Ancestral Ties

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Public Law 101-601, 104 Stat. 3048, codified at 25 U.S.C. §§ 3001–3013 (1990).

The foundational legal text of this project. Establishes the five categories of cultural items subject to repatriation, the definition of cultural affiliation, institutional obligations, and the criminal penalties for trafficking. All definitions in this project trace back to this statute.

↗ Full text (GovInfo)

National Museum of the American Indian Act. Public Law 101-185, 103 Stat. 1336, codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 80q et seq. (1989).

The legislative precursor to NAGPRA, requiring the Smithsonian Institution specifically to inventory and repatriate Native American collections. Referenced in the project's legislative timeline.

↗ Full text (GovInfo)

U.S. Department of the Interior. "Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Regulations." 43 C.F.R. Part 10 (1995, amended 2010, 2023).

The implementing regulations for NAGPRA. Establishes detailed procedures for inventories, summaries, consultation, cultural affiliation determinations, and repatriation. The 2010 amendment addressed culturally unidentifiable remains; the 2023 revision substantially strengthened tribal consultation requirements.

↗ Current regulations (eCFR)

U.S. Department of the Interior. "Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act." Federal Register 88, no. 247 (December 27, 2023): 92,716–92,793.

The 2024 revision to NAGPRA regulations. Key changes include: requiring free, prior, and informed consent before conducting research on human remains; removing the "culturally unidentifiable" category as a basis for withholding repatriation; and strengthening government-to-government consultation requirements. Cited across the project's legislative timeline and definitions.

↗ Full text (Federal Register)

U.S. National Park Service. "NAGPRA Notices." Federal Register, various dates, 1993–present.

Notices of Inventory Completion and Notices of Intent to Repatriate published by covered institutions in the Federal Register constitute the primary dataset for this mapping project. Each notice identifies the holding institution, the affiliated tribal nation(s), the category and number of cultural items, and the geographic provenance. Notices are searchable at federalregister.gov under agency "National Park Service."

↗ Search NAGPRA notices

U.S. National Park Service. National NAGPRA Online Databases. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior. Accessed 2024–2025.

The National Park Service maintains publicly accessible online databases of NAGPRA inventories, summaries, and notices. These databases are the primary source for institutional and affiliation data represented on the map. Data is updated as new notices are published.

↗ National NAGPRA Databases

U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. "Indian Entities Recognized and Eligible to Receive Services from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs." Federal Register 89, no. 18 (January 26, 2024): 5,254–5,264.

The official list of 575 federally recognized tribal nations. Used to determine which tribal nations are eligible claimants under NAGPRA and to establish the Tribal Nations layer on the map.

↗ 2024 Federal Register list

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books, 1999.

Buikstra, Jane E., and Lane A. Beck, eds. Bioarchaeology: The Contextual Analysis of Human Remains. New York: Academic Press, 2006.

Fine-Dare, Kathleen S. Grave Injustice: The American Indian Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.

Mihesuah, Devon A., ed. Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains? Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000.

Brousseau, M. (2021). "Unrefutable Responsibility": Mapping the Seeds of Settler Futurity and Seeding the Maps of Indigenous Futurity. Native American and Indigenous Studies, 8(1), 112–122.

Lee, Robert, Tristan Ahtone, Margaret Pearce, Kalen Goodluck, Geoff McGhee, Cody Leff, Katherine Lanpher, and Taryn Salinas. "Land Grab Universities." High Country News, March 30, 2020.

A landmark piece of data-driven investigative journalism documenting how the Morrill Act of 1862 — which established the land-grant university system — was funded through the seizure and sale of nearly 11 million acres of Indigenous land. The investigation identified 52 land-grant universities, the 245 tribal nations whose land was taken, and the roughly $500 million in revenue generated.

Directly relevant to this project's mapping of institutional NAGPRA holdings: many of the same universities that hold the largest Native American collections were built on — and financially founded through — the dispossession of the very peoples whose ancestors are in those collections. The piece's cartographic and data methodology also models the kind of critical Indigenous-centered mapping this project aspires to.

↗ landgrabu.org (full project)

U.S. Government Accountability Office. Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act: After Almost 20 Years, Key Federal Agencies Still Have Not Fully Complied with the Act. GAO-10-768. Washington, D.C.: GAO, July 2010.

A critical assessment of federal agency compliance with NAGPRA two decades after its passage, finding significant gaps in inventory completion, consultation, and repatriation. Provides quantitative context for the scale of the ongoing repatriation backlog.

↗ Full report (GAO)

Mapbox. Mapbox GL JS (Version 3.0.1). San Francisco: Mapbox, 2024.

The JavaScript mapping library powering this project's interactive map. The light-v11 basemap style is used as the background for all data layers.

↗ Mapbox GL JS documentation