The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) is a Federal law enacted in 1990 to resolve and restore the rights of Native American lineal descendants and tribes to human remains and cultural items. California NAGPRA is a State law enacted in 2001 to facilitate the implementation of Federal NAGPRA and to provide a mechanism to repatriate to California Indian Tribes as defined by California NAGPRA. Federal NAGPRA requires museums, agencies, and universities that accept Federal funding to consult with Native American tribes regarding the repatriation of human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony in museum collections, or discovered on Federal or Tribal lands after 1990. UC Riverside houses Native American human remains and cultural items subject to NAGPRA in two separate campus repositories including the Archaeological Curation Unit in the Department of Anthropology and the UCR Library's Special Collections and University Archives. The majority of materials subject to NAGPRA are now stewarded in the Special Collections and University Archives.

Prior to the implementation of NAGPRA UC Riverside held Native American human remains from approximately 12 ancestors in University stewardship. Human remains and cultural items were primarily obtained between 1960 and 1987 as the result of UC Riverside Anthropology Department field research, salvage projects, or inadvertent discoveries by the public.

NAGPRA Summaries and Inventories were provided to potentially affiliated tribes and National NAGPRA by 1993, 1995 and subsequently by the deadlines established by the future applicability regulations with invitations to consult. The campus is continuing to consult and report newly discovered human remains and cultural items. 

In 2022, in compliance with the California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act as amended by AB 275 in September 2020, UCR completed a re-inspection of all known holdings of the Department of Anthropology and the UCR Library to determine if any previously unidentified or undisclosed Ancestors or cultural items were in the physical holdings of the campus. As per the requirements of AB275, the updated listings were submitted as preliminary inventories and summaries to the California Native American Heritage Commission by April 1, 2022, and consultation with both Federally- and State-recognized tribes for both previously-known and newly-identified Ancestors and cultural objects was initiated.

See below the for 2020-2021 reports to the UC Office of the President 

Documents