Introduction

The Project “Precarious Provenance”

Project Funding

Project Partners

Network Research Database

Lectures/Interviews

Reporting on the Project

Courses

Further Information

Further Activities

Advisory Board

Contact Information

Project: Precarious Provenance – Human remains from Africa’s colonial past before 1919 in scientific collections of Baden-Württemberg

In addition to a large number of objects, Baden-Württemberg’s scientific collections also retain unprocessed human remains from Africa. In our collaborative project, we explore human remains which are presumed to predate 1919 and to originate from Africa. Initial estimates were of about 130 unprocessed human remains, but in the meantime, despite only rudimentary evidence, the number has been revised upward to 174. The related historical documents, such as inventory and entry books, are often incomplete and sometimes contain unspecific terms such as “non-European”.

In addition to Africa, other regions of the world also need to be considered as places of origin. The aim of the project is to determine the origin and clarify the paths of origin of these human remains as a basis for repatriation to the respective community of implication. Thereby, historical data will be collected, especially in the field of network research, which will then be made available for further investigations. Additionally, the potentials of historically existing links between South-West German institutions will be exploited for the current-day transfer of knowledge.

Final conference

The joint project "Precarious Provenance – Human Remains from Africa's Colonial Past before 1919 in Scientific Collections in Baden-Württemberg", which has been running since 1 September 2021, will come to an end at the end of August 2024. The University Museum Tübingen MUT therefore invites you to a final conference in the Pfleghofsaal on Monday, 8 July.

To the schedule (PDF)

The project "Precarious provenance"

At the initiative of the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts, several institutions storing cultural property have now joined forces to systematically investigate the origin of the unprocessed human remains in a collaborative project. This excludes the processed human remains held at the Linden Museum, such as a skull drum. The project “Prekäre Provenienz – Menschliche Überreste aus dem kolonialen Erbe Afrikas vor 1919 in wissenschaftlichen Sammlungen Baden-Württembergs” (“Precarious provenance — Human remains from Africa’s colonial past before 1919 in scientific collections of Baden-Württemberg”) is funded by the German Lost Art Foundation and the Ministry of Science. It is headed by the Museum of the University of Tübingen MUT, further project partners are the Osteological Collection of the University of Tübingen, the Linden Museum Stuttgart, the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart and the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe. Associated partners of the project are the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau and the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute for Cultural Studies (ABI).

In our project, we collect historical data, especially in the field of network research. This basic research will first investigate the received information, files, inventory books and archival records as well as explore the former networks. Furthermore, the potentials of the historical existing connections between South-West German scientific institutions will be exploited for the current-day transfer of knowledge.

The collaborative research has great potential in many respects: The transfer of knowledge between the participating institutions allows synergies to be created. Research is carried out in a coordinated and structured manner for concurrent and co-ordinated groups, thus avoiding double research and conflating resources. It is expected that the records of the project partners provide additional information on their collection, as well as on human remains which were often part of various collections. The network also provides an ideal starting point for researching actors and reconstructing their networks.

A preparatory working session on 16 September 2020 served to plan the project proposal, which was submitted to the German Lost Art Foundation and approved. The project started on 1 September 2021 and the first working session took place on 27 October 2021 at Schloss Hohentübingen. After the first project phase, which was scheduled for one year, the project was extended for another two years until 31 August 2024. The second working session on 5 July 2022 was held hybrid, at Hohentübingen Castle and with participants connected online.

Project funding

The project is funded by the German Lost Art Foundation and the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of Baden-Württember.

 

Project partners
Museum of the University of Tübingen MUT

At the Museum of the University of Tübingen MUT, the topic of provenance research has been a focus in teaching and research for several years. In 2015, 70 years after the end of the war, a Studium Generale study-general series on the subject was launched.

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At the Museum of the University of Tübingen MUT, the topic of provenance research has been a focus in teaching and research for several years. In 2015, 70 years after the end of the Second World War, a Studium Generale series on the subject was launched.

