The South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, or SCIAA, was founded in 1963 as a research institute at University of South Carolina and as a State cultural resource management agency. In the latter capacity, SCIAA is part of the Executive Department of the South Carolina State Government and serves as the main State agency concerned with the State's Archaeology (both prehistoric and historic), and its discovery, study, interpretation, publication, and official conservation at its curatorial facilities. As a University research institute, SCIAA both initiates and conducts a wide spectrum of field investigations and collections research throughout South Carolina. SCIAA participates in numerous university projects, and is a significant part of the University's infrastructure, and the University's publication series.

In 1968, laws were passed to help control salvage that included the Hobby Diver License and under the authority of SCIAA Director Dr. Robert L. Stephenson.

The institute has 252 ancestral remains and 9,748 known funerary objects of Native Americans. The institute is in consultation with tribes under the process established under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act passed by Congress in 1990.

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