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A Swedish research institute has agreed to return a group of Maori skulls to Aotearoa later this year.
Karolinska Institute lecturer Olof Ljungstrom says they were part of a collection of 800 human skulls put together in the late 19th and early 20th century by researchers who believed they could classify differences between racial groups by measuring skulls.
He says the Maori skulls were plundered from graves by zoologist Conrad Fristedt and sold to the institute in 1890.
Te Papa repatriation manager Te Herekiekie Herewini says the museum has been working with Swedish institutions since 1990 to repatriate koiwi, and has brought back ancestors from the Ethnology Museum in Stockholm, two Gothenburg museums and Lund University.
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