Ref ID:	29166
Ref Type:	Journal Article
Authors:	Ward, Graeme Pickering, Michael
Title:	The Japanese Bone Collecting Expedition on Tinian, Mariana Islands, March 1985: its impact upon historic resources
Date:	1985
Source:	Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association
Abstract:	This paper reports observations of the activities of a Japanese expedition to collect the remains of Pacific War combatants from Tinian, one of the southernmost of the Mariana Islands, and summarizes a field analysis of the skeletal material assemblages resulting from this activity. It documents the illegal excavation and use of earth-moving equipment by the collecting team and consequent destruction of at least one known prehistoric occupation area and outlines the results of the analysis which concludes that the large majority of the human remains recovered were of prehistoric Chamorro origin. Early in March 1985 a team of some twenty Japanese veterans of the Pacific War and others came to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to collect Japanese skeletal material dating to the 1944 period. This collection was to be made with the concurrence of the CNMI authorities the terms of the agreement stated that searches and collections could be made but that no excavation was to be undertaken without the prior approval of the CNMI authorities (Hocog, personal communication, March 1985).
Date Created:	12/14/2009
Volume:	6
Page Start:	116
Page End:	122