Saturday 21 April 2012

To Bury or Not To Bury?


This blog is quite serious (for a change), and discusses the reburial of human remains.

Pretty much what it says on the tin: Human remains are almost always bones, but as far as I’m aware the law also covers bog bodies and similar exceptional finds.  It is unclear whether the current law would cover non-burial finds, such as a small bone scatter across a site. Obviously, they were once people, and so should be afforded more respect than animal bone or broken pottery.

However, there have been a lot of people who lived on this island at one time or another, and (leaving aside the Bronze and Iron Ages, where there simply aren’t enough bodies), there’s a corresponding large amount of human remains. They’re everywhere, and they crop up in all kinds of archaeological work, from the smallest watching brief- where an archaeologist watches the diggers on a building site, looking for anything unusual or noteworthy- to the largest open site academic excavation. Clearly, there needs to be some kind of protocol, but what?


What’s the current law?

The 1857 Burial Act was designed to protect the Victorian public from exposure to recent corpses, grave-robbing and clearance of recent graves, during the expansion of the cities, but it also covered archaeology. The law was never updated when developer-funded archaeology came along, and covered all archaeological excavations. This led to all kinds of contradictions: uncovered burials on sites had to be screened off, but could be broadcast by things like Time Team. You can watch a skeleton being excavated on TV, but not in real life. 

Until 2008, an archaeological unit could apply to the home office for a licence to archaeologically excavate human remains. Curation in museums for items of scientific interest (including human bones) was considered an acceptable option. For the most part, this system worked quite well. Bones of interest were retained unless a particular ethnic interest group (like the Aborigines, or Native Americans, though obviously not these examples in the UK) could be identified and asked for reburial. 

However, in 2008, jurisdiction moved to the Ministry of Justice, who began issuing licences with the requirement of reburial within two years. Curation was no longer acceptable. 

In 2009, the MoJ admitted that the law needed to be revised, but before they could get around to it, a General Election intervened. It now looks set to stay.


So what’s the problem? And who cares?

The two major interest groups are archaeologists and druids. We haven’t really mentioned the druids yet, so I’ll say a few words about them.

As far as I can tell, they consider themselves to be the spiritual (though not always physical) descendants of the people who built Stonehenge and other, similar monuments like Avebury. Some also consider their rites and beliefs to be the continuation of the beliefs of those monument builders. Ancestor veneration is very important to the Druids, so they take the issue of human remains very seriously indeed. To read the official statement of the Council of British Druid Orders on human remains, click here. For an article by a Druid priest on the subject, click here

Archaeologists, obviously, study the past by digging it up (among other things), and that includes human bones. For an opinion by a leading archaeologist, click here.

Druids and archaeologists often get on, and most modern Druids are interested in what archaeological research can tell them about their spiritual ancestors. 

Unfortunately, we and they often don’t see eye to eye on the subject of human remains. Everyone thinks we should be ‘showing respect’ to them, but we can’t seem to agree on what that respect should entail. Druids would like the bones to be reburied, as the people who actually buried them wanted that to happen. They’re often quite distressed by the idea of ‘hundreds of bodies being kept in cardboard boxes beneath museums, never being looked at’. To them, this is disrespectful.  However, many archaeologists would contend that these need to be kept for research at a later time, as new tests are developed, which could tell us more about the people we were studying. We need a sample, and as much of our work requires population data, it needs to be a big sample. Many archaeologists do not view this retention of bones as disrespectful, though some considerations are taken. Site numbers are not inscribed on human bone, though they are on animal bone.

(Of course, there are other interest groups, but I have decided to leave them for now. It's something that everyone is entitled to a say on, and if I listed everyone, we'd be here for a really long time)

What are the problems with the current system?

The real problem is that there is no system. No-one is regulating whether the bodies are reburied or not. Even archaeologists who favour reburial think that two years is nowhere near enough time to complete their research. The wheels of archaeology grind slowly. 

