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If I went to the local cemetary and started digging up graves and
taking away the contents, I would be arrested and prosecuted for grave
robbery, which is the way it should be. If I get on the Discovery
Channel, have a Phd after my name and dig up graves that, in the span
of all time, aren't that much older, I get oohs and aahs from a big
audience, a scientific grant or two, fame and respect. I'm not sure
there is a moral difference, is there a legal one? Comments,
please.-Jitney
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On 16 Oct 2004 01:54:05 -0700, jtnospam@yahoo.com (jitney) in
misc.legal, wrote the following:
If I went to the local cemetary and started digging up graves and
taking away the contents, I would be arrested and prosecuted for grave
robbery, which is the way it should be. If I get on the Discovery
Channel, have a Phd after my name and dig up graves that, in the span
of all time, aren't that much older, I get oohs and aahs from a big
audience, a scientific grant or two, fame and respect. I'm not sure
there is a moral difference, is there a legal one? Comments,
It's a decent question, IMO. Unfortunately, in many cases, archaeology
can only find out anything about an ancient culture by digging, and
often that means into areas where the dead have been interred. More
often than not digging up the dead is not intended by archaeologists,
but yet when and where it occurs, it is just as important as excavating
buildings and monuments.
Respect the dead of even an ancient culture is often ingrained into new
and upcoming archaeologists, most of whom now will re-inter the remains
after the main excavation work and study has been done, no matter what
the law states. This is a good trend, in my opinion. Yet, we learn a
great deal about the facets of an culture from such study of remains,
such as diet, belief systems, disease, social life, etc.
Websites which talk about the distinction between grave vandalism and
archaeology are:
http://www.museum.upenn.edu/Moche/looting.html
Looting vs. Archaeology Conflict Described
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF10/1007.html
On the ethical debate between grave-robbing and archaeological
excavation and conservation
http://store.hoteimports.us/egar1.html
and
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/egypt/archaeology/egyptology.html
On the Progressive History of Egyptology from Grave-Robbing to a
Scientific Discipline
There is also a body of law which makes further _legal and ethical_
distinctions between archaeological excavation and grave robbing on both
the U. S. and international levels:
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/anthropology/v1007/davis/lawseth.html
The Laws and Ethics
Not unlike the person in a police forensic unit [a' la CSI] who exhumes
a body to discover why and how a person died for determining cause of
(sometimes unnatural; often natural) death, archaeologists (and
anthropologists) need the ability to study ancient remains to determine
the "how and why" of a civilisation's rise and fall, which can be
derived from the study of human remains.
Legally speaking, in the U.S., the excavation of human remains of not
too distant cultures of Native Americans has been controlled by the
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 25 U.S.C. 3001
et seq. This law controls the _ownership_ of the human remains after an
excavation on federal land (first to the lineal family, then to the
tribe from which the remains are thought to have originated, and
finally, disposed of in a manner thought proper by a review committee of
associated Native American tribes, museums, and the scientific
community), but does not regulate the scientific process of
archaeological excavation itself.
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nagpra/MANDATES/INDEX.HTM
Such is the case of Kennewick man, where a legal tussle erupted over the
repatriation and study of the remains, which are thought to be at least
9,000 years old (possibly preceding Native American entry into the New
World).
This issue was resolved earlier this year by a federal circuit court
decision:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5456191/
Battle over Kennewick Man appears over
Northwest tribes say they won't appeal ruling
In denying the argument of the Native American groups and the
government, the 9th Circuit found that mere assertion of a
"relationship" between ancient human remains and a tribe were not enough
to establish a lineal line.
http://www.pbs.org/wotp/latest_news/news_items/09072002.html
Judge gives Kennewick Man to Scientists
Here, DNA analysis to establish a link with the Native American tribes
failed. It should be noted that the government has also decided not to
appeal this decision.
Archaeology is the study of material human culture, by most definitions
of the term. One of these features is the human body itself, for it
tell us how culture is revealed on the body itself.
