More than 1,000 colonial-era African skulls being studied in Germany
Berlin — Germany launched a two-year study on Thursday to determine the origins of more than 1,000 human skulls, mostly from Rwanda, brought to Europe during the colonial era for racial "scientific" research. Billed as an important first step to understand the provenance of the remains, the study could one day lead to their return to east Africa, more than 100 years after they were removed. "We’re now looking at the circumstances surrounding the origins of these skulls," said Hermann Parzinger, head of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which is leading the project. "And then, we will decide together with the origin countries what would be the appropriate way" to resolve the issue. The skulls were shipped to Germany by expedition forces around 1907-08 for the anthropologist Felix von Luschan, who was studying the development of mankind, but over the decades — and as Germany lurched into two world wars — the collection was moved into deep storage.
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