Paper short abstract:

The research project "Sensitive Provenances" investigates the provenance of human remains from colonial contexts at the University of Göttingen. It examines its origin in Africa, the contexts of acquisition, their status within the collections and the approaches to their re-humanisation.

Paper long abstract:

The "Sensitive Provenances" research project investigates the provenance of human remains from (proto-)colonial contexts in two collections at the University of Göttingen. It examine the origin of ancestral remains in Africa, the circumstances of their acquisition, their transfer and transformation into scientific objects, their use for teaching and research purposes. The aim is now their re-humanisation and, if possible, re-individualisation. The project is focusing on the so-called 'Blumenbach Skull Collection', which was initiated by the natural scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840), as well as on the Anthropological Collection which was handed over from the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology to the University of Göttingen in 1953. This collection originates mostly from the German colonial period between 1890 and 1920. An initial review of both collections revealed that circa 100 ancestral remains originate from Africa, mainly from Tanzania, Namibia, and South Africa. The paper will present the interdisciplinary format of the provenance research, methodological approaches and first results.