Archaeological Ethics and the
Treatement of the Dead
Death and Human Emotion
How do humans respond to death?
We seem to take it very seriously…
…and we have for a very long time.
Shanidar Cave (Israel) Neanderthal Burial, 60,000 years ago
Emotionally, how do you
respond to these images?
Does it matter who they were or when they died?
Whether they are ancient …
…or modern?
William
Braine
John Hartnell’s
marker and remains
John
Torrington
Guanajuato , Mexico–1800s
Sailors from the Franklin
Expedition–1845
Young?
Or Old?
Does it matter more if they were
innocent victims?
Wounded Knee
Massacre, 1890
And died in large numbers ?
Kurd Boy,
chemical
weapon victim,
Iraq, 1980s
Mass Graves of Holocaust
Victims, 1945, Europe
Or small?
Sometimes we laugh at death…
…or use it for protest.
Mostly, we seem to take it very
seriously…
Images of
the Black
Death,
Europe, AD
1400-1700
…as did William Shakespeare!
Shakespeare’s Curse on Anyone
Who Moves His Bones
Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare,
To digg the dust encloased heare:
Bleste be the man tht spares thes stones,
And curst be he tht moves my bones.
Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, and was buried in the
chancel of Holy Trinity Church April 25, at Stratford-uponAvon. No one has disturbed his remains since his burial.
How seriously?
The United States budgets $21,000,000 annually to
recover remains of war dead from all over the world.
The African Burial Ground
New York City
Reinterment was on
October 4, 2003
http://www.africanburialground.com
Archaeologists worked at the
World Trade Center, 2002
WTC Archaeology: What We Saw, What We Learned,
and What We Did about it. 2002 Richard A. Gould,
The SAA Archaeological Record 2(5):11-17
However, many American
Indian people ask why their
dead don’t receive equal
treatment.
If we are so concerned with the treatment of our own
dead, shouldn’t we care about the dead of others?
In recent years archaeologists and
physical anthropologists have had
to answer exactly that question…
…especially from Indigenous peoples such as
Native Americans who claim that the remains of
their ancestors are often the target of study.
They also claim that these remains sit on shelves
in museums and laboratories while the remains
of the archaeologists’ ancestors are rarely
studied and quickly reburied.
Why is studying remains important?
What can we tell about the people of the past
by looking at their dead?
• Physical attributes, such as size
• Population patterns (demography)
• Nutrition (what they ate and its impact on their lives)
• Patterns of diseases and trauma
• Burial practices/social status (grave goods, mounds)
Many scientists believe
that we need to keep
skeletons for long term
study.
Why? There will always
be new techniques for
looking at remains. If
bones are returned,
those techniques can’t
be used.
They claim it’s like
burying the past or
burning books.
Let’s look at one case…
The difficult course toward ethical
treatment of the dead
Several state laws passed to
protect American Indian
dead.
The public tended to
support Indian concerns.
The 1978 American Indian Religious
Freedom Act had some impact
1985 Peacekeeper
Conference
The issue was heated.
A Lakota editorial about Dickson Mounds in Illinois
It went international.
WAC Inter-Congress, 1989
The Vermillion Accord on Human Remains
The Vermillion Accord was adopted in 1989 at the South Dakota
WAC Inter-Congress.
•
Respect for the mortal remains of the dead shall be accorded to all, irrespective
of origin, race, religion, nationality, custom and tradition.
•
Respect for the wishes of the dead concerning disposition shall be accorded
whenever possible, reasonable and lawful, when they are known or can be
reasonably inferred.
•
Respect for the wishes of the local community and of relatives or guardians of
the dead shall be accorded whenever possible, reasonable and lawful.
•
Respect for the scientific research value of skeletal, mummified and other
human remains (including fossil hominids) shall be accorded when such value
is demonstrated to exist.
•
Agreement on the disposition of fossil, skeletal, mummified and other remains
shall be reached by negotiation on the basis of mutual respect for the
legitimate concerns of communities for the proper disposition of their
ancestors, as well as the legitimate concerns of science and education.
•
The express recognition that the concerns of various ethnic groups, as well as
those of science are legitimate and to be respected, will permit acceptable
agreements to be reached and honoured.
A reburial at Wounded Knee, SD followed the meeting.
The National Museum of the American Indian Act of 1989
The first national repatriation law
The National Museum of the
American Indian
Opened September 2005
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990
Law, Regulations, and Guidance
A number of resources are available to assist museums, agencies, and Native American communities in carrying out
NAGPRA. For additional information regarding the specialized terms used in NAGPRA, see the NAGPRA Glossary.
Law and Regulations
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq. [Nov. 16, 1990] PDF or Text
Final Regulations, 43 CFR 10 (includes preamble) [Dec. 04, 1995] PDF or Text
43 CFR 10 - Updated (Full Text, excluding preamble, of 43 CFR 10 as amended January 13, 1997; August 1, 1997;
and May 5, 2003; and published in the Code of Federal Regulations October 1, 2003) [Oct. 01, 2003] PDF or Text
Overview of NAGPRA Civil Penalties Procedures PDF or Text
Reserved sections of the NAGPRA regulations
For a decent summary: http://www.indian-affairs.org/programs/aaia_repatriation_nagpra.htm
Archaeologists Have Been ChangingTheir Minds
David Hurst Thomas
Kennewick Man
The Ancient One
The debate
continues…
What’s happening now?
SYMPOSIUM NAGPRA IN 20/20 VISION: REVIEWING 20 YEARS OF
REPATRIATION AND LOOKING AHEAD TO THE NEXT 20
(Sponsored by Committee on Native American Relations)
Room: 103 (AC)
Time: 8:00 AM–10:00 AM
Organizer and Chair: Dorothy Lippert
Participants:
8:00 Joe Watkins—‘Naturalizing’ the Native, Appropriating the Ancestors: Kennewick
and an Unintended Impact of Repatriation
8:15 Kerry Thompson—Who is, or Was, Native American?: The Role of Archaeology in
American Indian Identity
8:30 Sonya Atalay—Grandmothers and Grandfathers|Culturally Unidentifiable:
NAGPRA and The Power of Naming
8:45 Elisabeth Cutright-Smith, Wendi Field Murray and Kacy Hollenback—Twenty
Years Later: A Quantitative Assessment of NAGPRA's Impacts on American
Archaeology
9:00 Michael Wilcox—Genes and Cultural Identity: Boundaries, Boundary Makers and
the Cultural Mythology of DNA
9:15 Michelle Schohn—Another Step Removed: How NAGPRA further Disenfranchised
non-Federal Tribes
9:30 Dorothy Lippert—Memory and Longing in the Practice of Repatriation
9:45 Larry Zimmerman—Discussant
The dispute over culturally unidentifiable human remains persists.
Questions:
•Do the dead have rights?
•Can anyone “control” the past?
•Does the knowledge provided by
science outweigh the rights of
people who claim remains as
ancestral?
•Are compromises possible?