Field Museum Completes NAGPRA Inventory of Human Remains with Tribal Cultural Affiliation

The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois has completed a formal inventory of human remains in its collections, as required under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This federal law mandates that museums and federal agencies inventory Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony, then notify and potentially repatriate them to affiliated tribes. Following the inventory, the Field Museum determined that the human remains in question have a demonstrable cultural affiliation with one or more Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations identified in this notice. This finding is a prerequisite to initiating the formal repatriation process under NAGPRA. The publication of this Notice of Inventory Completion in the Federal Register triggers a 30-day waiting period during which affiliated tribes may submit claims for repatriation. After this period, if no competing claims exist, the museum may transfer the remains to the affiliated tribe(s) upon request. This notice reflects ongoing federal compliance efforts to return ancestral human remains held in museum collections to their descendant communities, a process rooted in the 1990 enactment of NAGPRA.

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