Sweden said on Monday it would return the remains of 18 people to the indigenous Sami people, and ask experts to facilitate handing back more artefacts from the country's museums and universities.
The Swedish parliament recognised the Sami as an indigenous people in 1977, but relations with the state have often been oppressive, not least during the heyday of now-discredited racial theories' research in the first half of the 20th century that aimed to determine differences between ethnic groups.
"The Sami people has suffered historically, among other things through the looting of graves and investigations conducted for racial biology research," Sweden's Education Minister Mats Persson said.
