Researchers of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan in the USA have made and continue to make significant efforts to trace the origins of human remains available to them for educational purposes. Since documentation from the early period is often incomplete, their task is not easy, and this effort itself can be considered a research topic with its history. The research concluded that several human bones are interconnected with the work of Felix von Luschan (1854–1924), an Austrian anthropologist who worked in Berlin at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Investigations conducted in the Berlin Rudolf Virchow Collection show a clear connection with the human bone material from Michigan. The research provides a surprising detail: the remains were sent to Germany by a former Hungarian antiquities dealer, József Lichtneckert.

József Lichtneckert's activities have been the subject of domestic research in recent years, allowing researchers from the National Institute of Archaeology of the Hungarian National Museum to participate in the American project. The career trajectory of the antiquities dealer from Székesfehérvár reveals a colourful yet tragic fate. A young man who showed interest in historical artefacts from a very early age amassed a significant collection and conducted independent excavations starting in the 1890s; furthermore, he even published in archaeological journals. However, Lichtneckert increasingly distanced himself from the scholarly pursuit of archaeology due to growing financial difficulties: the findings from his excavations often became a matter of business, and ultimately. He could also have exported human remains from graves abroad for this purpose.

This project is a remarkable example of how researchers from multiple countries can support each other in collaborative work, setting an important goal of understanding events roughly 100 years ago, identifying archaeological sites, and, most importantly, handling human remains with appropriate respect and expertise.