ancestral remains – News, Research and Analysis – The Conversation

July 17, 2025

Rising seas threaten to swallow one of NZ’s oldest settlement sites – new research

Peter N. Meihana, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University; Corey Hebberd, Indigenous Knowledge, and Shaun Paul Williams, Earth Sciences New Zealand

For the iwi, protecting the burial site is about more than its archaeological value. It holds deeper significance through its connections to the land and stories.

People film an animation of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius at the Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia. Lukas Coch/AAP

March 19, 2025

How can we ethically display the dead in museums? What about resin casts of those who died violently in Pompeii?

Georgia Pike-Rowney, Australian National University

Around the world, museums are grappling with the question of what to do with human remains. This includes lifelike copies of those who may have died traumatically.

Leola One Feather of the Oglala Sioux Tribe observes as Native American artifacts are photographed at the Founders Museum in Barre, Mass., in 2022, before their return. AP Photo/Philip Marcelo

February 12, 2025

Repatriation to Indigenous groups is more than law, it’s human rights − an archaeologist describes the day that lesson hit home

Christopher Wolff, University at Albany, State University of New York

Repatriation is now a legal responsibility, but also a matter of human rights, an anthropologist writes.

Chairperson of AIATSIS Jodie Sizer, daughter of the late Sir Robert Menzies Heather Henderson, Jenny Morrison, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and CEO of AIATSIS Craig Ritchie look at Indigenous artefacts at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in Canberra. Lukas Coch/AAP Image

January 23, 2022

Ancestral Remains of First Nations people were once stolen for trophies. Now they will have a national resting place

Heidi Norman, University of Technology Sydney and Anne Maree Payne, University of Technology Sydney

The proposed National Resting Place in Canberra will be a vital step towards a more complete telling of this nation’s story.

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