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Confronting historical legacies of biological anthropology in South Africa—Restitution, redress and community-centered science: The Sutherland Nine
We describe a process of restitution of nine unethically acquired human skeletons to their families, together with attempts at redress. Between 1925–1927 C.E., the skeletonised remains of nine San or Khoekhoe people, eight of them known-in-life, were removed from their graves on the farm Kruisrivier...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10208512/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37224187 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284785 |
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author | Gibbon, Victoria E. Feris, Loretta Gretzinger, Joscha Smith, Kathryn Hall, Simon Penn, Nigel Mutsvangwa, Tinashe E. M. Heale, Michaela Finaughty, Devin A. Karanja, Yvonne W. Esterhuyse, Jan Kotze, Daniël Barnes, Nina Gunston, Geney May, Je’nine Krause, Johannes Wilkinson, Caroline M. Schiffels, Stephan Februarie, Doreen Alves, Sianne Sealy, Judith C. |
author_facet | Gibbon, Victoria E. Feris, Loretta Gretzinger, Joscha Smith, Kathryn Hall, Simon Penn, Nigel Mutsvangwa, Tinashe E. M. Heale, Michaela Finaughty, Devin A. Karanja, Yvonne W. Esterhuyse, Jan Kotze, Daniël Barnes, Nina Gunston, Geney May, Je’nine Krause, Johannes Wilkinson, Caroline M. Schiffels, Stephan Februarie, Doreen Alves, Sianne Sealy, Judith C. |
author_sort | Gibbon, Victoria E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | We describe a process of restitution of nine unethically acquired human skeletons to their families, together with attempts at redress. Between 1925–1927 C.E., the skeletonised remains of nine San or Khoekhoe people, eight of them known-in-life, were removed from their graves on the farm Kruisrivier, near Sutherland in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. They were donated to the Anatomy Department at the University of Cape Town. This was done without the knowledge or permission of their families. The donor was a medical student who removed the remains from the labourers’ cemetery on his family farm. Nearly 100 years later, the remains are being returned to their community, accompanied by a range of community-driven interdisciplinary historical, archaeological and analytical (osteobiographic, craniofacial, ancient DNA, stable isotope) studies to document, as far as possible, their lives and deaths. The restitution process began by contacting families living in the same area with the same surnames as the deceased. The restitution and redress process prioritises the descendant families’ memories, wishes and desire to understand the situation, and learn more about their ancestors. The descendant families have described the process as helping them to reconnect with their ancestors. A richer appreciation of their ancestors’ lives, gained in part from scientific analyses, culminating with reburial, is hoped to aid the descendant families and wider community in [re-]connecting with their heritage and culture, and contribute to restorative justice, reconciliation and healing while confronting a traumatic historical moment. While these nine individuals were exhumed as specimens, they will be reburied as people. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10208512 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-102085122023-05-25 Confronting historical legacies of biological anthropology in South Africa—Restitution, redress and community-centered science: The Sutherland Nine Gibbon, Victoria E. Feris, Loretta Gretzinger, Joscha Smith, Kathryn Hall, Simon Penn, Nigel Mutsvangwa, Tinashe E. M. Heale, Michaela Finaughty, Devin A. Karanja, Yvonne W. Esterhuyse, Jan Kotze, Daniël Barnes, Nina Gunston, Geney May, Je’nine Krause, Johannes Wilkinson, Caroline M. Schiffels, Stephan Februarie, Doreen Alves, Sianne Sealy, Judith C. PLoS One Research Article We describe a process of restitution of nine unethically acquired human skeletons to their families, together with attempts at redress. Between 1925–1927 C.E., the skeletonised remains of nine San or Khoekhoe people, eight of them known-in-life, were removed from their graves on the farm Kruisrivier, near Sutherland in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. They were donated to the Anatomy Department at the University of Cape Town. This was done without the knowledge or permission of their families. The donor was a medical student who removed the remains from the labourers’ cemetery on his family farm. Nearly 100 years later, the remains are being returned to their community, accompanied by a range of community-driven interdisciplinary historical, archaeological and analytical (osteobiographic, craniofacial, ancient DNA, stable isotope) studies to document, as far as possible, their lives and deaths. The restitution process began by contacting families living in the same area with the same surnames as the deceased. The restitution and redress process prioritises the descendant families’ memories, wishes and desire to understand the situation, and learn more about their ancestors. The descendant families have described the process as helping them to reconnect with their ancestors. A richer appreciation of their ancestors’ lives, gained in part from scientific analyses, culminating with reburial, is hoped to aid the descendant families and wider community in [re-]connecting with their heritage and culture, and contribute to restorative justice, reconciliation and healing while confronting a traumatic historical moment. While these nine individuals were exhumed as specimens, they will be reburied as people. Public Library of Science 2023-05-24 /pmc/articles/PMC10208512/ /pubmed/37224187 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284785 Text en © 2023 Gibbon et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Gibbon, Victoria E. Feris, Loretta Gretzinger, Joscha Smith, Kathryn Hall, Simon Penn, Nigel Mutsvangwa, Tinashe E. M. Heale, Michaela Finaughty, Devin A. Karanja, Yvonne W. Esterhuyse, Jan Kotze, Daniël Barnes, Nina Gunston, Geney May, Je’nine Krause, Johannes Wilkinson, Caroline M. Schiffels, Stephan Februarie, Doreen Alves, Sianne Sealy, Judith C. Confronting historical legacies of biological anthropology in South Africa—Restitution, redress and community-centered science: The Sutherland Nine |
title | Confronting historical legacies of biological anthropology in South Africa—Restitution, redress and community-centered science: The Sutherland Nine |
title_full | Confronting historical legacies of biological anthropology in South Africa—Restitution, redress and community-centered science: The Sutherland Nine |
title_fullStr | Confronting historical legacies of biological anthropology in South Africa—Restitution, redress and community-centered science: The Sutherland Nine |
title_full_unstemmed | Confronting historical legacies of biological anthropology in South Africa—Restitution, redress and community-centered science: The Sutherland Nine |
title_short | Confronting historical legacies of biological anthropology in South Africa—Restitution, redress and community-centered science: The Sutherland Nine |
title_sort | confronting historical legacies of biological anthropology in south africa—restitution, redress and community-centered science: the sutherland nine |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10208512/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37224187 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284785 |
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