Aborigines from Australia and Tasmania have been asking for the bones of their ancestors to be returned for burial.



But scientists here are concerned that if these bones go back, their value for scientific research will be lost forever. Our arts correspondent Nicholas Glass has this:





Aboriginal skulls were collected in colonial Australia in the 19th and early 20th centuries as Darwinian examples of primitive man. And now they are museum pieces and objects for scientific research.



But their presence here raises complex and emotional issues. Who - in law - owns them? Is it right to keep them for research? Or should they be returned to their descendants for burial?



With a special report imminent, the debate here has never been more focused. On one hand , there are the scientists, on the other - the aboriginal descendants of these people.



Aboriginal skulls were much prized by Victorian collectors as a means of exploring the link between man and apes.

Our natural history museums have boxes and boxes of human remains, tucked away in their vaults. - Ancient Egyptians mostly and quite a few of our own ancestors.



In English collections alone, there are over 60 thousand body parts. Of these, only two or three thousand appear to be aboriginal - some acquired legally, others not.



To our knowledge, the biggest single collection in the country is at the Natural History Museum in London. There are 19,500 items - varying in size from a finger bone to complete skeletons. Of these items , 450 are of Aboriginal origin.



Despite repeated requests, such is the sensitivity, such the delicacy of this issue, that they haven't let us in to film - and they refused to talk to us.



The Natural History Museum is governed by the British Museum Act. And that means it can't return anything without a change in the law.



Take a look at the old accession registers from Manchester Museum in the 1880s and 1890s. Among all the neat entries in ink, a record of Aboriginal and Maori bones taken into the collection - in the same register as the exotic animals.



Museums in Edinburgh and Belfast began returning human remains to Australasia - some 20-years ago.



An aboriginal elder, banging clapsticks and dancing, was outside Manchester Museum this summer. Four skulls were being handed back - and in the ritual, all evil spirits were being smoked out. For the three visiting Aborigines - this was the positive part of their visit. But Rodney Dillon - their leader - was still fuming about an earlier encounter at the Natural History Museum.



Wrapped in the Aboriginal flag - the box of skulls began the journey home to South Australia. It's arguable that Manchester could afford this gesture. It had few skulls, and none were apparently used for science.



At Cambridge University, they have accumulated skulls from all over the planet - the source material for a study centre. Of the 18,000 specimens in the Duckworth Collection - just 98 are aboriginal.



The scientists have some sympathy for the aboriginal claim. But they feel these bones are an integral to the diverse story of human evolution.



The overtones of Victorian racism have long gone. We now look at Aboriginals and at all our ancestors - in terms of how similar we are, not how different. And of course, the scientists feel that there's still a lot more information to be gleaned.



The report, when it's published, is expected to recommend that the whole repatriation process is made easier for both claimants and museums.



It's unlikely to have much impact on the wider intellectual debate over other disputed museum artefacts like the Elgin Marbles and the Rosetta Stone.



The Aborigines are slowly making some progress. They have an emotional case and a few Australian political allies.