This paper explores the significance of museum archives in the repatriation movement. Drawing on the experience of three researchers involved in repatriation research and historical analysis since the early 1990s, the paper will consider the importance of archives for repatriation practice and the information they can reveal about the collecting enterprise and the Indigenous response to the removal of the dead. We draw attention to the use of archives to locate and provenance human
remains and how such research has contributed to knowledge about methods of acquisition and scientific use, as well as how the removal of remains was connected to European scientific and colonial ambitions during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We reflect on the refusal by some museums to allow access to information about their holdings, discuss the response from Indigenous groups, museum professionals and academics, and follow the resulting change in some museum policies