Additionally, the Museum of the University of MUT presented two exhibitions: “Forschung, Lehre, Unrecht” (Research, teaching, injustice) and “In Fleischhackers Händen. Wissenschaft, Politik und das 20. Jahrhundert“ (In Fleischhacker’s hands. Science, politics, and the 20th century). Provenance research is regularly part of the curriculum of the Master Profile Museum & Collections and an important aspect in the education of young scientists. In the winter and summer semester 2020/2021, for example, Professor Dr Ernst Seidl, Michael La Corte and Bettina Zundel offered a practical seminar during which a group of students developed the workshop “MUT zur Herkunft – Workshop zur Provenienzforschung  für Jugendliche” to give pupils an understanding of provenance research. It intends to stimulate a critical examination of the origin of collection objects and the handling of such objects in museums. Since August 2020, Dr Fabienne Huguenin has been a provenance and collection researcher at the MUT – including responsibility for third-party funding acquisition in this area - as well as teaching of seminars on the topic. Since February 2021, she has been spokesperson of the AG Thesauri within the “Netzwerk Koloniale Kontexte” (Network of Colonial Contexts). Annika Vosseler M.Sc. started as research assistant in the project on 1 September 2021.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Ernst Seidl, Dr. Fabienne Huguenin, Annika Vosseler

Linden-Museum

The Linden-Museum with its director Professor Dr Inés de Castro is a nationwide pioneer in dealing with colonial heritage. It is one of 25 pilot institutions that make their collection material from colonial contexts available online on the portal of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (German Digital Library DDB) since 30 November 2021.

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The Linden-Museum's “Sammlung digital” (Collections online), (which offers open virtual access to its museum holdings, was already released a year earlier. It presents detailed information, interesting stories and background information on objects and cultures from all over the world and makes methods and results of provenance research visible. As the project “Schwieriges Erbe” (Difficult Heritage) has shown, the Linden-Museum occupied a key position within the collection landscape over 100 years ago. Many objects, including human remains, first came to the Linden-Museum and were then passed on to other institutions, often in southern Germany. Only a few unprocessed human remains from Africa predating 1919 remain at the Linden-Museum. An important part of the collaborative project is to trace the routes of translocations, sift through the files and reconstruct the networks. Making this possible and supporting the leading researchers of the project is the Linden-Museum's contribution.

Contact: Prof Dr Inés de Castro, Markus Himmelsbach, Dr Fiona Siegenthaler

 

Osteological Collection and Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment of the University of Tübingen

The Osteological Collection of the University of Tübingen is a research and teaching facility for investigating human skeletal remains from archaeological excavations. In the early 1920s, the collection was founded as a small private collection and was later expanded by finds from the University and the Monument Office.

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The collection currently comprises more than 11,000 human remains. Most of the stock originates from southwest Germany. Most of the stock originates from southwest Germany, covering time periods from modern times to the Stone Age.  Today the collection is part of the working group Paleoanthropology at the Institute for Archaeological Sciences and Human Evolution (IASHE) and the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (SHEP).

The Osteological Collection is currently carrying out extensive inventory work. Parts of the stock are scanned in 3D using state-of-the-art computer tomography technology. Historical collection catalogues and inventory lists are being transcribed and digitised. For the joint project “Precarious Provenance”, the Osteological Collection is examining a small number of human skeletons that may originate from Africa before 1919. Furthermore, a larger collection of human skulls is being investigated, the provenance of which is at yet unclear. The aim is to determine the approximate geographical origin of the skeletons on the basis of non-invasive morphological studies in order to narrow down these regions enabling more focused historical research.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Katerina Harvati, Dr. Hannes Rathmann

 

 

State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart

Already 100-150 years ago, the great scientific interest in human bones greatly increased the anthropological collection of the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History (SMNS). Private collectors, colonial officials and anthropologists handed human bones to the SMNS either directly or via the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart.

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In many cases, the origin of the bones is well documented on labels, index cards or archived correspondence — in others, basic information is lacking. In recent years the growing societal and political interest in dealing with the colonial past of German museums has increasingly moved provenance research into the focus also of Dr Stefan Merker’s work, Head of Department Zoology and Curator of Mammals at the SMNS. He has been supporting the joint project since the start of the project by reviewing the collection material, generating specific object lists, researching existing documents and targeting the digitisation of archival materials.

Contact: Dr Stefan Merker

State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe

The Zoological Collection of the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe (SMNK) contains  a vertebrate collection which includes scientific evidence and displays preserved specimen of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals from all over the world, with mammal skulls from West Africa, feathered bird and mammal skins from East Africa as well as the collection of evidence of small mammals and bats from Baden-Württemberg.

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In the Zoological Collection of the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe (SMNK)  is a vertebrate collection. It includes scientific evidence and displays preserved specimen of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals from all over the world, with mammal skulls from West Africa, feathered bird and mammal skins from East Africa as well as the collection of evidence of small mammals and bats from Baden-Württemberg.

