The University of Pennsylvania has identified Native American human remains in its collection with ties to the Wabanaki Nations, which could soon be returned.
The remains include a skull belonging to someone who the museum believes was a woman older than 50.
According to a federal notice published Monday, the remains were removed sometime before 1839 from a cemetery near the Androscoggin River, about 20 miles from what is now Brunswick.
The remains were later obtained by Bowdoin College, then transferred to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in 1853, before finally ending up at the Penn Museum in 1966.
Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the museum has determined there is a connection between the remains and the Wabanaki Nations.
The remains could be repatriated on or after December 26.
This follows a similar notice from Yale University's Peabody Museum earlier this month.
