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collections). UC Berkeley’s inventory submissions amounted to 356 separate documents,
typically organized by county, describing 9,200 sets of human remains—where “sets”
correspond to individual catalog numbers representing the human remains of one or multiple
individuals, or isolated components. UC Berkeley’s inventories are unparalleled, nationally, in
their transparency and depth of detail—numbering up to 1,200 pages in length—so that Tribes
wishing to challenge the University’s findings of cultural affiliation are provided the full scope of
evidence used to reach the initial determinations. Of the inventory-reported human remains,
approximately 14% have been determined to be culturally affiliated, and 86% culturally
unidentifiable under NAGPRA. Of the 13,375 associated funerary objects reported in the
inventories, 28% were determined to be culturally affiliated, and 72% culturally unidentifiable.

UC Berkeley’s 288 NAGPRA summaries were completed, submitted, and disseminated prior to
NAGPRA’s deadline of November 16, 1993. As required, these documents, categorically different
than the inventories described above, provided general descriptions of Native American cultural
items in the Museum’s care, in order to inform Tribes’ decisions as to whether they wished to
submit a claim for specific objects under NAGPRA’s definitions of “unassociated funerary
object,” “sacred object,” or “object of cultural patrimony.”

The NAGPRA-implicated collections in the Hearst Museum’s care originate, overwhelmingly,
from California. Approximately 94% of the inventory-reported human remains and 99% of the
inventory-reported associated funerary objects were collected from locales evenly distributed
within the state. Those human remains and associated funerary objects collected from other US
states come from Alaska, the American Southwest, Pacific Northwest, Plains, and Eastern
Seaboard. The Berkeley Campus’ summary items follow the same geographical distribution.

Also in the Hearst Museum’s care are collections that fall outside the University’s NAGPRA-
defined “possession” and “control,” for which other entities are responsible under NAGPRA. In
many cases, these collections were removed from federal lands during ‘rescue’ projects in which
the agency contracted with campus researchers to excavate archaeological sites prior to their
destruction during infrastructure projects such as road and dam construction. Not having a
repository in which to care for the collections themselves, agencies asked campus researchers to
house them at the Museum until which time the agency had the resources.

In some cases, determining which holdings are and are not controlled by federal and state
agencies is not always a straightforward process due to unclear archaeological provenience,
changing land ownership, and contradictory maps. As described in a 2010 Governmental
Accountability Office Report—entitled “Native American Graves Protection And Repatriation
Act: After Almost 20 Years, Key Federal Agencies Still Have Not Fully Complied with the Act” —
many agencies still do not dedicate sufficient resources to NAGPRA, and do not work
collaboratively with holding institutions to determine which collections fall under their control.
Indeed, many of the Hearst Museum’s letters and phone calls to these entities have received no
substantive response. However, based on its own, concerted research efforts, the Hearst
Museum estimates that approximately 10% of the human remains and associated funerary
objects reported in its NAGPRA inventories are in fact under federal or state control.

ON-GOING REPATRIATION ACTIVITIES
In the summer of 2018, UC Berkeley reorganized its Campus-level NAGPRA review process:
expanding its Campus NAGPRA Advisory Committee to include a greater diversity of members