Dartmouth College says it has identified the partial skeletal remains of 15 Native Americans housed in its anthropology department. Now it's working to repatriate them to the affiliated tribes.
The discovery in November has sparked a larger conversation between the college, Native American students, and alumni about why the remains sat for so long, how the college acquired them and who is to blame for the oversight. The remains were used to teach a class as recently as last year, until an audit concluded they had been wrongly catalogued as not Native. Native American students were briefed on the discovery in March.
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act requires federally funded institutions, such as universities, to return remains and cultural items to the appropriate tribes.
Many Indigenous people believe human remains are imbued with the spirit of the ancestor to whom they belong and are connected to living citizens of those tribes.
Until the 20th century, archeologists, anthropologists, collectors and curiosity seekers took Native remains and sacred objects during expeditions on tribal lands. Some remains, including Native skulls, were sought after in the name of science. Bodies were collected by government agencies after battles with tribes. Museums wanted them to enhance their collections, and academic institutions relied on Native bones as teaching tools.
Dartmouth is among a growing list of universities, museums and other institutions wrestling with how best to handle Native American remains and artifacts in their collections, and with what these discoveries say about their past policies regarding Native communities.