Notice of Inventory Completion: New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ, 18582-18583 [2023-06477]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
• National Park Service

[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 60 (Wednesday, March 29, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 18582-18583]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-06477]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service

[NPS-WASO-NAGPRA-NPS0035564; PPWOCRADN0-PCU00RP14.R50000]


Notice of Inventory Completion: New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, 
NJ

AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: In accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and 
Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the New Jersey State Museum has completed an 
inventory of human remains and has determined that there is a cultural 
affiliation between the human remains and Indian Tribes or Native 
Hawaiian organizations in this notice. The human remains were removed 
from Monmouth County, NJ.

DATES: Repatriation of the human remains in this notice may occur on or 
after April 28, 2023.

ADDRESSES: Dr. Gregory D. Lattanzi, New Jersey State Museum, 205 West 
State Street, Trenton, NJ 08625, telephone (609) 984-9327, email 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This notice is published as part of the 
National Park Service's administrative responsibilities under NAGPRA. 
The determinations in this notice are the sole responsibility of the 
New Jersey State Museum. The National Park Service is not responsible 
for the determinations in this notice. Additional information on the 
determinations in this notice, including the results of consultation, 
can be found

[[Page 18583]]

in the inventory or related records held by the New Jersey State 
Museum.

Description

    Human remains representing, at minimum, one individual were removed 
from Monmouth County, NJ. In May of 2020, the Executive Director of the 
New Jersey State Museum received a package mailed from Tennessee. 
Inside the package were a letter and a partial cranium. At the time, 
the State Museum was shut down because of Covid-19, and the package 
remained secure in the director's office. Close to two years later, 
when the State Museum reopened, the Executive Director presented Dr. 
Gregory Lattanzi with both the ancestral remains and the accompanying 
letter. These ancestral remains had been discovered and identified in a 
residential homeowner's backyard in 1964, during construction in the 
Town of Keansburg, in Monmouth County, NJ. After the homeowner 
contacted the Geology Department at Rutgers University (the 
Anthropology Department had not yet been established), Dr. Bennett 
Smith and students from Rutgers excavated the ancestral remains. One of 
the students kept the partial cranium until May of 2020, when he mailed 
it to the New Jersey State Museum.
    Further communication with the individual who had mailed the letter 
and the ancestral remains revealed that, initially, a complete skeleton 
had been uncovered along with associated funerary objects and that this 
collection had been brought back to Rutgers University but that, once 
back at the University, almost all the ancestral remains were discarded 
except for the partial cranium now located in the New Jersey State 
Museum. No known individual was identified. No associated funerary 
objects are present.

Cultural Affiliation

    The human remains in this notice are connected to one or more 
identifiable earlier groups, tribes, peoples, or cultures. There is a 
relationship of shared group identity between the identifiable earlier 
groups, tribes, peoples, or cultures and one or more Indian Tribes or 
Native Hawaiian organizations. The following types of information were 
used to reasonably trace the relationship: archeological and 
historical.

Determinations

    Pursuant to NAGPRA and its implementing regulations, and after 
consultation with the appropriate Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian 
organizations, the New Jersey State Museum has determined that:
     The human remains described in this notice represent the 
physical remains of one individual of Native American ancestry.
     There is a relationship of shared group identity that can 
be reasonably traced between the human remains described in this notice 
and the Delaware Nation, Oklahoma; Delaware Tribe of Indians; and the 
Stockbridge Munsee Community, Wisconsin.

Requests for Repatriation

    Written requests for repatriation of the human remains in this 
notice must be sent to the Responsible Official identified in 
ADDRESSES. Requests for repatriation may be submitted by:
    1. Any one or more of the Indian Tribes or Native Hawaiian 
organizations identified in this notice.
    2. Any lineal descendant, Indian Tribe, or Native Hawaiian 
organization not identified in this notice who shows, by a 
preponderance of the evidence, that the requestor is a lineal 
descendant or a culturally affiliated Indian Tribe or Native Hawaiian 
organization.
    Repatriation of the human remains in this notice to a requestor may 
occur on or after April 28, 2023. If competing requests for 
repatriation are received, the New Jersey State Museum must determine 
the most appropriate requestor prior to repatriation. Requests for 
joint repatriation of the human remains are considered a single request 
and not competing requests. The New Jersey State Museum is responsible 
for sending a copy of this notice to the Indian Tribes identified in 
this notice.
    Authority: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 
25 U.S.C. 3003, and the implementing regulations, 43 CFR 10.9, 10.10, 
and 10.14.

    Dated: March 22, 2023.
Melanie O'Brien,
Manager, National NAGPRA Program.
[FR Doc. 2023-06477 Filed 3-28-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4312-52-P