Study and restudy of curated skeletal collections in bioarchaeology: A perspective on the UK and the implications for future curation of human remains

This paper responds to a need to address the colonial history of collections of Egyptian archaeology and to find new ways in which Egyptian audiences can assume greater agency in such a process. The ‘Egypt’s Dispersed Heritage’ project presents a model of engagement whereby foreign museum collections become the inspiration for Egyptians to express their own feelings about the removal of their heritage abroad using idioms and traditional storytelling of cultural relevance to them. A series of online comics confronting contentious heritage issues, including the display of mummified human remains, eugenics, looting and destruction, is discussed. It is argued that this approach is not only more relatable for Egyptian communities, but moreover provides space for the development of grass-roots critique of heritage practices, both in the UK and in Egypt. Museums have a responsibility to take on board these critiques, curating not just objects but relationships forged amongst them in historical and contemporary society.

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“Not of One’s Body”: The Creation of Identified Skeletal Collections with Portuguese Human Remains

Ethical Approaches to Human Remains ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-32926-6_23 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 503-518

Author(s):

Francisca Alves-Cardoso

Keyword(s):

Human Remains ◽

The Creation ◽

Skeletal Collections

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Interdisciplinary explorations of the Mesoamerican past

Antiquity ◽

10.15184/aqy.2019.180 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 93 (372) ◽

pp. 1680-1682

Author(s):

John W. Verano

Keyword(s):

Life Histories ◽

Interdisciplinary Approach ◽

Human Remains ◽

Theoretical Models ◽

Biological Anthropology ◽

Global Perspectives ◽

Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽

The Usa ◽

The Uk ◽

The University

Bioarchaeology of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: an interdisciplinary approach is the latest volume in a series from the University Press of Florida ‘Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives’, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen. With this contribution the series now comprises 20 published volumes that take a bioarchaeological approach to the study of ancient human remains from various regions and time periods. Bioarchaeology is a term that was introduced in the USA in the late 1970s by biological anthropologist Jane Buikstra to describe the application of biological anthropology to archaeological research questions. Its use has become increasingly common in recent decades among scholars in the USA, Latin America and Europe, although in the UK the term Osteoarchaeology is more commonly used to describe this research. Whichever name one prefers, a common thread is the shift from typological and descriptive osteological monographs towards an emphasis on applying theoretical models and interdisciplinary approaches to reconstructing the life histories, health and population dynamics of past societies from the analysis of human remains.

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Digging the Dead in a Digital Media Age

Archaeologists and the Dead ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198753537.003.0026 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Duncan Sayer ◽

Tony Walter

Keyword(s):

Digital Media ◽

Public Support ◽

Human Remains ◽

Global Media ◽

East Anglia ◽

The Public ◽

Museum Environment ◽

The Uk ◽

Public Imagination ◽

The City

A number of recent events inside and outside of the heritage sector have triggered a lively and largely constructive debate about the excavation, display, and conservation of human remains in the UK (see Jenkins 2008, 2010; Moshenska 2009; Sayer 2009, 2010a; Parker Pearson et al. 2011; Giesen 2013). Two events have been of particular significance: the reburial of human remains prompted by requests to museums from the Pagan community, and independently of these requests the Ministry of Justice decided to revisit its conditions for the excavation of human remains (Parker Pearson et al. 2013). In the short term, these issues seem to have been resolved through open consultation and campaigning by archaeologists. British archaeologists consider that they have public support; public-facing archaeology develops strong links within local communities, the Portable Antiquities Scheme engages members of the public in the discovery of metal objects on a national scale, and TV and Radio programmes regularly include archaeology or excavation as their central theme. There are various ways to engage with archaeology outside of a traditional museum environment: people can shift soil or sit back and read about it in numerous academic and popular books, in magazines, and digitally on the internet. This chapter discusses this new digital environment by describing and analysing three events in British burial archaeology which deliberately sought coverage online and within global media. These are: 1) the burial campaign which was instrumental in raising the profile of the reburial problem in England; 2) the discovery of a cow and woman buried in the same grave in a fifth- and sixth-century cemetery at Oakington, Cambridgeshire; 3) the investigation of King Richard III’s final resting place in the city of Leicester. One of us was instrumental in publicizing the first two events; neither of us was involved in the third. We will refer also to a recent case in East Anglia where negative media publicity came unsought by the archaeologists concerned. In the mid-twentieth century, archaeology found a place in mass broadcasting and early shows like Animal, Vegetable and Mineral or Chronicle captured the public imagination (Bailey 2010).

