Additional regulations around a federal law allowing Native American tribes to retrieve ancestral and cultural items are harming scientific research, according to a new report.
The Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute released a report showing how extra regulations surrounding the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act have hindered research into Native American history.
Congress passed NAGPRA in 1990, which “has provided for the protection and return of Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony,” according to the National Park Service.
Elizabeth Weiss, a retired professor of anthropology from San Jose State University and the Goldwater Institute report’s author, wrote that the interpretations of NAGPRA have changed over time.
In 2023, the Biden administration implemented regulations that expanded Native American tribes' role in research. Scientists were not allowed to do research on Native American remains and cultural items without seeking tribal approval, according to the report.
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