On 1 July 2026, Bolivia Archaeology National Museum (Munarq) reopened its doors with the permanent exhibition ‘Eternal Roots, Living Legacies,’ an exhibition that highlights the connection between pre-Hispanic customs and current traditions of the Andean country. It also has a section about repatriation.
Over 2,000 ancestral remains and sacred objects belonging to the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians have gone home. Dating back thousands of years, they were long confined to wood trays and boxes at Yale and Harvard’s Peabody museums. Chumash representatives called this treatment of their ancestors “cruel and inhumane.”
Decades Late, Museum Scrambles to Return 2,700 Native Remains - The American Museum of Natural History said it would repatriate hair clippings that must be returned to tribes under a 1990 federal law.
The hair clippings were originally collected by anthropologists for an installation at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
