England’s Pitt Rivers Museum announces its largest repatriation of human remains

The Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford has agreed to repatriate 39 pieces of human remains—primarily skulls—to the Indigenous Naga people, with the transfer to Nagaland, India, planned by the end of the year. Director Laura Van Broekhoven told The New York Times the November handover will be the museum’s largest repatriation of human remains and described it as a “Naga-wide movement of healing and unification.” The claim was submitted in February by the Forum for Naga Reconciliation, representing 39 Naga organizations, for 40 ancestral remains; Oxford University Council approved the return in July but declined one remain due to unclear Naga provenance. The museum said most of the remains were collected by colonial-era figures John Henry Hutton and James Philip Mills between 1910 and 1940, and it has removed all human remains from display since 2020 while working with Naga partners on care and return protocols.

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