This book draws on over twenty years’ investigation of scientific archives in Europe, Australia, and other former British settler colonies. It explains how and why skulls and other bodily structures of Indigenous Australians became the focus of scientific curiosity about the nature and origins of human diversity from the early years of colonisation in the late eighteenth century to Australia achieving nationhood at the turn of the twentieth century. The last thirty years have seen the world's indigenous peoples seek the return of their ancestors' bodily remains from museums and medical schools throughout the western world. Turnbull reveals how the remains of the continent's first inhabitants were collected during the long nineteenth century by the plundering of their traditional burial places. He also explores the question of whether museums also acquired the bones of men and women who were killed in Australian frontier regions by military, armed police and settlers.

Offering insight into nineteenth- and early twentieth-century medical school dissecting rooms and anatomy museums, this book explores how collected human remains have shaped Western biomedical knowledge and attitudes towards the body. To explore the role Australia played in the narrative of Western medical development, Pacitti focuses on how and why Australian anatomists and medical students obtained human body parts. As medical knowledge circulated between Australia and Britain, the colony's physicians conformed to established specimen collecting practices and diverged from them to form a distinct medical identity. Interrogating how these literal and figurative bones of contention have left an indelible mark on the nation's medical profession, collecting institutions, and communities, Pacitti sheds new light on our understanding of Western medical networks and reveals the opportunities and challenges historic specimen collections pose in the present day. The Body Collected in Australia is a cultural history of collectors and collections that deepens our understanding of the ways the living have used the dead to comprehend the intricacies of the human body in illness and good health.

This volume brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous repatriation practitioners and researchers to provide the reader with an international overview of the removal and return of Ancestral Remains. The Ancestral Remains of Indigenous peoples are today housed in museums and other collecting institutions globally. They were taken from anywhere the deceased can be found, and their removal occurred within a context of deep power imbalance within a colonial project that had a lasting effect on Indigenous peoples worldwide. Through the efforts of First Nations campaigners, many have returned home. However, a large number are still retained. In many countries, the repatriation issue has driven a profound change in the relationship between Indigenous peoples and collecting institutions. It has enabled significant steps towards resetting this relationship from one constrained by colonisation to one that seeks a more just, dignified and truthful basis for interaction. The history of repatriation is one of Indigenous perseverance and success. The authors of this book contribute major new work and explore new facets of this global movement. They reflect on nearly 40 years of repatriation, its meaning and value, impact and effect. This book is an invaluable contribution to repatriation practice and research, providing a wealth of new knowledge to readers with interests in Indigenous histories, self-determination and the relationship between collecting institutions and Indigenous peoples.

This Handbook provides a transnational reference point for critical engagements with the legacies of, and futures for, global archaeological collections. It challenges the common misconception that museum archaeology is simply a set of procedures for managing and exhibiting assemblages. Instead, this volume advances museum archaeology as an area of reflexive research and practice addressing the critical issues of what gets prioritized by and researched in museums, by whom, how, and why. Through twenty-eight chapters, authors problematize and suggest new ways of thinking about historic, contemporary, and future relationships between archaeological fieldwork and museums, as well as the array of institutional and cultural paradigms through which archaeological enquiries are mediated. Case studies embrace not just archaeological finds, but also archival field notes, photographic media, archaeological samples, and replicas. Throughout, museum activities are put into dialogue with other aspects of archaeological practice, with the aim of situating museum work within a more holistic archaeology that does not privilege excavation or field survey above other aspects of disciplinary engagement. These concerns will be grounded in the realities of museums internationally, including Latin America, Africa, Asia, Oceania, North America, and Europe. In so doing, the common heritage sector refrain 'best practice' is not assumed to solely emanate from developed countries or European philosophies, but instead is considered as emerging from and accommodated within local concerns and diverse museum cultures.

Self-Determined First Nations Museums and Colonial Contestation explores Indigenous practices of curation, object repatriation, and cross-cultural community engagement in a dynamic Koori museum. Grounded in the fact that Gunai Kurnai people have never ceded sovereignty, the text reorients dominant temporal and colonial approaches of museum studies to document and theorise Gunai Kurnai self-presentation and community engagement in the Krowathunkooloong Keeping Place. Researched and co-authored by the Cultural Manager of the Keeping Place, Gunai Kurnai Monero Ngarigo man Robert Hudson, and white Historian Shannon Woodcock, the book traces the temporal, social, and cultural considerations of the Elders who curated the permanent exhibition in the early 1990s. Discussing community management of a collection growing through the ongoing repatriation of tools, art, and Ancestor remains, the text also explores how Robert Hudson engages with visitors to the Keeping Place and local colonial history museums, and theorises the power of Gunai Kurnai work with individuals and institutions in the small museum context. Finally, Hudson and Woodcock demonstrate that the Keeping Place articulates sophisticated Gunai Kurnai-grounded methodologies of museum practice in relation to international critical Indigenous studies scholarship. Self-Determined First Nations Museums and Colonial Contestation provides a vital case study of an Indigenous museum space written from an inside perspective. As such, the book will be essential reading for scholars and students engaged in the study of museums and heritage, Indigenous peoples, decolonisation, race, anthropology, culture, and history.

Repatriation, Science, and Identity explores the entanglement of race, history, identity and ethics inherent in the application of scientific techniques to determine the provenance of Indigenous Ancestral Remains in repatriation claims and processes. The book considers how these issues relate to collections of Indigenous Ancestral (bodily) Remains but also their resonance with emerging concerns about the relatively unknown history of scientific interest in Indigenous hair and blood samples. It also explores the more recent practice of sampling for the purposes of DNA analysis and issues concerning the data that has been produced from all of the above types of research. Placing recent interest in applying scientific techniques to repatriation in their historical context, it enables discourses of identity and scientific authority, an assessment of their efficacy and an exploration of ethical and practical challenges and opportunities. In doing so, this book reveals new histories about scientific interest in Indigenous biology and the collections that resulted, as well as providing reflection for all repatriation practitioners considering scientific investigation when faced with the challenges inherent in the repatriation of unprovenanced or poorly provenanced Ancestral Remains. Providing the reader with a means to approach the value, or otherwise, of the scientific information they may encounter, Repatriation, Science, and Identity is an invaluable resource for researchers and professionals working with Indigenous Ancestral Remains.

Working with and for Ancestors examines collaborative partnerships that have developed around the study and care of Indigenous ancestral human remains. In the interest of reconciliation, museums and research institutions around the world have begun to actively seek input and direction from Indigenous descendants in establishing collections care and research policies. However, true collaboration is difficult, time-consuming, and sometimes awkward. By presenting examples of projects involving ancestral remains that are successfully engaged in collaboration, the book provides encouragement for scientists and descendant communities alike to have open and respectful discussions around the research and care of ancestral human remains. Key themes for discussion include new approaches to the care for ancestors; the development of culturally sensitive museum policies; the emergence of mutually beneficial research partnerships; and emerging issues such as those of intellectual property, digital data, and alternatives to destructive analyses. Critical discussions by leading scholars also identify the remaining challenges in the repatriation process and offer a means to continue moving forward. This volume will appeal to a broad, interdisciplinary audience interested in collaborative research and management strategies that are aimed at developing mutually beneficial relationships between researchers and descendant communities. This includes students and researchers in archaeology, anthropology, museums studies, and Indigenous communities.