Version 1
: Received: 24 July 2023 / Approved: 24 July 2023 / Online: 25 July 2023 (03:11:20 CEST)
How to cite:
Wärmländer, S.K. The Swedish Bollnäs Skull – a Possible Native American Skull from San Nicolas Island in California. Preprints2023, 2023071632. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202307.1632.v1
Wärmländer, S.K. The Swedish Bollnäs Skull – a Possible Native American Skull from San Nicolas Island in California. Preprints 2023, 2023071632. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202307.1632.v1
Wärmländer, S.K. The Swedish Bollnäs Skull – a Possible Native American Skull from San Nicolas Island in California. Preprints2023, 2023071632. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202307.1632.v1
APA Style
Wärmländer, S.K. (2023). The Swedish Bollnäs Skull – a Possible Native American Skull from San Nicolas Island in California. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202307.1632.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Wärmländer, S.K. 2023 "The Swedish Bollnäs Skull – a Possible Native American Skull from San Nicolas Island in California" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202307.1632.v1
Abstract
In the 21st century, museums have come to realize that the human skeletons they display might have problematic origins. The older anthropological skeletal collections typically originate from anatomical dissection of the executed and the very poor, or from scavenged graves of indigenous people. Such collections are currently being re-evaluated in many countries, and reburying or repatriating museum skeletons have become viable options. A particularly difficult question is what to do with human remains of unknown origins. Here, we present and discuss one such case, where a human skeleton of unclear origin in the 1930’s was brought to a local museum in Bollnäs, Sweden, under likely unethical circumstances. Most of the bones have now been lost, except for the skull, the sacrum and one lumbar vertebra, which in 2007 were transferred to the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm. The skull was there put on display as the “Bollnäs skull”, and was presented to the public to illustrate the dilemmas involved in handling human remains in the post-colonial era. The original gift letter from 1934 stated that the skeleton came from San Nicolas Island outside the California coast, but this letter contained numerous instances of incorrect information and was therefore deemed not trustworthy. However, our critical examination of the skull and its background information indicates that San Nicolas Island is a plausible origin, and we suggest that a bioarchaeological comparison should be made between the skull and living descendants of the San Nicolas Island population, and/or with archaeological human skeletons excavated from the island.
Keywords
Bioarchaeology; Skeletal collections; Human Remains; Native American
Subject
Arts and Humanities, Archaeology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
