Brits try to keep their bones

The repatriation of human remains currently held in UK museums and universities to indigenous peoples around the world will do immense damage to science. That is the claim of leading researchers who fear many hundreds of specimens that hold vital clues to our evolutionary past could soon be dispersed to be reburied, burnt or even smashed up.

The scientists have been speaking ahead of a report due to be published this summer by a working group that will recommend changes to the legal status of human material held by UK institutions. The scientists are campaigning against the adoption of legislation already passed in Australia and the US which has seen thousands of specimens handed over to aboriginal communities.

Posted by David on May 18, 2003 2:01 PM