The scientific potential of anthropological collections - BGAEU conference from 27 to 28 March 2025 at PETRI
Press release from 03/21/2025
Europe's colonial heritage plays a major role in current social discourse. The Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory (BGAEU), founded on the initiative of Rudolf Virchow in 1869, curates a historical teaching collection of human skulls and skeletons, which was mainly compiled by Virchow himself until his death in 1902.
As part of an international conference from 27 to 28 March 2025 at PETRI Berlin, the BGAEU, in cooperation with the Museum of Prehistory and Early History, invites you to discuss the current handling of human remains in museum and university collections.
In recent years, the focus when examining collections of human remains has primarily been on the reappraisal of provenance and the return of colonial remains. The congress would now like to discuss what knowledge value such collections can still have today. The starting point for an approach to this topic could be the research that has taken place in recent years. As part of provenance research, investigations have also been carried out in the fields of physical anthropology, human genetics and ethnology. What future research questions could arise from this?
The conference aims to clarify the fundamental positions in today's handling of human remains and their position within the larger topic of a critical examination of colonial heritage. Important voices from the post-colonial discourse will therefore also be represented.
The discussion should be conducted openly, also in the knowledge that a negative answer to the question of the usefulness of such a collection in today's world inevitably leads to the question of how we should deal with it in the future. When it comes to questions of repatriation, we will inevitably have to face the problem of the clear provenance of each individual. This important aspect should also be examined from a physical-anthropological, genetic and ethnographic perspective.
The international conference will take place from 27-28 March 2025 at PETRI Berlin, Gertraudenstraße 8, 10178 Berlin, Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Pre-registration is requested at vorsitz(at)bgaeu(dot)de.