Archaeologist and paleontologist Juan Carlos Cisneros tells The Scientist that researchers frequently fail to involve local groups—and sometimes violate laws—when studying Latin American fossils.

Despite Latin American countries’ attempts to curb the illicit sale or acquisition of fossils and artifacts by researchers from other countries, the fields of paleontology and archaeology are still rife with colonial attitudes, according to a paper published yesterday (March 2) in Royal Society Open Science.

The study, which involved a literature review of the past 30 years’ worth of academic papers describing vertebrate fossils that were discovered in either Northeastern Mexico or Brazil’s Araripe Basin, calculated how many papers included Mexican or Brazilian authors and research institutes, how many mentioned acquiring permits to study or take the fossils, and how many noted either purchasing the fossil—which is illegal in both countries—or failing to return it when the research was complete. The results suggest that paleontologists from other countries, especially Japan and European nations, tend to flout legal frameworks intended to protect and preserve Latin American fossils, and often conduct their work without the input of scientists or institutions in the regions where the fossils were found.

The study “is really game changing,” Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology paleontologist Jeff Liston, who didn’t work on the paper, tells Science. “Elevating this stuff from the anecdotal and quantifying it like this is the only way that we’re going to make any progress.”