Interact! How Do Archaeologists “Care” for Human Ancestors’ Remains?

Summary

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

Conceptions of “care” are increasingly a topic of interest in anthropological archaeology, and often sit at the intersection of discussions around ethics, best practices, and archaeological research, teaching/training, and curation involving the physical remains of human Ancestors. Care may be perceived as related to preserving the physical integrity of an Ancestor’s physical body, demonstrating respect to and for the Ancestor, and may encompass practices which reflect the Ancestor’s and/or researcher’s worldview and culture. These practices also vary in their implementation, from formalized protocols to individual researcher preference. Here, we consolidate existing discourse around “care” for human Ancestors’ remains. We highlight how care is perceived and enacted in the context of research with Ancestors’ remains and biological materials, teaching and training involving the use of Ancestors’ remains, and curation of Ancestors within archaeological collections. Next, we ask meeting participants to engage with this discourse and reflect on their own training and practices in an interactive survey response format recorded on the poster. The interactive results will demonstrate how archaeologists perceive of and perform care for Ancestors in the context of their own work, as well as how these perceptions and practices are learned and formalized in the field.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37459.0