David Hurst Thomas: Skull Wars

Recent decades have seen an acceleration in requests to museums from indigenous groups for the return and decent burial of human artefacts: the skulls and skeletons that museums collected, particularly in the 19th century, and which now are in display cases or simply languishing in storerooms.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York is the repository of one of the world's largest collections of Indian artefacts and remains.

Archaeologist Thomas is Curator of Anthropology at the museum. Using the discovery of a 9000-year-old human skeleton nicknamed Kennewick man in the bank of the Columbia River in 1996 as his starting point, Thomas examines the relationship between archaeologists and Indians, ultimately declaring that the two groups have much to offer each other.

Perseus

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