University of North Dakota admits failure to report huge collection of Indigenous remains and sacred artifacts

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The University of North Dakota announced on Wednesday that it, for decades, failed to report its possession of Indigenous skeletal remains and sacred artifacts to a federal committee as required by federal law.

Officials at the university discovered more than 250 boxes of remains and artifacts dating back to the 1940s in the basement of an old anthropology building earlier this year. Under the terms of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) passed in 1990, the university was responsible for alerting the government of these remains’s existence.