For much of the history of American archaeology, Native American human remains and cultural objects were studied by researchers without meaningful engagement with the communities most directly descended from or connected to the people being studied.

The history of museum collections of Native American skeletal material — amassed over decades by institutions that treated the remains of Native Americans as scientific specimens rather than as the ancestors of living people — is a history of institutional behavior that was, by any contemporary ethical standard, deeply problematic.

NAGPRA, passed in 1990, represented a legislative acknowledgment of this history and an attempt to provide a legal framework for addressing it.

The law’s requirements for consultation, repatriation, and respectful treatment of Native American human remains and cultural items have changed the landscape of American archaeology significantly, requiring researchers to engage with Native communities in ways that the field had not previously required.