In my opinion, reburial could be an option in some situations, as where we have a large number of bodies from a site, and have completed the relevant tests, and there are many other available sample bodies from that time period. This may solve problems of storage space, and may go some way to appeasing druids and other reburial advocates. However, I think a blanket policy of reburial is short-sighted, likely to stunt archaeological work and frankly stupid. Assessment on a case-by-case basis might work for remains dug up from now on, but there would be conflict surrounding any criteria that were chosen, and going back through the archives would be unbelievably time-consuming and expensive.  


But more importantly: what do you think?

I’m planning on using responses from this particular blog post in an essay discussion of this topic, so please keep it clean, and to the point. I’d prefer it if you leave your ideas here, rather than on the link comments section on Facebook, as they’d be much easier to archive that way.

16 comments:

  1. ... Well, see...
    In so far as I am concerned, once you are dead, all that is left is a hollow shell, its part of the reason that I am signed up to be stripped for parts that are still usable at the end via organ donation. Paganism being a decentralised belief system, I know pagans who are of the belief that once the life's breath leaves the body, it is to be returned to the ground to feed it and continue the cycle(Though there are obviously those who would disagree with that assessment, etc.). We aren't talking about desecrating corpses here, but exhuming for study and science. They are giving their wisdom to their descendants in the most physical way possible, telling us of their lives, struggles, hopes, joys and passions. If anything, not reburying is really quite a beautiful thing.

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  2. My thoughts are, that reburial could cause great confusion if records of the burial are lost the remains are dug up again in 100 years. If anything constant burial and digging up would be more disrespectful than keeping them in one place whether it is on display or in a basement.

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    1. Agreed. The bones most likely to be reburied currently are those dug up when archiving was far more haphazard, and bones tended to get lost. Obviously, losing a person in your archives isn't that respectful, but nor is digging them up again!

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  3. What must druid burial entail? Merely being below earth or are other significant criteria required?

    It may be expensive, but would it not be possible to reach a compromise: Perhaps museums could shallowly bury the remains in a way that would protect them yet make exhumation relatively simple if required, with a clear way of identifying the specimen buried there(perhaps a grave-marker with relevant identification data and also any required religious symbols_? I presume they need to be buried outdoors in the open, perhaps museum- or trust-owned lands would be ideal for this.

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    1. Reburying with the option of digging them up again is quite a popular solution. However: you have to protect them from weathering etc. so you end up burying in metal canisters and then what's the difference with those canisters being above or below ground?

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  4. Once you're gone you're gone. Science trumps inanimate objects.

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  5. The question here is how far to we take the wish to respect the practices and customs of other cultures, and whether these cultures we are examining the remains of are as worthy of our consideration as, say, one in modern society. Now, I have no issues with my body being used for medical science once I have died, if I can help another to live through this, then this is a good thing. However, there are those who, for whatever reason (personal belief, religion, etc), disagree with this. Even though we might think this position is unreasonable, I think we would mostly respect the decision.

    If we now look at the case of the reburial of remains, the question that needs to be asked is do we show the culture the same respect as we may for modern cultural beliefs? Do we show the same respect, even though anyone who would actually remember these people, who would have laughed and cried with them, who would have seen them off in their traditional way, are long since dead and buried themselves? Should that even be an issue, shouldn't we just be pragmatic about it all, since we live in more "enlightened" times, and we understand that whatever is done to the body is unlikely to disturb the preferred afterlife that the individuals subscribed to?

    Personally, I am not sure where I stand on this. While I agree that scientific research is a necessary thing, and thus holding on to the remains is useful, I'm not really sure that what we believe to be acceptable given our modern understanding is any more worthy of respect than what the people in years gone by believed in, given the context of their times.

    I've actually not mentioned the "druids" in all of this, because I don't think they know, any more than any one of us, what is, or is not right in this situation. Their understanding of the problem is unlikely to be based directly on millenia old information and is much more likely to be derived from more modern interpretations. Though they can claim to speak for what they believe is the interests of the people whose bodies might be being stored, I don't believe, personally, they have any grounds to claim to be able to do it definitively.

