Pennsylvania
Institutions reported making 14% of the more than 2,100 Native American remains taken from Pennsylvania available for return to tribes under NAGPRA.
There are 22 institutions located in Pennsylvania that reported Native American remains taken from across the country.
Institution | Remains Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
State Museum of Pennsylvania | 908 | 177 | 16% |
Carnegie Museum of Natural History | 646 | 105 | 14% |
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology | 402 | 230 | 36% |
California University of Pennsylvania | 183 | 0 | 0% |
North Museum of Nature and Science | 120 | 0 | 0% |
Temple University, Department of Anthropology | 116 | 9 | 7% |
Tioga Point Museum | 70 | 0 | 0% |
Mutter Museum, College of Physicians of Philadelphia | 48 | 9 | 16% |
Wagner Free Institute of Science | 26 | 0 | 0% |
U.S. Department of Defense | 20 | 0 | 0% |
Warren County Historical Society | 7 | 0 | 0% |
Pennsylvania State University, Matson Museum of Anthropology | 5 | 51 | 91% |
Lackawanna Historical Society | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Indiana University of Pennsylvania | 2 | 2 | 50% |
Everhart Museum | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Bryn Mawr College | 0 | 3 | 100% |
Gettysburg Foundation | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Kutztown University of Pennsylvania | 0 | 21 | 100% |
Library Company of Philadelphia | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Reading Public Museum | 0 | 2 | 100% |
U.S. Department of the Interior | 0 | 42 | 100% |
Wistar Institute | 0 | 4 | 100% |
There are 28 institutions that reported Native American remains taken from Pennsylvania.
Institution | Remains Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
State Museum of Pennsylvania | 853 | 177 | 17% |
Carnegie Museum of Natural History | 495 | 96 | 16% |
California University of Pennsylvania | 183 | 0 | 0% |
North Museum of Nature and Science | 115 | 0 | 0% |
Temple University, Department of Anthropology | 115 | 0 | 0% |
Tioga Point Museum | 35 | 0 | 0% |
U.S. Department of Defense | 20 | 0 | 0% |
Rochester Museum and Science Center | 12 | 0 | 0% |
Warren County Historical Society | 7 | 0 | 0% |
American Museum of Natural History | 5 | 0 | 0% |
Pennsylvania State University, Matson Museum of Anthropology | 5 | 0 | 0% |
University of Akron | 4 | 0 | 0% |
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology | 4 | 3 | 43% |
New York State Museum | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Goshen College | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Chemung Valley Historical Society | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Indiana University | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Lackawanna Historical Society | 1 | 0 | 0% |
New York University, College of Dentistry | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Denver Museum of Nature and Science | 0 | 3 | 100% |
Gettysburg Foundation | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Gilcrease Museum | 0 | 3 | 100% |
Harvard University | 0 | 5 | 100% |
Indiana University of Pennsylvania | 0 | 2 | 100% |
Lambertville Historical Society | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Mercyhurst Univ. | 0 | 4 | 100% |
New Jersey State Museum | 0 | 1 | 100% |
U.S. Department of the Interior | 0 | 7 | 100% |
Institutions made Native American remains taken from Pennsylvania available for return to 15 tribes.
Tribe | Remains Made Available for Return to Tribe |
---|---|
Seneca Nation of Indians | 142 |
Delaware Tribe of Indians | 124 |
Seneca-Cayuga Nation | 99 |
Tonawanda Band of Seneca | 99 |
Delaware Nation, Oklahoma | 76 |
Stockbridge Munsee Community, Wisconsin | 76 |
Cherokee Nation | 67 |
Wyandotte Nation | 29 |
Cayuga Nation | 5 |
Oneida Indian Nation in New York | 5 |
Oneida Nation of Wisconsin | 5 |
Onondaga Nation | 5 |
Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe | 5 |
Tuscarora Nation | 5 |
Pueblo of San Felipe, New Mexico | 1 |
Institutions reported Native American remains taken from 43 counties in Pennsylvania.
