Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Human remains as curios have a long history. Following recent revelations about and arrests for trading in donated individuals’ remains from medical institutions, the archaeological component of the human remains trade is again under scrutiny. Scholars have researched isolated aspects of this illicit trade, often focusing on Indigenous remains, case studies, and broad issues of the commodification of these items. This symposium gathers diverse perspectives on these issues that analyze and contextualize this trade, reviewing existing and proposed new means for monitoring and stemming the human remains market, particularly relating to elements derived from archaeological and cemetery contexts. Individual presentations include ethical considerations of the human remains marketplace; analytical examinations of various human remains markets; grappling with anthropology’s own troubled past with regard to human remains; fitting traded remains into a biohistorical narrative; identifying and consulting descendant communities regarding proper treatment and disposition of remains; and fitting the marketplace within legal schemes to ensure that enforcement occurs. Discussions of these efforts among the broader changes occurring in anthropology and bioarchaeology, the trafficking of human remains is again ripe for consideration to ensure that enough protection of these remains exist and that their humanity does not get lost during commodification.

Other Keywords
Bioarchaeology/Skeletal Analysis • Ethics • Cultural Heritage and Preservation • Collections • Forensic Archaeology • Museums • Forensic Anthropology • digital archaeology • trafficking • Cultural Resources and Heritage Management

Geographic Keywords
North America • United States of America (Country) • United Mexican States (Country) • Department of Martinique (Country) • Republic of El Salvador (Country) • Department of Guadeloupe (Country) • Cayman Islands (Country) • Antigua and Barbuda (Country) • Turks and Caicos Islands (Country) • Bermuda (Country)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-10 of 10)

  • Documents (10)
Documents
  • Best Practice Recommendations for the Treatment of “Discovered” Human Remains Lacking Provenance (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Passalacqua. Kaleigh Best. Rebecca George. Katie Zejdlik.

    This is an abstract from the "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years there have been a number of high-profile cases where human remains were “discovered” resulting in media attention due to the unethical conditions in which the remains were encountered. Unfortunately, the discovery...

  • Bone Collectors: Personhood and Appeal in Human Remains Sales on Facebook (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Evelyn Breda.

    This is an abstract from the "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The desire to own human skeletal remains has been prevalent for many years; in our modern technological age avenues for this market have exploded across the internet. This research focuses on Facebook groups dedicated to oddity...

  • Buy One, Get One: The Legal and Sociocultural Context of “Gifting” within the Australian Human Remains Trade (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Damien Huffer. Shawn Graham.

    This is an abstract from the "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Today’s online human remains trade—how it operates, where remains come from, and how algorithmic amplification allows for complex networks to form between buyers, sellers, and middlemen—has seen an increasing amount of research...

  • Collaborative Approaches to Ancestral Remains Protection, Recovery, and Repatriation in Oregon (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Elissa Bullion.

    This is an abstract from the "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The sale, trade, and otherwise mistreatment of human remains is an issue impacting a diverse institutions and entities, from sovereign Tribal nations, to universities, to law enforcement. This unethical and illegal behavior can be...

  • Historical Bodies and the Marketplace: Ethical Engagement (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only William Duncan. Christopher Stojanowski.

    This is an abstract from the "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Commerce and trade in human remains involves a panoply of thorny ethical questions surrounding rights of the dead and the authority of the living to speak for them. Trafficking of human remains may be defined as unauthorized,...

  • The Illicit Sale of Human Skeletal Remains in Washington State: Where the Law Stands Now and Insights for Future Protections (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alex Garcia-Putnam. Guy Tasa. Jackie Berger.

    This is an abstract from the "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Washington State has one of the most progressive sets of laws in the United States governing jurisdiction and process surrounding the discovery and investigation of human skeletal remains. The law dictates how human skeletal...

  • Practicality in the Enforcement of Human Remains Trafficking in Louisiana (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Halling. Ryan Seidemann.

    This is an abstract from the "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Louisiana Department of Justice (LDOJ) has routinely monitored online sites for trafficking of human remains and antiquities since 2007. Since that time, new state laws have been enacted to strengthen the ability to confiscate...

  • A Role for the Machine, or, Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, and Some Humans in the Loop Studying the Human Remains Trade (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Shawn Graham. Damien Huffer.

    This is an abstract from the "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Human remains are traded openly across social media and the wider web. The posts that accompany these texts are sometimes graphic, often disrespectful, and normally afford no dignity to the dead. The imagery can similarly show no...

  • Tourist Trinket, Religious Object, Human Remains, or Something Else: Kapalas in the Online Market (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sovi-Mya Wellons. Ryan Seidemann. Christine Halling.

    This is an abstract from the "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Buddhist and Hindu Tantra practitioners have a well-known tradition of salvaging the skeletal remains of tantric monks from sky burials and converting elements for subsequent ceremonial use. These converted remains, broadly...

  • What Happens in the Ivory Tower: The Academic Trade of Archaeological Human Remains (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Aimée Carbaugh. Krystiana Krupa. Eve Hargrave.

    This is an abstract from the "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While much of the recent discussion around the trafficking and illicit trade of human remains focuses on the black market and sales utilizing sites such as eBay or various social media platforms, we examine the historical practice...