New Mexico Administrative Code
Title 4 - CULTURAL RESOURCES
Chapter 51 - MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO
Part 11 - POLICY ON COLLECTION, DISPLAY AND REPATRIATION OF CULTURALLY SENSITIVE MATERIALS
Section 4.51.11.9 - IDENTIFICATION AND TREATMENT OF CULTURALLY SENSITIVE MATERIALS

A. Within five years of the date of adoption of this policy, each museum unit shall survey to the extent possible (in consultation with concerned parties, if appropriate) its collections to determine items or material which may be culturally sensitive materials. The museum unit shall submit to the director of the museum of New Mexico an inventory of all potentially culturally sensitive materials. The inventory shall include to the extent possible the object's name, date and type of accession, catalogue number, and cultural identification. Within six months of submission of its inventory to the director of the museum of New Mexico, each museum unit shall then develop and submit, a plan to establish a dialogue with concerned parties to determine appropriate treatment of culturally sensitive items or materials held by the unit.

B. As part of its treatment plans for culturally sensitive materials, the museum reserves the right to restrict access to, or use of, those materials to the general public. The museum staff shall allow identified concerned parties access to culturally sensitive materials.

C. Conservation treatment shall not be performed on identified culturally sensitive materials without consulting concerned parties.

D. The museum shall not place human remains on exhibition. The museum may continue to retain culturally sensitive materials. If culturally sensitive materials, other than human remains, are exhibited, then a good-faith effort to obtain the advice and counsel of the proper concerned party shall be made.

E. All human skeletal remains held by the museum shall be treated as human remains and are de facto sensitive materials. The museum shall discourage the further collection of human remains; however, it will accept human remains as part of its mandated responsibilities as the state archaeological repository. At its own initiation or at the request of a concerned party, the museum may accept human remains to retrieve them from the private sector and furthermore, may accept human remains with the explicit purpose of returning them to a concerned party.