THE Smithsonian Institution used to be proud of its vast collection of human bones. These days it finds them a political embarrassment: curators have been working hard in recent years to identify which skulls and bones should be returned to which Native American tribes. So far they have managed to 鈥渞epatriate鈥� several thousand sets.
It鈥檚 a similar story in Australia, where museums have begun to return bones to Aboriginal groups. So shouldn鈥檛 other countries be doing the same?
In the UK, home to some of the world鈥檚 largest bone collections, especially from Africa, many anthropologists are unhappy about that prospect (see 鈥淏ack to their roots鈥�). At first sight, it鈥檚 hard to blame them. These collections are clearly scientifically valuable and may be lost to future investigation if African tribes follow those in North America and Australia and ask for repatriation. Yet resisting such demands may be morally questionable. It might also be a tactical blunder that will lead to even more losses to science in the long run.
Advertisement
Many of the UK鈥檚 60,000 sets of museum remains hail from colonial times and are no more than a few hundred years old. Given the often bloody way these remains came to be collected, it is hard to argue that they should be kept against the wishes of the tribes or Aboriginal groups they came from. In the 19th century, western travellers and colonists robbed graves while curators vied for skeletons from commercial brokers. And racially motivated scientists used such collections to try to prove the innate superiority of whites.
With the remains of people who died many thousands of years ago, the link with existing tribes is weaker and the value to contemporary science greater. This has led anthropologists to back legal action in the US over access to the famous 9000-year-old remains of Kennewick Man. While sincere passions run high on both sides of this dispute, pitting a scientific account of the origins of one long-dead man against a spiritual one is ultimately futile.
A better approach is to avoid such custody battles altogether. That means scientists and tribal groups finding imaginative ways of meeting both sides鈥� needs. Australia has made a start with some remains now being held in 鈥渒eeping places鈥� 鈥� sites run by Aboriginal groups that permit some scientific access. But this and similar approaches will only succeed more widely if they are properly funded and if many more tribal youngsters are given the means to study science. The real problem is not the spiritual beliefs of indigenous people. It is that anthropology has not done nearly enough to shake off its western, elitist image.