2009

1. January

   Booth Museum of Natural History, Brighton, Britain promises to repatriate two skulls and two thigh bones, donated almost 100 years ago ^[1]. The museum also holds a Ngarrindjeri skull which has been turned into a water carrier and is considered 'extremely rare' ^[2]. The skull is with the museum since 1925 when it was donated by a local collector. 

   

2. June

   Seattle Art Museum, USA is the first US institution that independently initiates a repatriation. It promises to return 'a sacred Aboriginal object' to its traditional land in central Australia and to consult with central Australian elders and representatives ^[3].

3. June

   The University College, London, UK, hands over the skulls of three individuals from Victoria's Gunditjmara community and another from the Dja Dja Wurrung nation ^[4]. It is the first repatriation to Victoria.

4. September

   The Australian government and the Leiden University Medical Center (Netherlands) agree to repatriate the remains of five Bundjalung people (Northern Rivers region of NSW) which were acquired by the Dutch in 1882. ^[5]

2010

1. 1 April

   During a visit to Australia, Prince William takes up a request to return Aboriginal warrior Pemulwuy's remains to Redfern (Sydney), making front page news.

   

2. July

   The National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, USA returns Aboriginal remains taken from their burial places during the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land (Northern Territory) ^[7].

3. October

   The ancestral remains of an Erup (Darnley Island) child return, 161 years after they were taken to the UK. The remains were first acquired by Captain Owen Stanley in 1849 during a visit to Darnley Island, then passed on to an antiquarian who gave them to the Norwich Castle Museum in 1854. Finally, the World Museum Liverpool received the remains in 1956. ^[8]

2011

1. March

   The Natural History Museum, London, UK announces to return remains to the Torres Strait which it had bought from a dealer in 1884 but could not date. This return would be the largest repatriation of remains to Australia ^[9]. 

   

2012

1. 27 October

   The Martin-Luther University, Halle, Germany announces to return 4 skeletons and 3 skulls to Australia, but does not give a date ^[11].

2013

1. 26 April

   The Charité Medical Museum in Berlin returns remains of 33 individuals, the first return of Aboriginal remains from Germany ^[12]. As the first German scientific institution, Charité in November 2008 signed an agreement with Australia for a "dignified burial" of Aboriginal remains.

2. September

   The Queensland Museum in Brisbane returns remains of Aboriginal people to the Balonne River region.

2014

1. The federal government-appointed Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation hands over its National Resting Place Consultation report, recommending a keeping place for Aboriginal remains that could not be returned to country. ^[13]

2. 14 July

   The Charité Medical Museum returns 14 skulls of Aboriginal people to representatives of the Goemulgal, Lag Mabuyag and Wajarri Yamatji peoples. It also repatriated remains to Namibia (2011 and 2014) and to Paraguay (2012).

3. November

   France and Australia sign an agreement on the repatriation of remains. A joint expert committee will help identify the origin of Aboriginal Australian remains held in France.

2015

1. June

   Museum Victoria returns the skull of Jim Crow, believed to have been a member of the Wonnarua people of the Hunter Valley. The skull was stolen from his grave in the early 1860s and later stored on Museum Victoria shelves for 126 years. ^[14]

2. November

   The Australian National University returns the bones of Mungo Man, 40 years after their discovery.

3. 2 November

   Kenneth Dickson, an Elder of the Dunghutti community in NSW, accepts in Hampshire, UK, the remains of a man believed to be aged between 21 and middle age, who was removed originally from Delicate Nobby, near Kempsey, and later donated to the Hampshire County Council Museums Service.^[15]

2017

1. 18 November

   After more than 40 years away from country at the Australian National University in Canberra, the remains of Mungo Man (the oldest Aboriginal remains discovered at Lake Mungo), along with those of around 100 other Aboriginal people, return home to his ancestral homelands of the Mutti Mutti, Ngiyampaa and Paakantji peoples. ^[16]

2019

1. 11 March

   The German state of Baden-Württemberg intends to return ten identified Aboriginal skulls stored at the Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg.

2. 1 August

   Elders bury the remains of 11 Kaurna people in the Glenelg area, SA, which had returned to country from the UK to Canberra earlier this year. The remains of another 800 Kaurna people are still in storage at SA Museum warehouses. ^[17]

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References