Mexico receives 1,132 pre-Hispanic artifacts from the United States

Mexico has received the voluntary restitution of 1,132 pre-Hispanic archaeological artifacts from the United States. The collection was delivered to the Consulate General of Mexico in Boston, Massachusetts.

The restitution was driven by Jeremy Pilver, an archaeologist and professor at Farmington High School. The process involved significant academic and educational cooperation, with more than 40 high school students participating over a two-year period in the classification, cleaning, cataloging, and professional packaging of the items.

According to specialists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the collection originates from southeastern Mexico and includes 1,053 ceramic shards (smooth, modeled, painted, and incised), two complete spindle whorls (malacates), 18 figurine fragments, nine obsidian flakes, 11 flint flakes, three rock polishers, and 36 shark teeth. The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture noted that this represents one of the largest archaeological collections received by the Boston consulate in recent years.