Bones of Contention: Further Investigation into the Online Trade in Archaeological and Ethnographic Human Remains

Summary

Within the global antiquities trade, especially that (significant) portion of it conducted online, the size and scope of the trade in archaeological and ethnographic human remains continues to be poorly known. In 2014, the authors researched and published the first comprehensive update of what is known about the online component of this trade c. 2013, conducting common search engine queries over two months to creating a database to record recent or ongoing sales, and then explore questions of supply and demand, categories of artifacts being sold, and who is buying and selling. This paper will present new results that expand on Huffer and Chappell (2014), re-assessing previous conclusions in light of a larger database, discussion of additional case studies, and further discussion of the motivations, legal loopholes, and ethical considerations that keep this aspect of the antiquities trade alive.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Investigating the trafficking of cultural objects: novel and interdisciplinary approaches   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage