15. Explain the Minnesota Historical Society’s past role in housing American Indian remains in its collections.

 
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was routine for institutions throughout North America to acquire American Indian human remains and hold them in their collections as specimens for scientific study. One of the questions under investigation was whether contemporary American Indian people descended from the earliest inhabitants of the continent, or whether these were unrelated groups of people. MNHS acquired human remains that were recovered from amateur and professional excavations of burial mounds, and sometimes those that had been disturbed during construction projects. All human remains known to have been in our collections have been repatriated.