Yale Museum Begins Process to Return Native Ancestors and Objects
Published Date: 6/17/2025
Notice
Summary
Yale Peabody Museum has finished checking its collection and found Native American human remains and related items from New Jersey. These remains and objects can be returned to the affiliated tribes starting July 17, 2025. If you want to request repatriation, contact the museum soon—no money changes hands, just respect and care for history.
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 3 benefits, 0 costs, 0 mixed.
Museum Identifies Remains and Affiliated Tribes
The Yale Peabody Museum identified human remains representing at least one Native American individual and four associated funerary object lots (unmodified faunal remains, shell, stone, ceramics) removed before 1897 from the North Shrewsbury (Navesink) River bank in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The museum determined a cultural affiliation with the Delaware Nation (Oklahoma), Delaware Tribe of Indians, and the Stockbridge Munsee Community (Wisconsin).
Repatriation Available Beginning July 17, 2025
Repatriation of the identified human remains and associated funerary objects may occur on or after July 17, 2025. Written repatriation requests must be sent to Professor David Skelly, Director, Yale Peabody Museum, P.O. Box 208118, New Haven, CT 06520-8118, or by the museum email address provided in the notice.
Who Can Request and How Competing Requests Are Handled
Repatriation requests may be submitted by any one or more of the three tribes named in the notice, or by any lineal descendant, Indian Tribe, or Native Hawaiian organization not named that shows cultural affiliation by a preponderance of the evidence. If competing requests are received, the Yale Peabody Museum must determine the most appropriate requestor; joint repatriation requests are treated as a single request and not competing requests.
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