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Cultural Affiliation (NAGPRA)

Definition

The link, established by a preponderance of evidence, between a present-day tribe or Native Hawaiian organisation and human remains or cultural items held in a museum or federal collection. Evidence types include geography, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, folklore, and oral tradition.

Related terms

Bass Donated Skeletal Collection
A consent-based skeletal collection of over 1,750 individuals at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, established by William Bass in 1981. All individuals...
Culturally Unidentifiable Remains
Human remains in US museum and agency collections whose cultural affiliation with any present-day tribe cannot be established by the preponderance-of-evidence standard....
De Montfort Precedent (2018)
The return by De Montfort University Leicester of skeletal remains (Asaru-Ojo) to the Ogoni community in Nigeria, conducted voluntarily under the Human...
Hamann-Todd Collection
A skeletal reference collection of approximately 3,100 individuals at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, accumulated 1893 to 1939 from unclaimed bodies...
NAGPRA
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (Public Law 101-601, 1990), a US federal statute requiring museums and federal agencies to...
Population Affinity
The preferred modern forensic-anthropological term for the relationship between an unidentified individual's skeletal morphology and a modern reference population. Replaces the older...
Terry Collection
A documented skeletal collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (Washington DC), assembled from cadavers donated to Washington University's anatomy...
UNDRIP
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (A/RES/61/295, 2007), adopted by 143 states. Articles 11, 12, and 31 affirm indigenous...
Willed-Body Donation
The voluntary, pre-mortem consent by an individual to donate their remains to a specific research programme after death. Distinguished from anatomical donation...

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