NAGPRA: Improving Relationships Among Indigenous and Scientific Communities
- WULR Team
- Feb 22
- 4 min read
NAGPRA is critical human rights legislation. Recent changes to its guidelines improve its effective facilitation by museums and Indigenous communities
Published February 22nd, 2026
Written by Molly Strohmeyer
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is critical to upholding and improving relationships among Indigenous and scientific communities for the betterment of all parties. According to Corrie Day of the Nebraska Law Review in their publication “A Balancing Act: Addressing the History and Examining the Changes of NAGPRA and its Regulations,” NAGPRA was enacted to address grievances by Indigenous communities that their ancestors’ remains and cultural artifacts had been removed, held, displayed and studied by museums for centuries. The act’s central goals are repatriation, consultation, inventory and documentation to mandate that institutions receiving federal funding and that are in possession of Native American or Native Hawaiian cultural items must return them to the respective tribes or organizations. NAGPRA has influenced public perceptions of scientists’ ethical responsibilities and has served as a reminder of the colonialist legacy Americans must reconcile. NAGPRA reframes Indigenous communities as evolving and modern entities, instead of relics of the past.
The jurisdiction of this landmark legislation includes human remains, funerary artifacts and culturally significant objects. The law requires museums and federal agencies to create collection catalogs to identify potential Indigenous remains and detail their origins, as explained by Taft Law. If confirmed as Indigenous — by meeting explicit requirements — individuals or groups are consulted and given time to claim a relation to remains or cultural objects. If claimed or identified, museum consultation with Native communities facilitates the return process and promotes cooperation to resolve disputes.
“Legitimate” claims to the remains can refer to “legally” legitimate, meaning those who, according to law, should have legal rights to the remains. “Legitimate claims” are also tied to morality, which can operate independently of legality, raising questions about who is ethically justified in demanding control over the remains. The outcome of the legal question does not necessarily conclude the moral issue. For example, many indigenous remains and cultural artifacts are ineligible for repatriation under NAGPRA because they are affiliated with tribes historically unrecognized by the US federal government, despite existing since time immemorial. Whether remains should be used for the advancement of scientific knowledge or should be reburied by living ancestors is a separate debate from how the legal system designates rightful possession.
When Congress passed NAGPRA in 1990, legislators predicted that repatriation would be completed within five to ten years. Yet, decades later, many remains and items continue to be held by institutions, ProPublica reports. This alludes to a fundamental oversight of this legislation — a lack of funding and federal resources to aid museums in ensuring timely repatriations. It also indicates loopholes that museums can easily exploit. One such omission in the law is that when ancestors are defined as human remains, they may still be undefinable because of the “right of possession.” This clause considers academic interest, education, conservation, forensic science, research and public benefit as valid reasons for avoiding repatriation. Scholars argue that the institutions can indefinitely extend repatriations through these loopholes and litigation, an issue in collections management identified by New York College at Buffalo.
In January 2024, the Interior Department adopted changes to NAGPRA regulations that seek to hasten the return of ancestral remains and funerary belongings to tribes within three years of this implementation, according to a New York Times article. Congress consulted 71 tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations on the draft proposal, and more than 700 specific comments were considered. Processes that curate which voices can be heard maintain paradigms of colonialist exclusion. Recent legislative changes present an opportunity to reassess NAGPRA’s successes and failures and consider whether the updates effectively address its gaps. It is important to highlight the voices of Natives and scientists with first-hand experience working with the law. The new regulations are meant to clarify and improve repatriation processes, and the positive reactions by tribal communities highlight that these efforts are a step in the right direction.
The revisions alter legal definitions for terms such as “affiliation,” “failure to comply” and “culturally identifiable,” striving for consistency and improved clarity. The updates also add new language and remove outdated terms to enrich these goals. New definitions of human remains recognize those commingled with other materials, such as soil, those attached to funerary or cultural objects and those not associated with indigenous cultures, according to Cultural Property News. Before this amendment, human remains were recognized only in relation to burial sites and the locations where they were deposited. The changes also address elements of the permitting process and adjust the review process. Revisions intend to improve transparency and reporting from museums and clarify wording to make repatriations easier to follow. The update removed a significant loophole found through the “culturally unidentifiable” distinction, as previously discussed. The revision also reduced the burden of evidence placed on tribes. New ordinances state that just one type is enough, including geographical affiliation and oral histories. It replaces “preponderance of evidence” with “clearly and reasonably identify.” Expert testimony from tribal members is also considered sufficient to associate with remains or items. This change makes the evidence more accessible to tribes when claiming an ancestor or artifact.
Tribal representatives have praised many recent changes, particularly the abolition of “culturally undefinable” as a legal category. Many Indigenous peoples and members of the scientific community are optimistic about future repatriations, citing American cultural shifts that are fostering greater consideration of tribal sovereignty and rights to ancestral items. Frustration and broken trust over unnecessarily delayed repatriations will not go away with the simple statement of these revisions. Museums particularly need to perform necessary repatriations and apologize for their previous failures to do so. Though there is more work to do to recognize Indigenous peoples’ claims to their ancestors’ remains and items, these new regulations, strengthened through the inclusion of Indigenous voices, promote a foundation of trust between scientific and Indigenous communities and support a shared commitment to protecting cultural, historic, and educational belongings and materials.
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