Since 2014, the expansion of the comparative collection of vertebrate skeletons has been a new focus of the collection. In 2015, the body of the first wolf (Canis lupus) in Baden-Württemberg since 1882 arrived at the SMNK and was skeletonised. Likewise, since 2014, all areas of the collection have been reorganised, inventoried and digitised and particular attention is paid to clarifying the provenance of individual objects.

Contact: Dr Albrecht Manegold

 

Associated partners

The associated project partners from Freiburg carried out a joint project funded by the German Lost Art Foundation from May 2021 to August 2023: "Reziprocal interdisciplinary and transparent: Provenance research from the perspective of restitution in the colonial context". In addition to determining the provenance of approximately 120 human skulls from the African continent belonging to the collection of the Freiburg anatomist Alexander Ecker (1816–1887), best practice recommendations for the rapprochement between societies/communities of origin and the location of collections were one of the objectives of the project. On the occasion of the final conference on 26 and 27 April 2023, the practical policy recommendations for dealing with human remains from colonial contexts were handed over to the Rector of the University of Freiburg, Prof. Dr. Kerstin Krieglstein, and the representative of the Ministry of Science, Research and Art, Dr. Margret Frenz. 

 The project involved the University Archive and the Uniseum Freiburg (Professor Dr Dieter Speck), the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute for Cultural Studies (ABI) (Professor Dr Andreas Mehler), the Africa Center for Transregional Research (ACT) in Freiburg (Dr Annika Hampel, Dr Anika Becher) and the Department of Biological Anthropology of the Faculty of Medicine of the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Professor Dr Ursula Wittwer-Backofen). They also implemented an external advisory board of persons from communities of implication which was regularly informed about the project’s progress and assessed it critically and from a local perspective.

Network research database

The researched data within the project on individuals, institutions, and networks from the period up to 1919 in the colonial context, and especially regarding human remains from Africa, will be made available to all interested parties. They contain the usual data standards, such as the GND number, geonames or controlled vocabulary/thesauri.

Lectures/Interviews

  • Annika Vosseler: The Long Shadow of the Colonial Era - The Joint Project "Precarious Provenance" at MUT on Human Remains* from Africa, Online lecture at the Speaker Network Provenance Research, 6.10.2023.

  • Annika Vosseler / Lucas Rau: From Africa to Baden and Württemberg: How did human remains get into scientific collections during the colonial period? Young Forum for Collection and Object Research "Die Wege der Objekte" (The Paths of Objects), Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum Bremerhaven, 28.9.-30.9.2023. 

  • Fabienne Huguenin/MUT, Inés de Castro/Linden-Museum, Bernd Grewe/University of Tübingen, Yasmin Nasrudin/Black History BW, Georg Wendt/City Archives Aalen, Katharina Dehner/The Fugger and Welser Experience Museum Augsburg: Podium Discussion: "Koloniales Erbe in der Region heute (Colonial Heritage in the Region Today)", Studium Generale Series "Schwaben und die Welt. Globalgeschichte(n) einer Region (Swabia and the World. Global History(s) of a Region)", Chair: Christina Brauner, Tjark Wegner, University of Tübingen, 1 February 2023.
  • Fabienne Huguenin: "Der lange Schatten der Kolonialzeit – Wie wir heute mit kolonialen Sammlungsgegenständen umgehen (sollten)" (The long shadow of the colonial era – How we (should) deal with colonial objects in our collections today), Memorial Site Association Concentration Camp Bisingen, 15 November 2022.
  • Katja Schurr/Sümeyye Tarhan: "Provenienzforschungsworkshop für Schüler und Jugendliche – 'Prekäre Objekte in der musealen Vermittlungsarbeit'“, Annual Conference for University Collections 2022 "Brennpunkt Sammlung. Universitätssammlungen als Orte kritischer Auseinandersetzung", University Vienna, 8 October 2022.
  • Fabienne Huguenin/Annika Vosseler: Poster presenation of the project "Precarious provenance", Annual Conference for University Collections 2022 "Brennpunkt Sammlung. Universitätssammlungen als Orte kritischer Auseinandersetzung", University Vienna, 6–8 October 2022.
  • Fabienne Huguenin/Annika Vosseler: "Precarious provenance – human remains from Africa's colonial past before 1919 in scientific collections of Baden-Württemberg", conference of the Vereinigung der Afrikawissenschaften in Deutschland e.V. (VAD) on: "Africa–Europe: reciprocal perspectives" , panel: "Human remains from Africa in German university collections. Sensitivity, co-production of knowledge and the restitution perspective", Freiburg im Breisgau, 9 June 2022.
  • Annika Vosseler: "The Difficulties of Finding Prephotographic Images in the Archives of the Berlin and London Missionary Societies", digital Conference "Archives of Print Culture in Southern Africa", University of Pretoria and WITS University, 19 May 2022.
  • Annika Vosseler: "Entangled history. Material evidence of mission and colonialism",  joint discussion series of the Berliner Missionswerk and the Evangelische Akademie zu Berlin on a postcolonial culture of memory, Berlin, 9 May 2022.

