British museum hands over remains of indigenous Ainu people to Japan

The Natural History Museum in London has returned the ancestral remains of seven indigenous Ainu people to Japan at the request of the Japanese government.

A ceremony to mark the handover was held at the museum on Tuesday, with Japan's Ainu-Related Policies Minister Kikawada Hitoshi in attendance. Some were excavated in the northern Japanese towns of Yakumo and Mori in Hokkaido.

Among the remains are some that were donated to the museum in 1866 by the British consul at the time and have been kept at the museum for 160 years. This is the fourth time Ainu remains have been returned from overseas, following last year's repatriation from the University of Edinburgh. The remains will be interred at a memorial site in the Upopoy National Ainu Museum and Park in Shiraoi Town, Hokkaido.