New guide on dealing with human remains from colonial contexts

The guide is in­tend­ed for work in con­nec­tion with bi­o­log­i­cal-an­thro­po­log­i­cal, anatom­i­cal and med­i­cal-his­tor­i­cal col­lec­tions of hu­man re­mains, es­pe­cial­ly at uni­ver­si­ties and mu­se­ums in Ger­many, and it is sup­ple­ment­ed with an ap­pendix on the sit­u­a­tion in Aus­tria. The fo­cus is on an in­ter­dis­ci­plinary ap­proach and com­bined method­ol­o­gy. The guide con­tains de­tailed notes on the his­tor­i­cal and an­thro­po­log­i­cal-sci­en­tif­ic meth­ods used in prove­nance re­search and al­so on the doc­u­men­ta­tion of re­search find­ings. The tran­scul­tur­al and transna­tion­al di­men­sions of prove­nance re­search are al­so dis­cussed. Case stud­ies are in­clud­ed in all chap­ters for il­lus­tra­tive pur­pos­es.

“The dove­tail­ing of sci­en­tif­ic and cul­tur­al-his­tor­i­cal meth­ods and ap­proach­es pos­es a par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge for prove­nance re­searchers. The lat­ter usu­al­ly come from ei­ther one of these two fields of schol­ar­ship, and they have to read up on or fa­mil­iarise them­selves with the oth­er field. This is where the guide seeks to pro­vide tar­get­ed sup­port. It ex­plains the po­ten­tial that lies in com­bin­ing a va­ri­ety of meth­ods and ap­proach­es, as well as show­ing the im­por­tance of en­gag­ing in di­a­logue with ex­perts from the coun­tries of ori­gin of the de­ceased in­di­vid­u­als and/or their de­scen­dants,” says Dr. Laris­sa Förster, head of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion’s De­part­ment of Cul­tur­al Prop­er­ty and Col­lec­tions from Colo­nial Con­texts.

As Prof. Dr. Thomas Schnalke, Di­rec­tor of the Berlin Med­i­cal His­to­ry Mu­se­um of the Char­ité, em­pha­sis­es: “Hu­man re­mains from colo­nial con­texts are sen­si­tive ma­te­ri­al in ev­ery re­spect. Re­search in­to their ori­gin is usu­al­ly car­ried out in the form of in­di­vid­u­al case anal­y­sis. As the Berlin Mu­se­um of Med­i­cal His­to­ry, we are pleased to be able to join to­geth­er with our part­ners to present what we hope will be a help­ful and prac­ti­cal­ly ori­ent­ed hand­book for this pur­pose.”

“The guide is an im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion to the just and ap­pro­pri­ate treat­ment of hu­man relics. ICOM Ger­many would like to thank the two in­sti­tu­tions for this im­por­tant co­op­er­a­tion and es­pe­cial­ly the au­thors them­selves, who with their schol­ar­ly ex­per­tise have ren­dered out­stand­ing ser­vices for many years to the dig­ni­fied treat­ment and di­a­logue that is ap­pro­pri­ate for all con­cerned in such cas­es,” says Beate Reifen­scheid, Pres­i­dent of ICOM Ger­many.

Bib­li­o­graph­i­cal da­ta
Winkel­mann, An­dreas; Stoeck­er, Hol­ger; Fründt, Sarah; Förster, Laris­sa: In­ter­diszi­plinäre Prove­nien­z­forschung zu men­schlichen Über­resten aus kolo­nialen Kon­tex­ten. Eine method­is­che Ar­beit­shil­fe des Deutschen Zen­trums Kul­turgutver­luste, des Berlin­er Medi­z­in­his­torischen Mu­se­ums der Char­ité und von ICOM Deutsch­land. Pub­lished by ICOM Ger­many. Hei­del­berg: arthis­toricum.net 2022. 100 pages. Beiträge zur Muse­olo­gie, Vol. 11.
eIS­BN 978-3-98501-028-8.*
DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/arthis­toricum.893
*The print ver­sion is in prepa­ra­tion.

About the au­thors
Laris­sa Förster is head of the De­part­ment of Cul­tur­al Prop­er­ty and Col­lec­tions from Colo­nial Con­texts at the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion.
Sarah Fründt is a re­searcher at the De­part­ment of Cul­tur­al Prop­er­ty and Col­lec­tions from Colo­nial Con­texts at the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion and the con­tact per­son for prove­nance re­search in­to hu­man re­mains.
Hol­ger Stoeck­er is a his­to­ri­an work­ing on African-Ger­man colo­nial his­to­ry and the his­to­ry of sci­ence, and he al­so con­ducts prove­nance re­search in­to hu­man re­mains from colo­nial con­texts.
An­dreas Winkel­mann is Pro­fes­sor of Anato­my at the Bran­den­burg Med­i­cal School in Neu­rup­pin and re­search­es in­to the his­to­ry and ethics of his sub­ject.