Unalaska, AK – The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is a federal law that requires museums and federal agencies to return human remains and other cultural items to their linear descendants. That means it's up to people like U.S. Fish & Wildlife archaeologist Debbie Corbett to locate all of the remains that were taken off of federal lands in Alaska, identify who they belong to, and try to get them home. But Corbett says the process isn't always straight forward for the dozens of remains she handles each year. The archaeologists and others who removed the bones, mostly during the 1930s and 40s, didn't always do it carefully.

"They're grabbing a bag full of bones that may or may not belong to one person," she said. "There may be two people mixed in, there may be three people mixed in. They may all belong to one person. So what we did was we got all these fragments together in one place and looked at them as a group to try to see if we could reassemble individuals."

Corbett looked at the bones' sizes and markings to determine if they were from males or females, youth or adults. Some bones show scars from arthritis, others show where muscles twisted and pulled for rowing kayaks or sewing baskets. "It's pretty interesting picture of daily life," she said.

Some of the recent NAGPRA claims are from bones removed from burial caves in the Islands of the Four Mountains. The remains cannot be returned to the caves because they are not secure. Corbett said many times modern tribes in Alaska aren't sure what to do with ancient remains.

"Putting them in a Christian cemetery may not be appropriate because they may not have been Christian. So they're still internally trying to figure out what is appropriate for these remains."

For other remains, the answer is much clearer. Remains originally removed from Agattu Island in the Near Island group are buried by the Aleut Corporation in a special graveyard on nearby Shimiya Island. Aleut Corporation representative Melvin Smith says they want to return the remains to the area and bury them with respect.

"Some times we've brought out a priest--we've taken Father Peter out with us a couple of times--and then other times I've gone out there myself, sometimes with our president, and we've just did a burial and put up a cross and whatnot marking the grave."

A new NAGPRA claim has recently been issued for remains from T. P. Banks collection for an individual found on Agattu in 1949. All notices of repatriation of remains and cultural items are posted online in the federal registrar.