Introduction
In the United States, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (“NAGPRA” hereafter) created mechanisms whereby individuals and federally recognized tribes could request the return of human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and items of cultural patrimony from museums and federal agencies. These processes have allowed tribal groups to obtain various classes of human remains and material artifacts from federal museums and federal agencies, as well as those institutions which receive federal funding.
Definition
The following definitions are found on the National NAGPRA Glossary (n.d.) at http://www.nps.gov/nagpra/TRAINING/GLOSSARY.HTM. “Human remains” are generally considered to be “(t)he physical remains of the body of a person of Native American ancestry. The term does not include remains or portions of remains that may reasonably be determined to have been freely given or naturally shed by the individual from whose body they were...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Bruning, S. 2009. Written testimony before the US House of Representatives’ Committee on natural resources oversight hearing on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Available at http://saa.org/Portals/0/SAA/repatriation/BRUNING_TESTIMONY.pdf. Accessed 3 Mar 2012.
Kato, H. 2017. The Ainu and Japanese archaeology: A change of perspective. Japanese Journal of Archaeology 4: 185–190.
Meighan, Clement W. 1992. Some scholars’ views on reburial. American Antiquity 57(4): 704–710.
National NAGPRA. n.d.. Available at http://www.nps.gov/nagpra/TRAINING/GLOSSARY.HTM.
Turnbull, P., and M. Pickering. 2010. The long way home: The meaning and values of repatriation. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Further Reading
Fforde, C., J. Hubert, and P. Turnbull, eds. 2002. The dead and their possessions: Repatriation in principle, policy, and practice, One world archaeology. Vol. 43. New York: Routledge.
Mihesuah, D.S. 2000. Repatriation reader: Who owns American Indian remains? Lincoln: University of Nebraska.
Watkins, J. 2005. Sacred sites and repatriation, Contemporary Native American issues series. Philadelphia: Chelsea House.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this entry
Cite this entry
Watkins, J. (2018). Repatriation of Cultural Property in the United States: A Case Study in NAGPRA (USA). In: Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_1837-2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_1837-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1
eBook Packages: Springer Reference HistoryReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities