Confronting historical legacies of biological anthropology in South Africa-Restitution, redress and community-centered science: The Sutherland Nine.

ABSTRACT: 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 (osteob

SUBMITTER: Gibbon VE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10208512 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature