The American Museum of Natural History Revises Custodianship of Extensive Human Remains Collection

28

The bones housed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York are rich with narratives, offering insights into lives spanning both time and geography. However, this vast repository of skeletal elements, one of the most frequented museums in the world, also reveals a disconcerting past: it includes specimens obtained through grave desecration, disturbed burial grounds, and collecting methods that reduced some cultures and individuals to mere curiosities.

Earlier this month, the museum declared its intent to withdraw all human remains from public exhibition. The institution aims to responsibly maintain its existing collection while focusing on repatriation whenever feasible, and reverential storage when return is not an option.

Currently, the museum safeguards approximately 12,000 sets of human remains. These include bones of Indigenous communities and enslaved individuals of African descent, often gathered during the 19th and 20th centuries to reinforce pseudo-scientific theories about racial hierarchies.

Some of the remains in the collection were originally utilized in medical schools and likely belong to individuals who were economically disadvantaged or socially marginalized. These specimens were donated to the museum as recently as the 1940s.

Sean Decatur, who became the first Black President of the American Museum of Natural History in April, stated that the majority of these remains were acquired without the explicit consent of the deceased or their descendants. Decatur remarked that there was usually a power imbalance between the collectors and the collected.

The endeavor to remove human remains from public view will affect six galleries within the museum. Items to be withdrawn range from a musical instrument constructed from human bones to a Mongolian skeleton dating back over a millennium, as well as Tibetan artifacts incorporating bones.

The concept of repatriating human remains and cultural artifacts is not a recent development. U.S. legislation enacted in 1990 provides a legal mechanism for certain Native tribes to reclaim ancestral remains from museums and similar establishments. According to Decatur, around 2,200 sets of remains at the museum qualify for this category.

This challenge is not unique to the American Museum of Natural History. Institutions like the Denver Museum of Nature & Science have already returned over 100 human remains to pertinent communities and are in the process of repatriating others not covered by federal law.

Chris Patrello, curator of anthropology at the museum, stated via email that it is essential to do more than merely recognize the damage inflicted by historical collecting practices that objectified people and cultures.

As of 2022, approximately 870,000 Native American artifacts, including remains eligible for repatriation under federal law, remain in the possession of educational and cultural institutions nationwide, as reported by The Big Big News.

Sean Decatur noted that some remains are thought to belong to five Black individuals whose bones were extracted from a burial site in northern Manhattan during early 1900s road construction. He underscored that the act of disturbing these burial grounds extended the denial of human dignity beyond life into death.

According to Lynn Rainville, an anthropology professor at Washington and Lee University, historical plundering of Black burial sites is not uncommon, and such sites have often been disrupted due to construction and development.

Additionally, the museum’s inventory includes roughly 400 bodies obtained from four New York medical schools in the 1940s. There is no evident rationale for these bodies, initially used for anatomical training, to have ended up in a museum setting. Museum officials are in communication with these schools to ascertain the provenance of these remains.

The ongoing task of properly managing the museum’s stored human remains is complex and will require a considerable period, as articulated by Decatur. Decisions must be made regarding what can be returned, to whom, and how to appropriately steward those remains that must remain in the museum’s care.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Repatriation of Human Remains

More about Repatriation of Human Remains

• American Museum of Natural History Official Announcement
• Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
• Denver Museum of Nature & Science Repatriation Efforts
• The Big Big News Report on Native American Artifacts
• Washington and Lee University Anthropology Department
• University of Wisconsin Medical History and Bioethics