    Of course, it might be the case that had the ancients known about what was to come, about the possibility of them contributing in this way, some of them might have been all for it. But we are unlilkely to ever know this, and that leads us to the quandry we find here.

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    1. So you're saying we should respect how people disposed of their dead, no matter how or when they did it, and not disturb them wherever possble? In that case, how should we proceed if we're moving an ancient graveyard because someone wants to build a car park on it? Should we not build the car park, and put it somewhere else? (And if so where: archaeology is everywhere). Would it make a difference if that building were a hospital?

      And once you've moved them, how much of an effort to you take putting them back "just so"? Do you carefully arrange the bones? What if they had been moved by burrowing animals etc. so you'd be putting them back "wrong"? What if it was the place, not the position that was so important to those people?

      That's just not practical.

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    2. But are you saying that because we cannot be sure of these things, we should in fact abandon all attempts at showing any kind of respect? I am not saying, either, that holding on to remains is in all cases disrespectful. The phrase "case-by-case" has been banded about, and this is a perhaps sensible stance to adopt, with circumstance and our level of understanding of the funeral practices guiding our actions.

      However, though, I would perhaps like to suggest for discussion, a kind of transposition of respectful practice. What I mean by this, is instead of attempting to recreate arcane burial rites we know little of, we just attempt to deal with the remains in a way which, we, as people in the age we live in, would find respectful. The important thing in this all would be our -intent- rather than the means and methods of the process. If we show respect in oue -own- way, with the intention of honouring those who have gone before, surely that is a decent and proper way of dealing with such remains. Now, once again, I am not saying that this should, or should not be, a blanket provision, I am merely offering this suggestion up for debate.

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  6. This is a fairly difficult issue, I personally have no problems with the excavation and curation of human remains. They're dead bodies and nothing more than that.

    However in many cases this may offend people who's culture and practices hold value in these, most notably the excavation of burial sites from cultures that are still around, such as the Native Americans who's burial grounds have been dug up without consent. This seems like a great offence. Their culture still exists and this is directly offensive to allot of its people, as it should be. This is similar to digging up graveyards, just because they're from a different culture doesn't make it right. What's more, the benefit of digging these up seems limited since that culture is still around to teach us about their way of life meaning that what could be discovered through the excavation could be discovered by other means.

    But for me it becomes acceptable (and an intellectual necessity) to dig up the remains once the culture that buried them no longer exists. There is no one left to offend, and likewise no one left to teach us of the culture that buried them. Suddenly every means to glean knowledge about them must be taken, since it may not be available anywhere else. And isn't allowing that to happen the greatest insult to them? Some people say that the people of the time wrote books (/scrolls/engraved slabs/what have you), but history gets distorted and the contemporary writers were most certainly biased.

    I have an issue with the 'Druids' position. The Druid culture died, it didn't dwindle and cling to the edges of society waiting for a resurgence. IT DIED. What little we know about it was written by people who didn't take the time to study it, and who certainly didn't see them from an unbiased position. We know next to nothing about the original Druidic beliefs, what the modern 'druids' follow is almost, if not entirely invented from scratch based off a few stone circles. They have no claim to those bodies, especially since most of the bodies found couldn't possibly have been followers of the original Druidic faith, since that religion didn't span the entirety of pre-roman history. I respect their right to their beliefs, but only to the point until it interferes with science.

    Reburial should only be enforced for the bodies of cultures which are around to claim them. In this case the archaeologists aren’t being respectful, but rather the culture which owns the body is kindly allowing archaeologists to study it for a certain time and their wishes should be followed when it comes to the treatment of the bodies. Beyond that specific situation long term study and curation should be allowed without legal boundaries.

    That's my two pennies on this subject, I hope they come in handy for the essay.

