In a decision described as "common sense" by Museum Director Dr Michael Dixon, London’s Natural History Museum have agreed to return the human remains of 18 Aboriginal people.

Repatriation follows a three-month period set aside for further scientific investigation of the remains in London.   

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) had been lobbying for over twenty years for this repatriation, involving the remains of 17 Tasmanians.  When Britain’s colonial government arrived in Tasmania in 1803 to prepare the land for settlement, all Tasmania became what the TAC described as a “killing field”. One of those administrators contracted in 1829 to round up the surviving Aborigines, was George Augustus Robinson, who ensured that of the 4,000 Aborigines living in Tasmania in 1803, only a handful of women survived. 

Most of the human remains now being repatriated are from Robinson’s personal collection. On the death of Robinson, his collection eventually ended up in the Natural History Museum. The 18th person to be repatriated had been exported illegally to Britain in 1913. 

The Museum were keen to undertake additional research on all these remains, as scientists are aware that the populations of Aborigines from Tasmania are different from those of indigenous communities in other parts of Australia. Once returned to Australia, the Museum feared the remains would be cremated rather than retained permanently for study in a Tasmanian museum. So they were anxious to acquire as much knowledge as possible from these remains – about their diet, as well as other patterns of their life and death. 

Following the introduction of the Human Tissue Act 2004, new guidelines for the treatment of human remains were published by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS), providing clearer guidance for the de-accessioning of human remains.

As other British museums have done, this led the Natural History Museum to establish its own special panel for evaluating repatriation requests. 

Over a long period, the TAC has maintained these remains do not belong in the UK. Instead, they should be returned to their community in order to “put to rest in a traditional ceremony conducted by Aboriginal people the spirits of our ancestors who were disinterred from burial grounds or killed in the bush”. 

In agreeing the TAC request for repatriation, the Museum was recognising their responsibility to comply with the DCMS guidelines. However, in a departure from other repatriations, it is interesting to note the request was granted with the full knowledge these remains would be lost to science forever.

Photo: The Natural History Museum, London