Dartmouth College pressed for accountability over ancestral remains.

Dartmouth College has identified partial skeletal remains of 15 Native Americans in one of its collections, leading to growing demands for accountability and repatriation from Native American communities. Until the 20th century, archeologists, anthropologists, collectors, and curiosity seekers took Native remains and sacred objects during expeditions on tribal lands. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was created in 1990 to require federally funded institutions, including universities, to return remains and funerary items to rightful communities. However, more than three decades later, some 884,000 Native American artifacts, including nearly 102,000 human remains, are still held by colleges, museums, and other institutions.