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Slave-Trade Archaeology and the Public: The Excavation of a ‘Liberated African’ Graveyard on St Helena

Archaeologists and the Dead ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198753537.003.0012 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Andrew Pearson ◽

Ben Jeffs

Keyword(s):

Belief Systems ◽

Human Remains ◽

The Public ◽

North American Archaeology ◽

Technical Sense ◽

The Dead ◽

The Uk ◽

St Helena ◽

A Site ◽

And Training

Within the framework of contractual archaeology in the UK (in which both authors largely operate) individual graves and funerary sites are regularly encountered, while they are also the object of targeted research projects. The ability to investigate a burial and to exhume human remains is a practical skill that can be taught and which may be mastered by practice. The investigation of a cemetery of any age is essentially a repetition of this basic technique, in which each grave (or indeed any feature-type containing human remains) is revealed, excavated, and the human remains recorded and lifted. Such exercises vary in scale, but the largest can address very significant numbers of bodies: one obvious example is the cemetery at Spitalfields, London, in which several thousand skeletons were exhumed. Post-excavation methods are also fairly standardized, both in terms of general archaeological reporting and the specific osteological analysis of human remains. These approaches can reasonably be said to be universal within European and North American archaeology, though inevitably with some variation in detail. As a consequence, field archaeologists are, in a technical sense, expert in dealing with the dead. Archaeologists, however, are often less familiar with the more esoteric aspects relating to the dead. Taking the British example again, the field archaeologist generally arrives at a site only after any discussion about the moral or social aspects of exhumation has been concluded. Thus, while provided with technical guidance and being aware of the wider issues involved, they are essentially there to dig. But away from such controlled circumstances, governmental frameworks for dealing with cultural heritage are either less developed or do not exist at all. Here, archaeologists can find themselves enmeshed in matters that go far beyond the technical and, not uncommonly, do so in societies where local attitudes and belief systems are very different to their own. This requires a skill-set for which ‘standard’ archaeological education and training has not necessarily equipped them. This chapter offers a narrative of one such example, which took place on the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena during 2007–8. Here, a team of experienced British field archaeologists, tasked with the excavation of a graveyard of considerable size and international significance, came to deal with the dead— and the living—on a number of fundamental levels that extended far beyond the project brief.

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Introduction: Mortuary Archaeology in Contemporary Society

Archaeologists and the Dead ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198753537.003.0007 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Melanie Giles ◽

Howard Williams

Keyword(s):

Native American ◽

Human Remains ◽

Final Report ◽

Political Climate ◽

Archaeological Excavation ◽

Deep Roots ◽

Mortuary Archaeology ◽

Management Advice ◽

Human Tissue Act ◽

The Uk

The 1980s and 1990s saw dramatic sea changes in the archaeological engagement with the dead in Australasia and North America, typified by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990. However, it has only been far more recently that different, distinctive, but still fundamental challenges to the archaeological study, display, and curation of mortuary remains have affected the UK, Europe, and Scandinavia. While classic examples of disputes over the archaeological excavation of human remains have deep roots in the late twentieth century, the last decade has seen significant shifts and challenges for mortuary archaeology (see Sayer 2010a). In this regard, the UK situation is instructive, if not necessarily typical. At the turn of the millennium, the Working Group on Human Remains (whose final report was published in 2007) created a strong political climate which encouraged unconditional returns of ancestral remains acquired from elsewhere in the world and held in British museums. This was rejected by many institutions which had to balance such edicts against their acquisition policy (DCMS 2003), but its impact was to encourage a more open atmosphere of discussion. Slightly later, the impact of the 2005 DCMS ‘Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums’ provided a strong (if not binding) steer in terms of aspects of curatorial acquisition, research protocols, and collections management advice, designed to systematize best practice. Importantly, it enshrined a three-fold conceptual principle that human remains are of ‘unique status, are often of high research value, and should be treated with dignity and respect’ (DCMS 2005: 16). This document provided an important mandate for archaeological excavation, research, and curation, at a time when calls for repatriation and reburial were on the rise. However, it was an ‘aspirant code of ethics’ which as Redfern and Clegg (2013: 2) argue, was not enforceable: relying on the professionalism of both individuals and institutions for its implementation. (In addition, the 2004 Human Tissue Act also impacted on those institutions holding human remains or fragments of them, less than 100 years old, though archaeological examples of this are rare.) Some UK museums began repatriating parts of their ethnographic collections much earlier than this: Besterman (2004: 3) reported that Manchester Museum had decided to return human remains acquired as recently as 1992.

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