While scientists generally like to see their work as politically neutral, the nature of research carried out generally reflects the social and moral norms of the day, and these change over time. In recent years there has been an increasing discussion of the use of Human skeletal remains from historical collections in research, particularly as many such remains originally belonged to members of marginalised communities and other non-consenting individuals. A central part of this debate is whether scientists should continue to use such skeletons, and what should be done with them if it is determined that their continued use is unethical. Many such collections were amassed via processes which would be considered unethical today, such as the 'Anatomy Acts' in the US, which were passed by various state legislatures, and which allowed for the dissection and curation of unclaimed Human remains, often with a relatively short window of opportunity for the claiming of remains. This disproportionately affected poor and marginalised communities, who were often unable to afford to claim and bury the remains of their relatives within the short time available.
In a paper published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology on 27 March 2026, Allyson Simon and Nicholas Passalacqua of the Department of Anthropology at The Ohio State University, and Mark Hubbe of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, present a review of research which has used Human remains from four Historical Anthropological Skeletal Collections, with a view to understanding current and past standards and social values in biological anthropology.
The use of historical anthropological skeletal collections has played a key role in the field of biological anthropology, with techniques such as the methods for estimating sex, age, stature, and population affinity, having first been developed using material from such collections. Despite this, until relatively recently little-or-no consideration was given to the lived experiences of the people whose remains found their way into such collections, or of the circumstances under which they got there. Today, there are ongoing discussions about the continued use and curation of these skeletons, with some scholars calling for such collections to be permanently dismantled and the remains held in them buried or cremated, while others argue that these are still vital resources that it will not be possible to replace once they are gone, and that they should therefore continue to be preserved.
Historical anatomical skeleton collections often include records of individuals' names, sex, age, cause of death, and other identifying information, presenting a unique set of ethical considerations. Because of this, Simon et al. felt it was important to distinguish between collections where such information has been preserved and those where it has not. They note that some previous ethical studies have lumped the two types of collections together, thereby ignoring some nuanced differences in both the demographics of these collections, and the way in which they are used by researchers. They further note that the views of both the scientific and non-scientific communities should be taken into account when determining the potential benefits of any research involving such collections.
Understanding how Human remains in historical collections have been used by researchers in the past, as well as how they are used today is an important step in evaluating the ethical dilemmas relating to these collections. When skeletons have been used in the development and validation of osteological methods without any consideration of the lived experiences of those individuals, there is a danger of those individuals being reduced to their value as osteological specimens, with their lives and individual identities being lost. It has also been noted that the value of studies based upon such collections might be lower than expected, as the way in which collections acquired skeletons makes the collections unrepresentative of the wider population. However, few previous studies have asked whether those methodological studies are ethically appropriate. Anthropological studies, in contrast, focus primarily on the lifetime experiences of the individuals involved, and often engage with current social theory. While such studies cannot undo past injustices, they do tend to re-emphasise the fact that the remains involved were once living people.
Understanding the aims of research is an important way of understanding the communities which that research serves, and can act as a proxy for the social perspective of the researchers. The Ghent Phrenological Collection comprised about 200 skulls transferred from the prison in Ghent, Belgium, to the University Museum in the same city in 1845. For the next century it was used as both a teaching aid and a research tool. However, much of the research for which the skulls were used was concentrated on the now discredited fields of eugenics and racial science, and some of that research was used to justify the atrocities of the Holocaust. Because of this the collection was felt to have become tainted by association, and following the Second World War the decision was taken to cremate the remains. However, it has been suggested that this could be seen as another act of violence against the people whose remains were held in the collection, as the method of disposal was chosen without reference to their wishes or the cultural norms of the societies which produced them.
Simon et al. believe that the debate around the continuing use of human remains from historical collections should be informed by accurate information on the uses to which they are put by researchers. To this end, they reviewed articles published in academic journals between 1920 and 2024, and the abstracts of presentations from the annual conferences of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences between 2014 and 2024, which referenced samples from four historical anthropological collections, the Hamann-Todd Human Osteological Collection held by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Robert J. Terry Anatomical Skeletal Collection held by the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the W. Montague Cobb Human Skeletal Collection held by Howard University, and the George S. Huntington Anatomical Collection, also held by the Smithsonian Museum.
These publications were analysed to determine the aims of the research being carried out in each case, with the studies being divided into five categories, 'anthropological' research, which sought to understand past human lives and experiences, often shaped by social theory, 'comparative' studies, in which specimens from one or more of the collections were compared to another sample in order to make an assessment of that sample, 'methodological' studies, concerned with the development, validation, and refinement of osteological methods and procedures for data collection and analysis, 'clinical' studies which aimed to contribute to medical knowledge and clinical practice, and 'other' studies, where the aims of the research could not be fit into one of the other categories, or could not be determined at all. These categories were not exclusive, in some cases studies were placed into more than one category.
