A New Zealand museum has "returned" bones that were dug up in 1949. What can we say about this?

This article pervasively uses language which treats the dead as if they were alive.

A person who died no longer exists; what does exist are remains. The remains are not a person, not alive; things can happen to them, but they cannot actively do anything. They cannot "come home." They cannot "rest." They cannot truly be "welcomed," since that word refers to making a person aware of one's feelings towards per, and a corpse cannot be aware.

Remains can be stolen, like any other objects that are property. Was digging up the skeletons in question really "stealing"? Were they property? I don't know the specific circumstances, so I have no opinion.

I disapprove of fetishizing corpses, regardless of which ethnic group they are from. Nothing matters to a dead person. The only valid reasons to care what happens to a corpse are (1) what science can learn from studying it and (2) to cater to living people's feelings about it.

Which of those concerns is more important in any given case depends on details. The article does not give those details, so I have no opinion. I do see that the article aims to inculcate the assumption that (2) is the only possible concern.