In summing up the ethical and legal considerations concerning
archaeological use of human remains, I think this comment from the
Institute of Ideas, through its spokesperson, Tiffany Jenkins, should be
considered:
(she wrote, in regards to the UK debates on this issue):
"...At the heart of the battle is the idea that a group identity owns
the sole rights to investigate the past and can prevent all others from
doing so. Yet the very idea of fixed groupings and cultural continuity
over thousands of years is a flawed supposition. The history of human
beings is not one of separate and permanent cultures, but one of
continual migration, amalgamation, fission and disintegration. Neither
people nor language, and certainly not geographic location remain stable
for more than a small period of time. The idea that there is a clear
link to thousands of years ago is fundamentally wrong. It also advances
notions of fixed and separate races that should not be tolerated today.
These are ideas that science and a rational understanding of history
have proven incorrect.
The idea that one group should dictate to others what can and cannot be
investigated is a serious and dangerous problem for all. The collections
should belong to the world rather than any one group. That one group can
censor and obscure access to knowledge on the basis of an identity from
hundreds or thousands of years ago, is seriously wrong and threatens the
future of ideas and understanding."
Source: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=15
Don't Bury the Bones
Tiffany Jenkins, Institute of Ideas
Date: 07-04-2003
For even more insights into this debate from an ethical standpoint, as
well as a legal one, I suggest reading the comments of a UK consortium
on this matter which can be found on the Institute of Ideas website,
located at
http://www.instituteofideas.com/transcripts/human_remains.pdf
Human Remains: Objects to Study or Ancestors to Bury?
2nd May 2003 - Transcript
HTH.
Regards --
--
Katherine Griffis-Greenberg, JD (US), MA (Lon)
Member, International Association of Egyptologists
American Research Center in Egypt, ASOR, EES, SSEA
Oriental Institute
Oriental Studies Doctoral Program [Egyptology]
University of Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom
http://www.griffis-consulting.com
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jitney wrote:
If I went to the local cemetary and started digging up graves and
taking away the contents, I would be arrested and prosecuted for grave
robbery, which is the way it should be. If I get on the Discovery
Channel, have a Phd after my name and dig up graves that, in the span
of all time, aren't that much older, I get oohs and aahs from a big
audience, a scientific grant or two, fame and respect. I'm not sure
there is a moral difference, is there a legal one? Comments,
please.-Jitney
If the grave leasors fail to pay their dues, the owner of the cemetery
has the right to dig up the graves, dispose of the contents and re-lease
the grave. This inevitably will happen to all graves when there are no
longer any decendants interested in preserving the grave.
Some grave plot are owned outright (or leased in perpetuity) but even
then if no decendant visits the grave for 20 years, it is likely to be
taken over by adverse posession unless the operator of the cemetary or
the local government is particularly conscientous.
Archeologists are subject to the same legal rules : if they want to dig
up a grave they need permission of the current owner of the land.
Additional laws may apply in the case of public lands since the owner is
the government.
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jtnospam@yahoo.com (jitney) says in
news:b8002be7.0410160054.6b302efd@posting.google.com:
If I went to the local cemetary and started digging up
graves and taking away the contents, I would be arrested
and prosecuted for grave robbery, which is the way it
should be. If I get on the Discovery Channel, have a Phd
after my name and dig up graves that, in the span of all
time, aren't that much older, I get oohs and aahs from a
big audience, a scientific grant or two, fame and respect.
I'm not sure there is a moral difference, is there a legal
one? Comments, please.-Jitney
There are legal concerns about digging in any 'western
graveyard', the problem is the legal protections only overlap
with peoples who have treaties in which the grave rights were
explicitly stated somewhere in the treaty. The basic issue is
the spirit of the legal protections of western graveyards should
be no different for indigeonous peoples and the manner in which
they 'commonly' buried their dead [So called sacred places]. One
has to admit that these protections are for the emotional sake
of the relatives of those who died, as death and dead body is
sort of a private moment of a family, and that privacy is
protected.
The issue of kennewick man and archaeology is completely
different issue. Kennewick was not in a graveyard that we know
of, he appeared to have died in a feild and his remains came
forth as a result of erosion. The pretext for his exhumation was
that he could have been a crime victim, and when it was
discovered that he was to old to be a victim of any relevant
crime, his status should not have reverted to that of an
improperly exhumed grave, but that of an archeological specimen
from an archaeological site, in which the claims of those who
might see him as an ancestor are all but irrelevant.
