Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38613368›Full record

ReviewAmerican journal of biological anthropology2025

"To honor and remember": An ethical awakening to African American remains in museums.

Sabrina B Sholts

Abstract readHistorical ArticleReview
In one paragraph

Review in American journal of biological anthropology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Review
  3. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Sabrina B SholtsDepartment of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-4168-0578

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In 2021, amid surging activism in the Movement for Black Lives, the Smithsonian Institution's possession of the remains of thousands of African Americans drew widespread attention. In response, the Smithsonian and its National Museum of Natural History undertook a series of steps to assess these remains and to develop a policy for returning as many as possible to descendants and descendant communities, under changes that would apply to all non-Native American remains in Smithsonian collections. This paper reviews the actions taken to date and the work that is still in progress or planned. I contextualize these steps more broadly within an "ethical awakening" to African American remains that have long been present, studied, and displayed in collections across the museum community in the United States, where other institutions have faced similar challenges and changes.

Indexed as

Black or African AmericanMuseumsHumansUnited StatesAfrican Americansbiological anthropologyethicshuman remainsmuseums

Identifiers

PMID38613368
PMCPMC11775424

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.