Human fragmentary remains
to be repatriated to Native American tribes

Fragments of human remains dating back about 500 to 1,000 years were made available to be released by the university last week for repatriation to American Indian tribes.

For several decades these human remains (mostly bone fragments) have been stored by the Department of Anthropology.

Now federal legislation requires that such remains be inventoried and made available for repatriation.

In some cases the remains were found during house and road construction. In other cases, archaeological excavations resulted in removal of bones to the university. Also, coroners have sometimes referred bones to the university for evaluation or because they had no other use for them.

"It is our strong desire to return these fragmentary remains to the living people who are pained by the continued unburied state of these bones," said Dean Ellen Gruenbaum (Social Sciences). "We have completed the process of identifying some of the remains, and three of our notices of inventory completion were published in the Federal Register last month."

Gruenbaum said the university has about 170 fragmentary remains. She expects the repatriation process to be completed in a few months.

"I hope that we can continue repatriating remains quickly, so that the pain this matter has caused can begin to heal. We would have liked to return the remains sooner," said Gruenbaum. "It was our duty to conform to the federal rules, but the long process of completing the inventories and getting final approval for their publication in the Federal Register has delayed the repatriation for far too long."

Gruenbaum added that she regretted any pain this process has caused American Indians of Central California.