Archaeologist are currently exhuming graveyards in egypt and
exhume tombs and all well known burial areas, however there is
no clean line of descendancy to any particular living group, and
thus the 'emotional' claim for privacy is not present in these
cases as with Kennewick.
A counter example of this might be a culture that held the
grave of someone for say 10,000 years as an important symbolic
and religious site. In that context they have been maintaining
an active relationship and the emotional context remains, even
if it is largely religious.
Kennewick was substantially different from this, in the
Kennewick example, he might have died alone, was buried by
circumstance, and noone knew were he was buried or could, to
date speculate on burial grounds were he was buried. There is no
pretense or beleif that his discovery was the violation of an
actual grave, nor a convincing argument that the peoples of the
area have some outstanding genetic link to him. At 10,000 years
of age basically everyone in the new world has some link to
kennewick. If every native american in the new world could come
to a concensus on what should happen to Kennewick then I think
something should be done on the part of the scientist to
compromise with these groups. However the law is not set up to
deal with this, the principle ancestors of the 5 tribes could
have lived in CA at the time that Kennewick died, and the way I
look at this they have no principle claim any greater than any
other NA in the new world.
On the contrary, there were areas archeologist and university
people could have speculated, simply based on the density and
the positioning of the dead that they had found and violated
graveyards, and any reasonable search would have probably
revealed some extant tribe(s) which by questioning would reveal
that they had burial grounds in the region before they were
driven off their ancestral lands. These are instances were the
claims should be investigated and resolution should occur with
force of law and quickly. The failure to resolve these cases
quickly creates distrust amoungst native groups and makes the
study of much older remains politically difficult.
However, I have to make one point about the stictness of
enforcement because borderline cases will appear that I think
that science has some case. The study of molecular evolution is
of benefit to everyone, and while these groups may not see the
benefit now, it may become apparent in the future to them, while
at the same time reburial of remains could doom DNA in such
samples. This is not so much a concern for samples 100s of years
old but for samples >500 years old and in these situation I
think science should be permitted to take the least intrusive
sample. This is done for vietnam soldiers who were lost during
the war, other lost soldiers, and in forensics for lost
individuals, with the goal of reuniting remains with those who
lost loved ones, it could potentially reunite remains of groups
who were forced to migrate and lost the locations of their
ancient burial grounds. Such typing could help resolve issues as
well as providing some useful information to science.
--
Philip
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mol. Anth. Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DNAanthro/
Mol. Evol. Hominids http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth/
Evol. of Xchrom.
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth/xlinked.htm
Pal. Anth. Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paleoanthro/
Sci. Arch. Aux
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sciarchauxilliary/
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If I went to the local cemetary and started digging up graves and
taking away the contents, I would be arrested and prosecuted for grave
robbery, which is the way it should be. If I get on the Discovery
Channel, have a Phd after my name and dig up graves that, in the span
of all time, aren't that much older, I get oohs and aahs from a big
audience, a scientific grant or two, fame and respect. I'm not sure
there is a moral difference, is there a legal one? Comments,
please.-Jitney
It depends.... archaeology is not robbery, it is (well, it *should* be!)
scientific investigation. Even so, it may offend someone, even if whoever is
being excavated has been dead for thousands of years. Not necessarily someone
who is alive, but the deceased themselves should be afforded some respect.
Unfortunately, many people - most people - (myself being one I have to say) have
quite an intense morbid curiousity, as well as a great interest in past lives,
past people and how they lived. You will probably have noticed the unusual
interest that museum exhibits such as unwrapped mummies attract, and the mixture
of fascination and horror on the faces of those viewing them. Every other film
is about death and evrey other magazine, documentary and TV program seems to be
about grisly true life crimes, with ghastly details of dismemberment,
decomposition and the sort of things that you would think the public would never
want to know about or see... but they do, and pay well to do so. Quite why I'm
not sure, but I think it may be because most of us don't see death and dead
bodies around us much, wheras only a century ago children would have grown up
seeing gibbets, public executions, dead siblings and relatives and untold other
horrors.
