One of the world’s most significant collections of human remains is to be lost to science, after the Natural History Museum (NHM) today agreed to repatriate it to an Australian aboriginal community.

Bones and teeth from 17 aboriginal Tasmanians, which were collected in the 19th century, will be sent back to Australia next April, where they are expected to be cremated.

The specimens are the first from the museum’s collection of almost 20,000 human remains to be repatriated since the law was changed last year to allow it to do so.

The request from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC), supported by the Australian Government, was accepted by the museum’s trustees even though its own scientists had argued strongly that it should be kept intact as "a particularly important collection to the global scientific community."

The ruling sets a precedent that could ultimately see thousands of items from the NHM’s collection returned to indigenous communities for burial or cremation.

Although 54 per cent of its human remains are from the UK, all those from abroad that are less than 1,000 years old could now qualify for repatriation if an appropriate request is made.

The Australian Government has already begun negotiations about the return of a further 450 items that originated in Australia, and Native American and New Zealand Maori groups are also in discussions with the museum.

The prospect of losing so many specimens from one of the world’s foremost repositories of human remains has dismayed some scientists, who argue that they retain great importance. Original remains are valuable for studies in fields as varied as human evolution and forensic science.

The Tasmanian collection is particularly signficant because the island has been isolated from the Austrialian mainland for thousands of years, and its aboriginal population offers valuable insights into human evolution that cannot be obtained from other sources.

A few dozen museum specimens are all that remains of this unique ethnic group, which was eradicated by genocide in the 19th century.

"Failure to maintain scholarly access to these remains would reduce the ability of all people to know aspects of their common heritage, to the detriment of both the Tasmanians and the wider community," NHM scientists said in their response to the repatriation request.

"The Tasmanian human remains must continue to be available for scientific research, either at the NHM or at another repository."

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