Recent years have been spent consulting and researching to find resolution for challenging sets of remains that were in the museum’s custody, and several Notices of Inventory Completion have been published to repatriate or disposition them. We continue to receive and resolve new sets of remains through inadvertent discoveries on State and private lands or through law enforcement. Fortunately, because of our State Process, which is implemented collaboratively with the Office of the State Archaeologist, Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs, Southern Ute Indian Tribe and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, about 80% of the inadvertent discoveries are able to remain in situ or be reburied at depth promptly nearby. This is directly the reverse of the situation before the Process went into effect.

In 2012, History Colorado, along with other museums in the State, faced another barrier--finding land acceptable to tribes for reburial of repatriated ancestors. Reburial is not addressed in NAGPRA. At the request of the Colorado Ute Tribes, several federal and state agencies, museums and tribal representatives began meeting to address this problem. Efforts culminated in a groundbreaking Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was signed in late 2013. The MOU set up a process by which land managing agencies work within their various policies to consider reburial requests from tribes and museums. Implementation began in 2014 and already several repatriated individuals have been able to be reburied.

History Colorado was awarded an NPS NAGPRA consultation/documentation grant in 2014. Grant funds will enable us to conduct a comprehensive review of our Ute artifacts with tribal representatives and elders.  Our Ute collection is our largest ethnographic collection which has grown since the last collection review in the 1990s. We look forward to identifying any cultural items that fall under NAGPRA as well as gaining valuable information about the artifacts.