Something that has always bothered me

[amateur]

Well and good. But it's strange the way people today have so uncritically assimilated the propaganda aimed at them. In Europe, when someone wants to compare an excavated skeleton with other ones, he simply starts going through the collections of them in museums. Here, they've all been reburied.

We have come to write what could only, in fairness, be called personal (and by no means universal) beliefs into public policy. Private morality should, in my view, remain private.

[2ndoldman]

It's one thing to find old bones while out hunting artifacts or during excavations for building purposes.
Placing them back where they were found and instructing different groups ie archaeologists or local native peoples of the location is being respectful. Bringing those bones home and trying to profit from the sale of them is totally wrong now a days and the hammer should fall on anyone doing so.
Just because it was done in the past is no reason to say that it is right to do today.