Multiple museums hold human remains without consent
Washington Post reporters Nicole Dungca and Claire Healy from the Washington Post found that most of the human brain specimens held by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History were not gathered with consent. “The vast majority of the remains appear to have been gathered without consent from the individuals or their families, by researchers preying on people who were hospitalized, poor, or lacked immediate relatives to identify or bury them,” they wrote, noting that “collectors, anthropologists and scientists dug up burial grounds and looted graves.”
The American Museum of Natural History collected the remains of at least 12,000 individuals through 150 years of purchases, donations, and expeditions whose identities are unknown. ProPublica reports that most of the human remains still held in American museums are those of Native Americans (~100,000).
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was passed in 1990, but museums have not been held — or held themselves — accountable.
