The Tasmania Aboriginal Centre (TAC) demanded an investigation into the handling of Indigenous ancestral remains after the police coroner’s office had handed over human remains without warning to its receptionist, according to local media.
The remains, some dating as far back as 772 AD, were returned to the centre in brown paper bags on Friday without any prior notification, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. The bones were found by locals in two separate incidents that were later investigated by the coroner.
The four evidence bags contained ancestral remains from investigations by two different coroners. One of the bags included a bone identified through testing as belonging to an Aboriginal person and found by a local resident in a rock pool at Carlton Beach, southeast of Hobart, in 2022. The other three bags contained bones found in 2016 at a remote location near Low Rocky Point on the state’s west coast.
TAC campaign manager Nala Mansell claimed the state’s treatment of the remains displayed “complete disrespect and disregard” for Indigenous people.
We’re at a loss as to how, after 220 years, the remains of Aboriginal people in this state continue to be treated with the utmost disrespect in a manner that we understand would not be OK if it was a non-Aboriginal person.
Initial examination concluded that the bones dated from at least 20 years ago, and possibly as much as 100 years ago. However, in 2022, the remains were sent to a national laboratory for further DNA analysis, where radiocarbon dating revealed that the bones were pre-European and dated between 772 and 890 AD.
The bones contained a type of DNA known as haplogroup S, found only among indigenous Australians. Mansell claimed the coroner’s actions over the findings and the time taken to inform the Aboriginal people were “racial discrimination” and “a complete violation of the law.”
