Field Museum of Natural History

The Field Museum of Natural History will lead a project to research, explore, develop, and implement thoughtful and forward-thinking practices for the ethical care of North American human remains currently under museum stewardship. Proposed activities include a symposium bringing together leaders from North American communities, museum professionals, and scientists to identify issues, discuss perspectives, and develop solutions; refining and implementing a standard of ethical care for human remains; and creating a web portal to disseminate sample inventory sheets, presentations, publications, examples of research and data-collection tools, and designs for boxes and other re-housing essentials. The project will promote improved stewardship of human remains in North America; create guidelines for respectful care of human remains; foster dialogue about scientific techniques; disseminate information to a broad community of collections-holding institutions, universities, descendent communities, and the public through online resources; and train students and recent graduates in scientific techniques, data collection, and appropriate procedures in human remains curation.