Convenors: Michael L. Blakey (USA) and Michael Westaway (Australia)
Ethical bioarchaeological practice has changed since the late 20th century advent of the Vermillion Accord, NAGPRA and the African Burial Ground Project. Globally, descendant and First Nations community engagement has seen varied rates of change, with research only being possible through close collaboration with descendant communities in some parts of the world, while elsewhere colleagues have been slow to engage in community-based approaches. These 35 years have also been punctuated by moments of humiliation and calls for rapid reform in the ways archaeologists, museologists, and biologists work with the remains of human ancestors. Some have said our practice is always on the horns of a dilemma between the human need to know and our need of dignity. Others point to the estrangement of what anthropologists have sought to know from what most people care about. Or they point to the damages of eugenics and racism against a beneficial examination of the empirical human past. This Theme is to consider how those who study human remains or mortuary sites grapple with these tensions in the hope of achieving: 1) truths about our species, 2) societally valuable knowledge, and 3) humane ethical accountability.
Anticipated Sessions:
1) A discussion on the Willandra/Mungo ancestral remains to explore the complexity of this issue pursuant to rules for ethical practice at other Pleistocene ancestral remains in Australia and elsewhere.
2) A panel to examine the recommendations of The Commission for the Ethical Treatment of Human Remains, American Anthropological Association and its Global Listening Sessions in 2022-2023.
3) A session on recent efforts by museums to rectify past practices in acquiring human remains and sacred objects throughout the world (Pitt Rivers, Duckworth, Queensland Museum, Smithsonian, etc.).
4) A session highlighting collaborative research between descendant communities and bioanthropologists and museum practitioners illustrating successes and failures.
Contacts:
M.L. Blakey
Institute for Historical Biology, Department of Anthropology, William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, 23187-7682, USA
mlblak@wm.edu
M.C. Westaway
Archaeology, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4067, Australia
m.westaway@uq.edu.au
THEME SESSIONS
T22/Session 01: Changing Bioarchaeological Ethics and Practice in the 21st Century
T22/Session 02: Whose Ice Age Legacy? The Reburial of Willandra Lakes Ancestral Remains
T22/Session 03: New Insights and Collaborative Research in Bioarchaeology
T22/Session 04: Ethics and Human Remains in Museums and Other Institutions