In 1990 the US government passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This critical human rights legislation protects burial sites and requires the return of previously collected human remains and sacred objects to descendent communities. It also changed the way forward for collecting institutions that work with and house materials and ancestral remains from Native American cultures. 

What exactly does that mean, though? At the University of Tennessee there are Native American object collections and ancestral human remains housed by the McClung Museum and others that are subject to NAGPRA claims, but what does that entail? Please join some of the UT staff and experts who work directly with NAPGRA as they demystify their work, and describe how they strive to follow both the spirit and the letter of the law. 

Panelists include Dr. Sandra Cridlin, Osteologist and Archaeological Research Associate for the McClung Museum; Dr. Ellen Lofaro, Director of Repatriation and Curator of Archaeology for Anthropology; and Dr. Donna McCarthy, Osteologist and Anthropology Research Associate for the McClung Museum. 

This program will be the first in a series of panels about NAGPRA, and is being proudly organized by the McClung Student Advisory Board.