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The repatriation of human remains – problem or opportunity?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2015

Laurajane Smith
Laurajane Smith*
Affiliation:
An Australian archaeologist, currently based in the Department of Archaeology, University of York, The King’s Manor, York, YO1 7EP (Email: ls18@york.ac.uk)
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Extract

The editor’s question “who do human skeletons belong to?” (Antiquity 78: 5) can be answered positively, but it must be answered in context. The question was prompted by reports from the Working Group on Human Remains established by the British government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in 2001 to review the current legal status of human remains held in all publicly funded museums and galleries, and to consider and review submissions on the issue of the return of non-UK human remains to their descendent communities (DCMS 2003: 1-8). In effect, the report was primarily concerned with human remains from Indigenous communities, using a definition which follows the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as “distinct cultural groups having a historical continuity with pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories” (DCMS 2003:7). Consequently, the report deals primarily with the Indigenous communities of Australia, New Zealand and North America.

Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 78 , Issue 300 , June 2004 , pp. 404 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2004

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