  • Annika Vosseler: “Precarious Provenance – Human remains from Africa’s colonial past before 1919 in scientific collections of Baden-Württemberg”, digital at the State Volunteer Conference Karlsruhe 2022 Baden-Württemberg, 11. March 2022.

  • Interview with Prof. Dr. Ernst Seidl, Dr. Fabienne Huguenin and Annika Vosseler, conducted by the students of the workshop "MUT zur Herkunft. Workshop zur Provenienzforschung für Jugendliche" (Workshop on Provenance Research for Young People) .
Reporting on the project
Courses
  • Fabienne Huguenin: Advanced Seminar "Provenienzforschung – Unrechtskontexte und Beispielfälle" (WS 2023/24)
  • Fabienne Huguenin/Annika Vosseler: Practice Seminar "Wissenschaftlerin der Kolonialzait? Recherchen zu Elisabeth Krämer-Bannow" (WS 2023/24)
  • Michael La Corte/Annika Vosseler: Project presentation and discussion on: "Provenance Research at the MUT and the project 'Precarious Provenance'", seminar: "Archäologie und Raubkunst: Forschung und Öffentlichkeit" ("Archaeology and Looted Art: Research and Public"), Dr. Stephan Blum, Institute of Prehistory, Early History and Medieval Archaeology, University of Tübingen (4 May 2023)
  • Fabienne Huguenin: Advanced Seminar "Einführung Provenienzforschung – Kultur- und Sammlungsgut aus kolonialen Kontexten" (SoSe 2023)
  • Fabienne Huguenin: Practice Seminar "Sensible Sprache in der Provenienzforschung und im Museum" (SoSe 2023)
  • Fabienne Huguenin: Advanced seminar "Einführung Provenienzforschung – Geschichte und Projekte" (WS 2022/23)
  • Regina Keyler (UAT)/Annika Vosseler/Fabienne Huguenin: Practice seminar "Provenienzforschung – aber wie? Archivrecherche, Netzwerkforschung und Sammlungsgeschichte(n)" (WS 2022/23)
  • Fabienne Huguenin: Project presentation and discussion on: "The Museum of the University of Tübingen MUT: Provenance Research", seminar: "'That belongs in a museum!' But which one? Looting and repatriating cultural heritage in Europe", Dr. Richard Legay, Institute of Didactics of History und Public History, University of Tübingen (21 July 2022)
  • Fabienne Huguenin: Excursion to München, topic Provenance Research (SoSe 2022)
  • Fabienne Huguenin: Advanced seminar "Einführung Provenienzforschung“ (SoSe 2022)
  • Annika Vosseler/Fabienne Huguenin: Practice seminar "Provenienzforschung – aber wie? Transkription, Metadatenerfassung, Netzwerkforschung" (SoSe 2022)
  • Fabienne Huguenin: Advanced seminar "Einführung Provenienzforschung" (WS 2021/2022)
Further information

 

Further activities

Advisory board
Julie Likondem Lekeufack

Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Global History                                                                   

Tel: +49 (0)176  47120571

Send email

Mèhèza Kalibani

Curator of Colonial Past and Postcolonial Present, Foundation Decolonize Hamburg

Tel: +49 40 428 131 176

Send email

Flower Manase

Curator at the National Museum of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Contact information

Project Management and Processing

[Translate to English:] © MUT | V. Marquardt
Prof Dr Ernst Seidl

Directorate of the MUT                       

Tel: +49 (0)7071 29 74134

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[Translate to English:] © MUT | V. Marquardt
Dr Annika Vosseler

Collection and Provenance research

Tel: +49 (0)7071 29 74127

Send email

Student Assistant

Diellëza Hyseni BA

Provenance research

Tel: +49 (0)7071 29 74127

Send email