{"id":1796,"date":"2014-12-05T10:56:12","date_gmt":"2014-12-05T15:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nybg.org\/science-talk\/?p=1796"},"modified":"2014-12-05T13:12:58","modified_gmt":"2014-12-05T18:12:58","slug":"an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"An Unusual Find in the Herbarium: A Story of Righting a Past Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarah Dutton<\/a> is a project coordinator who is currently working to digitize the algae collection in the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium<\/a> at The New York Botanical Garden<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Cropped<\/a>
A curious specimen surfaces in the Herbarium’s archives<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While making high-resolution digital images of\u00a0lichen-covered rocks that are part of\u00a0the collection in\u00a0the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, I came across a specimen not long ago with an unusual and rather alarming label. Plainly written as part of the collection data on this otherwise inconspicuous box was the statement that the specimen was “on bone of Eskimo child.” I opened the box to find, indeed, a bone of some kind with bright orange and yellow lichen growing on it.<\/p>\n

I happen to have studied anthropology in college. One of the most important things you learn in a modern anthropology class is that many of the interactions between researchers and indigenous peoples during the long history of the\u00a0discipline were downright exploitative and unethical by\u00a0today’s standards.\u00a0For example, archaeologists and anthropologists have had an unfortunate history of taking artifacts and even human remains from groups of people\u00a0without consent from the members of that community\u2014and sometimes even when they were explicitly asked not to. Today, many indigenous peoples are working to repatriate these artifacts and human remains back to their original communities. This possible human bone in the Steere Herbarium immediately concerned me, and I wondered whether\u00a0the NYBG should attempt to return it to the people it came from. Dr. Barbara Thiers, the Garden’s Vice President for Science Adminstration, agreed that we should look into it, and we began to investigate the history of the specimen.
\n
\nFirst, we analyzed the\u00a0label.\u00a0It seemed to have been written in two distinct hands: that of Walter W. Shannon, the collector, who wrote that the specimen was found in “Fort Chimo, Que. Can.” on July 13, 1959, “on bone of Eskimo child,” and that of Guy Nearing, a well-known botanist who determined the specimen to contain Caloplaca elegans <\/em>and Physcia ciliata<\/em>. To\u00a0learn\u00a0more about the history of the specimen, we attempted to research Shannon and his collection trip, but no records about a Walter Shannon who had a\u00a0connection with\u00a0the Garden\u00a0could be found. Because the lichens on the bone were visually striking but actually quite common, Dr.Thiers suggested\u00a0that Shannon might not have been a botanist. Instead, he could\u00a0have\u00a0been an amateur who had picked up the specimen on a trip to Fort Chimo\u2014a town in far\u00a0northern\u00a0Quebec,\u00a0now called\u00a0Kuujjuaq\u2014that he had made for other reasons.<\/p>\n

\"Modern<\/a>
Modern day Kuujjuaq, formerly known as Fort Chimo
(Photo \u00a9 Orbitale, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the help of\u00a0Louis Gagnon, the Director of the\u00a0Department of\u00a0Museology at the\u00a0Avataq Cultural Institute<\/a> in northern Quebec, we were able to send the remain to Canada for further investigation. There, archaeologists confirmed that the bone was human, and arrangements were made to return the remain for reburial by the Nunavimmiut,\u00a0the Inuit people of the vast\u00a0region in northern Quebec known as Nunavik.\u00a0Mr.\u00a0Gagnon said that\u00a0Robert Fr\u00e9chette, the\u00a0cultural institute’s Director General,\u00a0handed the remain over to\u00a0the mayor of Kuujjuaq,\u00a0Tunu Napartuk. Mayor Napartuk wrote that he plans to “make sure that the proper burial is completed with the help of the Anglican Church. It will be suggested that the human remain be brought back to Old Fort-Chimo (which is located across the river) as it seems the most likely place it was taken from.” Louis Gagnon informed us that the Nunavimmiut have\u00a0been working to repatriate all of the human remains that were taken from them over the years. Though ours was a relatively small repatriation, I am happy that our effort was meaningful to them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the discovery of human remains among the Herbarium’s archived specimens, NYBG scientists set about an international repatriation effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":1807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[406,33,408,321,407,62,114],"yoast_head":"\nAn Unusual Find in the Herbarium: A Story of Righting a Past Wrong - Science Talk Archive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Unusual Find in the Herbarium: A Story of Righting a Past Wrong - Science Talk Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With the discovery of human remains among the Herbarium's archived specimens, NYBG scientists set about an international repatriation effort.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Science Talk Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-05T15:56:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-12-05T18:12:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kuujjuaq1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"333\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sarah Dutton\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/\",\"name\":\"Science Talk Archive\",\"description\":\"Exploring the science of plants, from the field to the lab\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kuujjuaq1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kuujjuaq1.jpg\",\"width\":500,\"height\":333,\"caption\":\"Modern day Kuujjuaq, formerly known as Fort Chimo (Photo \u00a9 Orbitale, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/\",\"name\":\"An Unusual Find in the Herbarium: A Story of Righting a Past Wrong - Science Talk Archive\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-05T15:56:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-12-05T18:12:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#\/schema\/person\/5bf6be774ee84c775ede08bdba43f159\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"An Unusual Find in the Herbarium: A Story of Righting a Past Wrong\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#\/schema\/person\/5bf6be774ee84c775ede08bdba43f159\",\"name\":\"Sarah Dutton\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/627e90bf7ba2700dabffcafbdb365853?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/627e90bf7ba2700dabffcafbdb365853?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sarah Dutton\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/author\/sdutton\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"An Unusual Find in the Herbarium: A Story of Righting a Past Wrong - Science Talk Archive","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"An Unusual Find in the Herbarium: A Story of Righting a Past Wrong - Science Talk Archive","og_description":"With the discovery of human remains among the Herbarium's archived specimens, NYBG scientists set about an international repatriation effort.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/","og_site_name":"Science Talk Archive","article_published_time":"2014-12-05T15:56:12+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-12-05T18:12:58+00:00","og_image":[{"width":500,"height":333,"url":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kuujjuaq1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sarah Dutton","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/","name":"Science Talk Archive","description":"Exploring the science of plants, from the field to the lab","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kuujjuaq1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kuujjuaq1.jpg","width":500,"height":333,"caption":"Modern day Kuujjuaq, formerly known as Fort Chimo (Photo \u00a9 Orbitale, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/#webpage","url":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/","name":"An Unusual Find in the Herbarium: A Story of Righting a Past Wrong - Science Talk Archive","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2014-12-05T15:56:12+00:00","dateModified":"2014-12-05T18:12:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#\/schema\/person\/5bf6be774ee84c775ede08bdba43f159"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/12\/an-unusual-find-in-the-herbarium-a-story-of-righting-a-past-wrong\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"An Unusual Find in the Herbarium: A Story of Righting a Past Wrong"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#\/schema\/person\/5bf6be774ee84c775ede08bdba43f159","name":"Sarah Dutton","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#personlogo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/627e90bf7ba2700dabffcafbdb365853?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/627e90bf7ba2700dabffcafbdb365853?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sarah Dutton"},"url":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/author\/sdutton\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Kuujjuaq1.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9OgoC-sY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1796"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1803,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1796\/revisions\/1803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}