This accumulation happened for various reasons over many decades: scientific collecting during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when physical anthropology was a major field that studied human populations partly by collecting skeletal material; grave robbing motivated by curiosity, tradition (as in the Skull and Bones case), or profit; the excavation of archaeological sites that disturbed burials; and the collection of remains from battlefields and conflict sites.

NAGPRA, passed in 1990, was a major step toward addressing this situation.

The law requires federal agencies and federally funded institutions to inventory their holdings and work with affiliated tribes toward repatriation.

Significant progress has been made: thousands of individuals’ remains have been returned to their communities of origin.

But the NAGPRA process has also been slow, contentious, and in some cases effectively stalled.

Institutions have sometimes been resistant to the requirements of the law.