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  7. I think this subject is possibly being thought of only by those left behind. We cannot know how those who were buried, felt about their burial. However they were clearly buried with love and ceremony (hence the interesting grave goods for study). It is a matter of respect. Personally I think storage in a respectful and decent manner is no different from 'storage' in a grave. however gawping at human remains is disrespectful (pitdown man, Egyptian mummies etc). I work in a cemetery and we would never gawp at the 'recently' dead. For the 21st C person the argument is what is respectful in our culture, not the long deceased's as we can't know.

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  8. In my opinion, reburial of pre-christian remains is more disrespectful than keeping them in storage. This is due to a lack of understanding of the contemporary practices of the time, so any attempt to recreate the practices is going to be little more than a mockery.

    Essentially the "Druid's" argument is invalid. They have next to no links with the Druidic Iron age culture that inhabited this island, being instead mainly based on victorian era hypotheses on what their rituals "might" have been.

    By reburying, we are not only screwing with the archaeological record, causing more future confusion, but also imposing contemporary viewpoints on past societies.

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  9. Losing context and burials to the deep dark recesses of the Archaeology Archives is obviously not ideal, and is entirely disrespectful. No one in life would appreciate being shoved into a corner and forgotten about, so why should we treat the dead with any less respect? Thus, some sort of resolution needs to be made.

    The issue can be compared really well to the recent event here: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/mormons-baptize-holocaust-victim-anne-frank-posthumously-says-report-1.414269 - Are we the Mormons in this case? Do we by reburying, face the same issues? Are we forcing bodies into a practice that, were the culture and person alive, cause outrage?

    It should really be about the simple, but important matter of respect – but unfortunately that matter turns into a complex beast of an issue when the means of understanding are denied to us.

    Therefore, I stand thus. Human remains should pose as a priority and if known, I believe that the dead should be reburied as they themselves would have wanted, with care and as soon as possible. I also believe that if it is not necessary, the dead should be able to remain in situ.

    If unknown, it may actually be better for them to remain in a safe place, just in case the future is able to bring forth through analysis what they really would have wanted. As you can tell, I err on the side of caution, but for good reason.

    Cultures all over the world bury the dead differently, and hold different fears of how the body is to be treated after they kick the bucket.

    Some Buddhists use Sky burials, Jews believe in keeping the body intact for the upcoming resurrection, and Hindus cremate their dead. And I know these are not the entirity of human practices.

    Should we really risk offence by using improper methods? Is it worth it?

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  10. It seems to me that there cannot possibly be any case for single piece of legislation that encompasses all finds past present and future. Nor is it possible to keep the interests of every group in account when devising any kind of policy. As such, a case by case system, taking into account the number of finds from each site, could limit the amount of controversy whilst respecting the interests of both archaeologists and spiritualists.

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  11. The other respondents have pretty much covered the major points, so a lot of this is just going to be meta-analysis.

    There've been three main flavours of argument so far:

    1) Appeals to the scientific benefits of storing remains.
    2) Critiques of the legitimacy of the druids' self-identification.
    3) Denial that the present situation is disrespectful.

    Number two is intuitively appealing, but it doesn't work on a wide scale. We can't ignore someone's grievances just because they're deluded - anyone who thinks that could work is the proof that it wouldn't. The fact that the druids have no legitimate connection to these bodies does not negate their pain.

    Likewise, I think it's a mistake to argue that exhuming and studying these people isn't disrespectful. It's too subjective. Whose perspective are you trying to represent? The druids'? They disagree. The dead people's? They don't have one. Your own? Fine, if you're just registering an opinion, but it's not helpful on a wide scale. If you're examining how people SHOULD think then your conclusions are necessarily inapplicable to the real world. If you're describing how they DO think, then... well, I'll get to that.

    None of which is to say that these topics aren't still genuine and relevant insights, backed by accurate facts and reasonable analysis. They're important, but only as inputs to a more consequentialist analysis, which I'll attempt to perform here by listing the things likely to be impacted by whatever decision is ultimately made.

