Skull found at Philadelphia high school prompts districtwide search



Taylor Allen
Mon, October 25, 2021, 

The School District of Philadelphia is asking high school principals and other officials to search for skeletal remains in their buildings after the discovery of a human skull at Central High School.

Driving the news: The school district announced the finding of the "human skeletal item," believed to have belonged to a Native American male, on Friday. The district told Axios that a staff member originally discovered the skull in June.

Now district officials are working with the Department of Interior and Temple University to repatriate the remains.

What they're saying: District officials said the skull was likely used as a teaching tool from the mid-1850s to the early to mid-1900s.

The district said it hasn't used human skeletons in lessons for at least a decade.

"Despite the fact that this individual is long deceased, they were an individual who was a member of a community," Kimberly Williams, chair of Temple's Anthropology Department, said in a statement.

The big picture: Mishandling of Indigenous remains isn't uncommon in American history, especially in the context of forced residential boarding schools.

And according to a report from NPR, many skeletons in classrooms across the country are real.

In Pennsylvania, remains of nine Native American children who attended a government-run school were returned home earlier this year.

Of note: Researchers in the 19th century used to collect skulls and conduct experiments to promote white supremacy. The trade and selling of crania propelled the practice.

The Penn Museum came under fire in April following reports that a curator used the remains of victims of the 1985 MOVE bombing for an online forensics course.

This past May, the city revealed its discovery that in 2017, Thomas Farley, the former health commissioner, ordered a separate set of MOVE bombing victims' remains to be cremated without notifying family members.

The remains that were thought to be destroyed were found a day later after a subordinate didn't go through with the order.

Farley resigned at the request of Mayor Jim Kenney.

What's next: The school district asked high school principals to conduct surveys of any skeletal teaching collections within their schools by Nov. 5, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Chrétien under fire for residential school comments

Duration: 02:36 

WARNING: This story contains distressing details. Former prime minister Jean Chrétien is under fire after saying on the Radio-Canada’s Tout le Monde en Parle he never heard about abuse at residential schools during his tenure as minister of what was then called Indian affairs from 1968 to 1974.

VIDEO

Chrétien under fire for residential school comments (msn.com)