We are of course curious about death, as we're all going to die, but it is now
sanitised and mysterious (I have only ever seen one 'open coffin' funeral, a
friend who died at only 19 and was Muslim - the first corpse I ever saw). I
don't think it is particularly healthy the way we treat the subject nowadays (in
the western world anyway), as curiousity does sometimes turn into obsession I'm
afraid. It certainly shouldn't be pandered to by archaeologists to boost museum
attendances, book sales and viewing figures, though it sometimes is I'm afraid
to say.
Digging up someone's auntie in the local graveyard is another matter - illegal
and immoral. Also pointless. The question of legality is complex - basically it
all boils down to whether anyone takes offence and bothers to take you to court.
This has happened with ancient Native American burial sites, which are sacred in
the eyes of their descendants, and one of the biggest dreads of any British
archaeologist is to find coffins with no nails in the lid, as they are usually
Jewish and complications set in (no matter how long forgotten or ancient).
There are also matters of hygeine and public health to consider, as I
discovered when helping an archaeologist friend to do a photographic survey of
coffin furnishings in the catacombs of Highgate Cemetery.... we had to wear gas
masks and full biohazard suits after someone broke in and decided to open a
couple of coffins one night (why I dread to think). Not in the plague and
smallpox section I'm glad to say, but even so it was extremely unpleasant.
Plague pits and bodies in sealed lead coffins are a potentially serious hazard,
though where the law stands on this I'm unsure - if a smallpox victim is
involved, it is compulsory quarantine for all in attendance, and a visit from
officials at Porton Down, I know that.
The 'moral' question is quite another matter. People have different beliefs on
the subject, personally I think it is okay to disturb the long dead for a few
weeks out of eternity, to record, measure and analyse them (and maybe take a
sample for DNA analysis etc), as long as they are laid back to rest as they were
once that has been done. However, treasures buried with them are another
matter - I wouldn't insist on the Sutton Hoo treasure being re-interred with its
original owner and deprive the world of a great wonder, or Tutankhamun being
walled up with all his posthumous goodies. I like to think that if the two
gentlemen in question realised their fabulous treasures were still being admired
and seen by everyone, and they were not forgotten, they would probably be proud
and pleased.
Posthumous indignity is a tricky thing to assess, as some cultures and religions
wouldn't care a fig about the fate of the mortal remains of their people and
followers, while others would find it abhorrent. At a personal level it is
impossible to tell of course, as many Christians would have been appalled to
think they would be exhumed by curious archaeologists, others wouldn't care, and
some would probably be delighted to know they hadn't been forgotten. One thing
is for sure, they are unlikely to complain.
Cheers
Martin
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That just dark-age mentality, we need to know the past to help us develope a
future. tonstill@optusnet.com.au
If I went to the local cemetary and started digging up graves and
taking away the contents, I would be arrested and prosecuted for grave
robbery, which is the way it should be. If I get on the Discovery
Channel, have a Phd after my name and dig up graves that, in the span
of all time, aren't that much older, I get oohs and aahs from a big
audience, a scientific grant or two, fame and respect. I'm not sure
there is a moral difference, is there a legal one? Comments,
please.-Jitney
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Thomas Anantharaman wrote:
jitney wrote:
If the grave leasors fail to pay their dues, the owner of the cemetery
has the right to dig up the graves, dispose of the contents and re-lease
the grave. This inevitably will happen to all graves when there are no
longer any decendants interested in preserving the grave.
That's now how it works here in Minnesota at least. All of my ancestors
in North America are buried here, some in small town cemeteries, some
in large city cemeteries. The cemeteries typically have associations
which maintain all graves at least minimally into perpetuity. None are
reverted back that I've seen. The situation is probably quite different
in Europe, Japan, etc.
Some grave plot are owned outright (or leased in perpetuity) but even
then if no decendant visits the grave for 20 years, it is likely to be
taken over by adverse posession unless the operator of the cemetary or
the local government is particularly conscientous.
I've never seen this.
Archeologists are subject to the same legal rules : if they want to dig
up a grave they need permission of the current owner of the land.
Additional laws may apply in the case of public lands since the owner is
the government.
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