    1) Scientific advancement. These samples can tell us about a wide slew of scientific disciplines (biology, medicine, geology, organic chemistry, anthropology, etc), in addition to being valuable to those with a personal interest in the past. Knowledge is a Good Thing.
    2) Druidic tempers. Discontent is a Bad Thing. That said, we're talking about minor, transient umbrage in a minority group that, frankly, seems to have no shortage of bugbears. It's not clear reburying the remains would actually increase happiness. Indignation is synchronically finite and diachronically infinite; if you're of a mind to complain, you'll do it as much and as loudly regardless of the severity of your issues.
    3) Public opinion. This is the trickier one. Will people be happier in a world where they're confident their wishes will be respected, post-mortem? If we disregard the deceased's interests, do we convince the common man of the inhumanity of their species? It's a hellish thing to try and judge. This is where the above arguments come back. If the world doesn't know about the issue, doesn't acknowledge the druids or doesn't find the current treatment disrespectful then this point disappears.

    Assuming I didn't leave out any major factors (legal precedence? cost? dormant zombie viruses?), and assuming you accept my consequentialist presumptions, all that's left is our subjective weightings of those three things. Personally, I think 1 is important, 2 is marginal and 3 is probably rendered minor by lack of public interest.

    AKA: Reburial's stupid, let's not do it.

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  12. The other respondents have pretty much covered the major points, so a lot of this is just going to be meta-analysis.

    There've been three main flavours of argument so far:

    1) Consequentialist arguments for the scientific benefits of storing remains.
    2) Critiques of the legitimacy of the druids' self-identification.
    3) Denial that the present situation is disrespectful.

    Number two is intuitively appealing, but it doesn't work on a wide scale. We can't ignore someone's grievances just because they're deluded - anyone who thinks that could work is the proof that it wouldn't. The fact that the druids have no legitimate connection to these bodies does not negate their pain.

    Likewise, I think it's a mistake to argue that exhuming and studying these people isn't disrespectful. It's too subjective. Whose perspective are you trying to represent? The druids'? They disagree. The dead people's? They don't have one. Your own? Fine, if you're just answering a survey. If you're examining how people SHOULD think then your conclusions are necessarily inapplicable to the real world. If you're describing how they DO think, then... well, I'll get to that.

    None of which is to say that these topics aren't still genuine and relevant insights, backed by accurate facts and reasonable analysis. They can still contribute to a pure consequentialist analysis, which I'll attempt to perform here by listing the things likely to be impacted by the decision.

    1) Scientific advancement. These samples can tell us about a wide slew of scientific disciplines, (biology, medicine, geology, organic chemistry, anthropology, etc), in addition to being valuable to those with a personal interest in the past. Knowledge is a Good Thing.
    2) Druidic moods. Discontent is a Bad Thing. That said, we're talking about minor, transient umbrage in a minority group that, frankly, seems to have no shortage of bugbears. It's not clear reburying the remains would actually increase happiness. Indignation is synchronically finite and diachronically infinite; if you're of a mind to complain, you'll do it as much and as loudly regardless of the severity of your issues.
    3) Public opinion. This is the trickier one. Will people be happier in a world where they're confident their wishes will be respected, post-mortem? If we disregard the deceased's interests, do we convince the common man of the inhumanity of their species? It's a hellish thing to try and judge. This is where the above druidic legitimacy arguments come back. If the world doesn't know, doesn't acknowledge the druids or doesn't find the current treatment disrespectful then this issue disappears.

    Assuming I didn't leave out any major factors (legal precedence? cost? dormant zombie viruses?), and assuming you accept my consequentialist presumptions, all that's left is our fuzzy, subjective weightings of those three things. Personally I think 1 is important, 2 is marginal and 3 is probably rendered minor by lack of public interest.

    REBURIAL: BURIED.

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