Add to Cart? The Ethical Landscape of Buying Human Bone in the United States

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This project examines the ethical landscape of the acquisition and curation of human skeletal materials for teaching purposes using the NCSU Human Skeletal Remains Collection as a case study. Lack of legislation in the United States regarding the sale of human remains, and an increase in social media, permits certain organizations and individuals to become well-known distributors in the market for skeletal material. Social media platforms provide increased exposure, broadening distributors’ influence in the marketing of human remains, exacerbating the bone trade and its monetary value. Additionally, differences in the quantity and effectiveness for foreign vs. domestic human remains legislation highlights differential availability and frequency in the trade of human skeletal material, perpetuating scientific racism. Detailed analysis of the NCSU collection identified common ethical issues such as isolated bones replaced with ones from another person to sell a ‘complete’ skeleton, and bone disguised as art to pass through customs. While access to real bone can benefit students learning osteology, selecting “Remove from Cart” by choosing to replace real bone with cast material may be a more ethical choice given the lack of regulation regarding the bone trade in the United States. This poster contains images of human remains.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36257.0