Of the 1,135 human remains examined, 904 skulls could be assigned to areas in present-day Rwanda, 202 to Tanzania and 22 to Kenya.
After using DNA, the scientists found living relatives of three of the people whose remains sat in Berlin’s Charite hospital archives for decades from the turn of the 20th century.
The anthropological collection of about 7,700 skulls was taken over from the hospital by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) in 2011.
The provenance project that was launched in 2017, has seen the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Berlin team up with scientists from Rwanda to investigate the skulls that were taken from the former colony.
