A national resting place for unprovenanced Indigenous remains

A report by the federal government's special committee for Indigenous repatriation has recommended Canberra as a location for a national resting place for poorly provenanced or unprovenanced Indigenous remains.

New push to repatriate Indigenous remains

By some estimates, the ancestral remains of as many as 1,000 Indigenous people are still overseas.

And the task of repatriating them from foreign museums and institutions has proven to be a complicated one.

The federal government recently extended the mandate of a special committee for Indigenous repatriation, which has been looking into a location for the burial of poorly provenanced or unprovenanced remains. 

A consultation report has recommended that they be laid to rest in Canberra.

Committee member Lyndon Ormond-Parker is a research fellow at the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne.

He spoke to Peggy Giakoumelos about the steps being taken by the committee to advise on an appropriate final resting place for the remains.

(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full interview)