BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – The Abenaki have lost an advocate in the death of University of Vermont anthropology professor James Petersen.

Petersen, who was shot Saturday during a restaurant robbery in Brazil, testified on behalf of the Abenaki twice last spring during legislative hearings on a proposed bill granting the tribe state recognition.

“Through our attempts at recognition, he’s been right there with us,” said Fred Wiseman, an anthropology professor at Johnson State College and the Abenaki tribal historian. “He was very interested in getting the word out about Abenaki history.”

Petersen founded the University of Maine at Farmington’s Archaeology Research Center. He also taught graduate students at the University of Maine in Orono.

Wiseman said Petersen was responsible for assembling a panel of fellow archeologists interested in Abenaki history at the Vermont Statehouse in 2002. That meeting supported the most recent bid for recognition with the help of organized, scholarly research.

“He got us talking to each other for the first time,” Wiseman said. “It was very important, a kind of catalyst.”

The state Attorney General’s office has opposed recognition of the Abenaki, citing fear of land claims and casinos.

Peterson strongly disagreed with Assistant Attorney General Bill Griffin’s assertion that there was a lack of evidence that the Abenaki have existed in Vermont continuously since the 1700s.

He submitted a six-page document to a Senate committee in March, citing anthropological evidence supporting the existence of the Abenaki in Vermont for centuries.

“There is copious evidence of native people from one end of the state to the other,” Peterson testified at a March 16 Senate committee hearing.

In his Senate testimony last spring, Peterson, who was chairman of UVM’s anthropology’s department, said his doctorate in anthropology “was awarded more than 20 years ago on the basis of an archaeological study of prehistoric Native people in Vermont.”