County | Remains Taken From County Not Made Available for Return | Remains Made Available for Return | % of Remains Made Available for Return |
---|---|---|---|
Lancaster County | 722 | 93 | 11% |
Fayette County | 283 | 2 | 1% |
Allegheny County | 148 | 42 | 22% |
Washington County | 93 | 0 | 0% |
Westmoreland County | 83 | 0 | 0% |
Bradford County | 78 | 2 | 3% |
Greene County | 71 | 0 | 0% |
York County | 53 | 0 | 0% |
Huntingdon County | 38 | 0 | 0% |
Beaver County | 36 | 0 | 0% |
Somerset County | 33 | 0 | 0% |
Warren County | 31 | 0 | 0% |
Armstrong County | 24 | 0 | 0% |
Indiana County | 24 | 0 | 0% |
Clarion County | 18 | 0 | 0% |
Crawford County | 18 | 1 | 5% |
Chester County | 7 | 17 | 71% |
Franklin County | 7 | 0 | 0% |
Pike County | 7 | 7 | 50% |
Clinton County | 6 | 0 | 0% |
Bedford County | 5 | 0 | 0% |
Bucks County | 5 | 7 | 58% |
Dauphin County | 5 | 2 | 29% |
Erie County | 5 | 0 | 0% |
Lebanon County | 4 | 0 | 0% |
Luzerne County | 4 | 28 | 88% |
Butler County | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Lawrence County | 3 | 92 | 97% |
Montour County | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Tioga County | 3 | 0 | 0% |
Centre County | 2 | 0 | 0% |
Berks County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Clearfield County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Cumberland County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Elk County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Fulton County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Lycoming County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Northampton County | 1 | 0 | 0% |
Philadelphia County | 1 | 3 | 75% |
Delaware County | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Mercer County | 0 | 1 | 100% |
Monroe County | 0 | 2 | 100% |
Wyoming County | 0 | 1 | 100% |
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This tool presents a dataset maintained by the National Park Service containing all the Native American human remains and associated funerary objects that institutions have reported to the federal government under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The dataset includes information about the state and county where remains and objects were taken from, which institutions hold them and whether they have been made available for return to tribes.
The data is self-reported by institutions. The amount of unrepatriated Native American remains reported by institutions is a minimum estimate of individuals and institutions frequently adjust these numbers when they reinventory groups of remains. Some institutions that are subject to NAGPRA have also entirely failed to report the remains in their possession. As a result, the numbers provided are best taken as estimates. The actual number and geographic scope of what’s held by publicly funded institutions is larger than what is presently documented.
ProPublica supplemented this dataset with information about cultural affiliation and disposition to specific tribes by systematically parsing the text of Notices of Inventory Completion published in the Federal Register. An additional dataset from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Tribal Directory Assessment Tool, was used for the section on remains not made available for return from counties that each tribe has indicated interest in to the federal government.
Institution location and tribal headquarters location information was provided by National NAGPRA. The location of some groups that are not federally recognized was provided through research by ProPublica.
Institutions that are part of a larger entity are grouped. (For example, the Mesa Verde National Park is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.)
Institutions that have not submitted information to the federal government are not listed. The Smithsonian Institution is not listed because its repatriation process falls under the National Museum of the American Indian Act and it is not required to publicly report its holdings with the same detail as institutions subject to NAGPRA.
If you work for an institution and would like to provide comment on your institution’s repatriation efforts, please email [email protected]. If you think the data is incorrect or have a data request, please get in touch. We are aware of some issues with the accuracy of location information and tribes mistakenly being identified for disposition of Native American remains in published notices.
If you want to share something else with ProPublica, we’d like to hear from you.
If you have questions about implementing or complying with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, get in touch with National NAGPRA or the NAGPRA Community of Practice.
We use the word “tribes” to refer to all groups that institutions made Native American remains available to under NAGPRA. This includes tribes, nations, bands, pueblos, communities, Native Alaskan villages, Native Hawaiian organizations and non-federally recognized groups.
Data sources from Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National NAGPRA Program, the Federal Register, Department of Housing and Development, Tribal Directory Assessment Tool