Based upon this, Simon et al. attempted to answer four questions, (1) whether research with methodological aims was becoming less common, (2) whether work with anthropological aims was becoming more common, (3) whether different forms of research were rewarded better in terms of citations by other authors, and (4) how the preponderance of different types of research varied across journals.
The Hamann-Todd Human Osteological Collection and the Robert J. Terry Anatomical Skeletal Collection were the most commonly used in both journal articles and conference abstracts. Twelve percent of journal articles used samples from more than one of the studied collections, while 32% used samples from at least one of the studied collections, plus samples from another collection, with the most commonly cited being the Knoxville Donated Skeletal Collection at the University of Tennessee.
The majority of both research papers and conference abstracts had methodological aims. Anthropological aims were most common in the American Association of Biological Anthropologists conference abstracts, but almost absent from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences conference abstracts.
The oldest journal article was from 1920, and was a paper by Thomas Wingate Todd discussing ageing of the pubic symphysis in individuals in the Hamman-Todd Collection.
Methodological aims became less common over the 124 years of the study, but still represent the largest category, representing 69% of all journal articles. The number of research articles using historical anatomical skeletons has been increasing over the past decade. The number of anthropological studies has increased over the total time-frame, but still makes up only 14% of the total. Thirteen studies from journals were placed into more than one category, but in only three of these was anthropology one of those categories. Eighty one percent of the journal articles were hypothesis-driven research. Only three of the journal articles were review studies or meta-analyses.
Slightly over half of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists conference abstracts had methodological research aims, while 36% had anthropological aims. Six of these abstracts had both methodological and anthropological aims. In the American Academy of Forensic Sciences conference abstracts, 98.3% had methodological aims, while one had an anthropological aim and one had both an anthropological and a methodological aim. Almost all of the conference abstracts related to hypothesis-driven research, there were no review papers or meta analyses. The most common subject of the methodological research was sex determination, comprising 39.1% of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists conference abstracts and 50.9% of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences conference abstracts. This was followed by age determination, which made up 23.4% of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists conference abstracts and 33.3% of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences conference abstracts.
The number of American Association of Biological Anthropologists conference abstracts fluctuated considerably from year-to-year over the course of the studied period, but there has been no evidence of any decline in the number of methodological samples. There did appear to be an increase in the number of anthropological studies over the time period, although the variation in the number of anthropological studies over the entire period was less than the year-to-year variation in the number of methodological studies.
Due to the overwhelming preponderance of Methodology driven research in the American Academy of Forensic Sciences conference abstracts, no statistical analysis of this data was attempted. However, Simon et al. did note that there the number of studies using specimens from historical anatomical collections did decline over time.
Of the ten most cited journal articles in the study, eight were methodology-based, while two fell in the 'other' category, one of these having addressed the subject of secular change in bone length, and the other the demographics of the skeletons in the Robert J. Terry Anatomical Collection. These most referenced papers were typically studies which had introduced methods which had become widely used, with six of the eight written before 2000.
Simon et al. also looked at what sort of journals tended to publish articles containing data from historical anatomical skeleton collections, concluding that the majority of such articles were published in forensic anthropology journals.
Simon et al. note an overall decline in the use of historical anatomical skeleton collections in research, along with a declining number of methodology-related studies, which have previously been the greatest users of such collections. The number of anthropological studies of material from historic collections was observed, but only in the American Association of Biological Anthropologists conference abstracts. Simon et al. propose two possible explanations for these results, either a declining usefulness for historical specimens within forensic anthropology, or a cultural shift away from studying the remains of marginalised individuals without there consent.
Much of the development of the science of forensic anthropology has come about through the use of remains from historical collections. However, in recent years, collections made up of donated skeletons have become increasingly available. At the same time, studies of secular changes in skeletal changes have shown that these historical collections are less scientifically useful for understanding modern populations. This decline in the use of historical collections for forensic purposes has not been accompanied by an equivalent increase in anthropological studies, probably because this lies outside the traditional goals of the science.
The ongoing discussion about the ethics of using human material that was not voluntarily surrendered appears to have driven a shift in the way they are used in research. As such collections have become less useful for forensic studies, it has also become clear that they are able to provide useful information about the lives of historically marginalised communities. This creates a moral dilemma which scientists are now beginning to address, and which will probably result in the development of new ethical codes for the use of such material.
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