard is "the property on which the buried object (pearl necklace) was found".

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