Visitors walk through the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven, Conn., on March 26. Researchers at museum have linked human remains found in Hancock County more than 70 years ago to one of the Maine's Native American tribes, and the Federal Register says those remains, as well as several cultural items, will be returned to Maine next month. Diane Bondareff/AP Images for the Yale Peabody Museum
Researchers at the Yale Peabody Museum at Yale University have linked human remains found in Hancock County more than 70 years ago to one of the Maine's Native American tribes.
According to an item published Tuesday in the Federal Register - the government's official journal - those remains, as well as several cultural items, will be returned to Maine next month.
The remains were found between 1948 and 1952 under a shell mound on Oak Point in Deer Isle by H. Gordon Rowe and donated to the Yale museum in 1969 by his wife.
As part of a recent inventory under the National American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the museum determined that the individual was of Native American ancestry.
Additionally, eight cultural items that had been in possession of the museum - including gouges and spearheads - were determined to be connected to Maine's tribes and also will be repatriated. Some of those items were found more than a century ago by archaeologist Warren K. Moorehead at sites in Knox County and Penobscot County.
The items were classified as "unassociated funerary objects," which means they were placed with or near human remains as part of Native American death rites or ceremonies.
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Under the national act, items held by museums are required to be returned to their respective tribes or descendants.
Maine has four recognized tribes: the Penobscot Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe, Mi'kmaq Nation and the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians.
Repatriation of the remains and items is scheduled to occur on or after Dec. 12, pending requests from the affiliated tribes or any lineal descendants. The museum is responsible for determining the most appropriate requestor if competing repatriation requests are received.
Maulian Bryant, Penobscot Nation ambassador and executive director of the Wabanaki Alliance, said in an email that she was not aware of the recent news out of Yale but forwarded it to the Tribal Historic Preservation Office.
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