'Spirits Won't Rest': DNA Links Ancient Bones to Living Aboriginal Australians
Source: New York Times
‘Spirits Won’t Rest’: DNA Links Ancient Bones to Living Aboriginal Australians
Museums around the world hold the remains of Aboriginal Australians, many of them stolen. Now geneticists may have found a way to return the bones to their homes.
By Carl Zimmer
Dec. 19, 2018
In the 1800s, thousands of Aboriginal Australians were the victims of a terrible trade in the name of science. Anatomists opened their graves and stole their skeletons. After massacres of Aboriginal Australians, police officers sold body parts to museums.
Today, many of these bones lie far from home.
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For decades Aboriginal Australians have been pressing for the return of the bones. “Our old people’s spirits won’t rest until they’re back on their own country,” said Mr. Fourmile.
In recent years, museums have tried to comply. But progress has been slow, partly because the institutions have little information about where many of the bones came from.
The ancestors of today’s Aboriginal Australians came to the continent at least 50,000 years ago and branched into 300 so-called language groups. How do you match the right bones to the right Aboriginal group?
On Wednesday, scientists offered a possible answer. In a study published in Science Advances, a team of geneticists showed they could use fragments of DNA retrieved from bone or hair to determine where in Australia the remains originated.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/science/dna-bones-aboriginal-australians.html
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Related: Ancient nuclear genomes enable repatriation of Indigenous human remains (Science Advances)