Annual Conference 2025 – Nordic Network for Human Remains in Collections

The conference will focus on documenting and digitizing human remains in collections.

Time and place: , DIAS Auditorium, University of Southern Denmark, Campus Odense

Programme

Documentation – repatriation, reburial
Chair: Dorthe Dangvard Pedersen

9.30–10.00: Coffee and arrival
10.00–10.15: Welcome, Dorthe Dangvard Pedersen, ADBOU, University of Southern Denmark.
10.15–11.15: Keynote, Maya Sialuk Jacobsen, Indigenous Scholar. Beliefs in the Skin. Tattoos on Human Remains.
11.15–11.35: Sara Næss Elleskov, Ilisimatusarfik (University of Greenland) & Greenland National Museum. Returning the Taken: Colonial Legacies and the Complex Path to Repatriation in Kalaallit Nunaat.
11.35–11.55: Richard Ntaka, Curator and Provenance Researcher, Ethnographic Museum, University of Kinshasa. Problematic of the repatriation of human remains in colonial context – Case study of Congolese ancestrals remains.
11.55–13.00: Lunch

Chair: Kicki Eldh

13.00–13.20: Ingeborg Larssen, Senior advisor, Rights, Sami Parliament. Norway Reburial of Sami human remains – a part of a truth- and reconciliation process
13.20–13.40: Ann Gustavson, archivist/curator, Medical History and Heritage, Karolinska Institutet. The repatriation of Christina Larsdotter
13.40–14.00: Eija Ojanlatva, chief curator, Sámi Museum Siida. They Finally Got Peace – The Repatriation of Sámi Ancestors in Finland
14.00–14.30: Coffee break
14.30–14.50: Ulla Nordfors, PhD, Docent, University of Turku. A research project on anatomical collection returned to Finland from Sweden – Interdisciplinary approaches and ethical challenges
14.50–16.00: Panel discussion. The presenters of the day.
16.00–17.00: Visiting the ADBOU collections and laboratory.
19.00–21.00: Dinner

Documentation – excavations, collections
Chair: Samantha Scott Reiter

9.40–10.00: Åsa Larsson/Nicoló Dell’Unto: SweDigArch
10.00–10.20: Paola Derudas, DARKLab – Digital Archaeology Laboratory, Lund University. Using AIR to enhance documentation and interpretation of human remains in osteoarchaeology.
10.20–10.50: Coffee break
10.50–11.10: Cecilie Cordua Mattsson and Tanja Lemby Madsen, ADBOU, University of Southern Denmark. The ADBOU digitalization project
11.10–11.30: Adam Zimmer, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Bones Out of Place: Documenting the Disarticulated and the Disrupted at the University of Iceland.
11.30–11.50: Vicki R. Kristensen, ADBOU, University of Southern Denmark. Almost empty graves – Registration of the poorest preserved skeletal remains during excavation and how it improves data collection.
11.50-13.00: Lunch

Chair: Dorthe Dangvard Pedersen

Published Mar. 20, 2025 9:47 AM - Last modified Aug. 30, 2026 1:22 PM