NY natural history museum changing how it looks after thousands of human remains in collection

By DEEPTI HAJELA
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The American Museum of Natural History says it is pulling all human remains from public display and will revamp how it maintains its collection of body parts with the aim of eventually repatriating as much as it can and respectfully holding what it can’t. The museum now holds around 12,000 sets of remains, including the bones of Indigenous people and enslaved Black people. Museum President Sean Decatur says for the most part, the remains in the collection were acquired without clear consent of the dead or their descendants. The process of pulling human remains from public display will impact six of the museum’s galleries.