Government grants have spurred researchers to preserve — and even destroy — Native American human remains, according to a new ProPublica Survey.
Since 1990, federal agencies have awarded at least $15 million to universities and museums for research projects involving Indigenous cultures, the report released this week reveals. But the financial support has also had adverse consequences: in some cases, cultural artefacts have remained in laboratories instead of being repatriated; in others, they have been intentionally damaged by the scan.
Such cases may constitute violations of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which requires federally funded institutions to inventory and return human remains, sacred objects, and other objects to lineal descendants and affiliated tribes. These cases have also raised questions about the actual destination of the research.
“There’s kind of this prospect that this kind of research will improve us or benefit us,” Theresa Pasqual, director of the Pueblo d’Acoma Historic Preservation Office, told ProPublica. “What it does is it strengthens their career; this reinforces their professional and academic status. Let’s be real about this.
The ProPublica report gives several examples of how research projects have undermined NAGPRA’s goals. Twenty years ago, a University of Utah anthropology professor, Joan Brenner Coltrain, secured funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to analyze human remains held at Harvard’s Peabody Museum. His project proposal promised that he would “undoubtedly influence” the institution’s repatriation decisions.
The work saw the anthropologist break sections of his subjects’ bones to study their mitochondrial DNA. Ultimately, the research proved disappointing, Brenner Coltrain later said in a grant report to the NSF. The Peabody Museum did not make any repatriations after the project, according to ProPublica.
When NAGPRA was passed in 1990, Congress estimated that thousands of Indigenous artifacts would be returned within a decade. But as of this year, the remains of more than 110,000 Native American, Hawaiian and Alaska Native ancestors still reside in institutional collections. The discrepancy has led to complaints about the wording of the law and the loopholes in it.
According to the ProPublica report, it took a full decade after NAGPRA’s death for the American Museum of Natural History and Harvard to inventory their collections of Native American remains. When those inventories were eventually shared with the National Park Service, as required by law, the majority of the remains were classified as “culturally unidentifiable,” meaning it was unclear to which tribe, if any, they belonged. The designation effectively allows institutions to continue to use these remains for research purposes, since they can be legally claimed.
Earlier this year, the Home Office proposed settlement for NAGPRA and how the law is enforced. If passed, the changes would require researchers to demonstrate that they consulted with tribes before obtaining an NSF grant. It would also require institutions to stop researching Native American remains if a tribe requests it.
The new regulations could come into force as early as January 2024, the Interior Ministry said.
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