One of the world’s most important collections of human remains has been lost to science, after the Natural History Museum gave up the specimens without first carrying out work that would have preserved vital clues to evolution.

Bones and teeth from 17 Tasmanian Aborigines were handed over to a community group yesterday, after the museum dropped plans for a final research programme.

The museum’s trustees approved the repatriation in November but ordered tests to be performed first to ensure that important data was not lost. DNA was to be extracted and sequenced, slivers of bone were to be removed for chemical analysis, casts were to be made, and the remains were to be photographed and scanned.

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC), which is recognised by the Australian Government as the community group with the best claim on the remains, collected in the 18th and 19th centuries, objected to this work, and in February obtained an injunction to stop it.

The “non-intrusive” tests such as photography and casting were allowed, but the museum agreed to abandon the rest of the programme under a compromise deal agreed this week.

Though no DNA or bone slivers will be removed for fresh tests, samples that were taken before November 2006 will not be destroyed, but will be sent to Tasmania and preserved. Future access for research – or for destruction – will require the consent of both parties.

The museum said that the compromise would ensure that the most valuable scientific data – the DNA – would remain intact for future generations to study. “The fact we have to agree means the DNA cannot now be destroyed,” said Richard Lane, the museum’s director of research.

Leading scientists, however, said that there was no guarantee that the material would ever become available for research, as the TAC has an effective veto over its use.

Though they welcomed the agreement not to destroy DNA samples, the DNA has not been sequenced, meaning that no useful information has yet been recovered. Analysis of bone samples for isotopes – which can provide clues to diet – can also no longer be carried out.

Some museum scientists and trustees also questioned the decision to back down without defending the research programme in the High Court.Professor Chris Stringer, head of the museum’s human origins group, said: “The best solution would have been to keep this collection intact. It is good news that the DNA will not be destroyed, but the arrangements for future study are a concern.”

Robert Foley, Professor of Human Evolution at the University of Cambridge, said that the museum appeared to have compromised much more than the TAC. “The museum and scientific communities have moved considerably . . . despite concerns about the impact on science, but there doesn’t seem to have been any equivalent move on the other side. We are now losing the potential for scientific information to come to light,” he said.

The TAC wants to bury the remains in accordance with religious traditions, and rejects the removal of any material from the specimens as mutilation and sacrilege.

In the vaults

— The Natural History Museum has 19,500 human specimens in its collection, of which 54 per cent are from the British Isles, 12 per cent from Asia, 11 per cent from North America and Hawaii, and 11 per cent from Africa; the others are from Central and South America and Australasia,

— The 24 Tasmanian specimens come from 17 individuals. Most were collected by George Augustus Robinson in the early 19th century.

— There were 4,000 Aborigines living in Tasmania in 1803, when the British first landed. By 1860, only 15 were left alive.

Source: Natural History Museum

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