UK Museums Face Criticism For Collections Of Human Remains
38March 19, 2026
Museums in the UK are being forced to reckon with the country’s colonial past once again, after an investigation published bythe Guardianon March 7 revealed that these institutions collectively hold over 263,000 items of human remains from across the world. Through freedom of information (FoI) requests, the Guardian determined that around 37,000 items of human remains ended up in the UK from overseas, including from former British colonies, while the origins of 16,000 similar items have not been confirmed.
According to the report, 241 UK museums, universities, and councils continue to hold human remains, of which only 100 disclosed the exact number of individuals represented in their collections, totaling around 79,000. The remaining institutions could not provide a clear figure due to missing information in their records, items that were undocumented, or cases where the remains of multiple people were mingled together.
Dan Hicks, a professor of contemporary archaeology at the University of Oxford who studied the FoI responses, told the Guardian that these collections included items looted by British colonial officials and soldiers. He noted that the failure to compile and build publicly accessible inventories of collections of human remains, was an extension of “the colonial violence involved in the taking and warehousing of human remains in museums, the treatment of human beings as objects, the disregard for identity and for proper treatment of the dead.”
The largest share of the 28,914 items of human remains from outside Europe came from Africa (11,856), followed by Asia (9,550), Oceania (3,252), North America (2,276), and South America (1,980). The Natural History Museum in London houses the biggest collection of human remains of non-European origin (11,785), as well as the largest number of human remains from Asia, North America, and South America. The University of Cambridge holds the next largest collection, and it has the highest number of remains originating from Africa. The British Museum also currently holds 2,269 items of human remains.
Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations, told the Guardian that the storage of human remains in boxes, “shows a complete lack of respect. They’re denied dignity, even in death. This is a great shame for our nation.”