Native American skulls repatriated to California from England (LA Times)

[petronius]

Nobody thought much about the locked metal cabinet in the medical school at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. It was another forgotten fixture in the anatomy department — until a researcher last year found seven skulls with yellowing labels indicating the remains were those of Native Americans from California's Central Coast.

...

The act and similar state laws do not apply to foreign institutions. Still, the University of Birmingham, among others, sees repatriation as "a moral choice," said June Jones, a bioethicist in the university's School of Medical and Dental Sciences. The school also is returning aboriginal bones to Australia and Maori bones to groups in New Zealand.

...

How and when the Salinan bones got to Birmingham is unknown. The only clues came from the handwritten labels: "Dug from a grave near Avila, San Luis Obispo County, California by R.W. Summers."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-adv-skulls-20120520,0,421863.story

[provis99]

1. if everything in the British Museum were repatriated,

all you'd have left is the Anglo-Saxon section. And having been to the British Museum, the least impressive section I saw was the crappy Anglo-Saxon collection. You could shrink the British Museum down to the size of a public lavatory, and just label it "Useless Crap our Untalented Barbarian Ancestors Made".