Yale’s Department of Anthropology, in step with the discipline as a whole, engages in some forms of research and teaching that involve human skeletal remains. This page provides an overview of how the department approaches this component of its work, with special attention to consultation with descendant communities and other stakeholders.
Members of the department engaged in research projects that involve or may involve human skeletal remains place a primary emphasis on locally appropriate forms of communication and consultation with known or potential descendant communities. When relevant, this also includes non-descendant communities who may, for instance, claim deep cultural connections to the regions where remains are recovered. Examples of this include archaeological research in Mongolia and Malawi and occasional pro bono consultation for the Office of the Connecticut State Archaeologist. Human remains associated with current research are not considered part of the long-term Yale Biological Anthropology Collection, as they are most often on loan or awaiting identification and return to other institutions or communities.
The Yale Biological Anthropology Laboratories Collection, or YBAL Collection, is comprised of two categories.
First, the department maintains a collection of human skeletal remains used in the teaching of ANTH 464/864, Human Osteology. This collection is broadly analogous to collections used to teach human osteology and anatomy in many medical schools (and other anthropology departments) and is comprised of elements obtained through recent donation or from licensed vendors that support classroom instruction. As is typical for such specimens, they had been cleaned and prepared for classroom use at the time they were acquired, and we therefore have no information about descendant communities. No human remains are used in any introductory- or intermediate-level classes, and ANTH 464/864 includes up-to-date information about the ethical use of human remains in teaching and research.
Second, the department is home to a “legacy collection” of human skeletal remains. This portion of the collection dates to a period before current faculty and staff who work with YBAL elements joined the department and when the department’s activities were more closely enmeshed with those of other Yale units—such as the Yale Peabody Museum and the Yale Medical School—than they have been in recent decades. Legacy collection elements are not used in teaching or research but are the subject of active inquiry limited to identifying their history and, if possible, originating institutions or descendant communities. In Summer 2022, for example, the Department returned an array of loaned human skeletal elements to the Yale Peabody Museum.
In Spring 2023, our inquiries into the YBAL legacy collection determined that a small portion of this collection had come to Yale’s Department of Anthropology from the Harvard University Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, most likely between the 1960s and early 1980s. We have not been able to establish the precise reasons for this transfer. We also learned from the Harvard Peabody Museum that some of these ancestral remains were Native American in origin, and that Harvard had previously reported these Native American ancestors in inventories to the National Park Service as required by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This was done without knowledge that some elements of these individuals were at Yale. Harvard expeditiously informed the relevant Tribal Nations and consulted with them about this discovery in Spring 2023, and our institutions collaborated to return these ancestors in accordance with guidance received from those Nations through consultation.
At present, the YBAL legacy collection does not contain any known or probable Native American skeletal remains, nor any human skeletal remains for which we are aware of identifiable descendant communities. We are continuing efforts to identify potential origins though historical and scientific investigation. We are also awaiting any new legal and professional guidance on the use of human remains in teaching and research, such as that forthcoming from committees on this topic established by the American Anthropological Association and the American Association of Biological Anthropologists.
Inquiries may be addressed to the department chair.
December 1, 2023