A Morbid Taste for Bones? Reconciling Science and Ethics in Mortuary Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "There and Back Again: Celebrating the Career and Ongoing Contributions of Patricia B. Richards" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Dead bodies are a source of a range of extreme emotions in human societies past and present, from superstitious fear of the dangerous dead (burials at cross-roads in medieval Germany) to ancestor veneration and the curation and display of skeletal remains (catacombs in Portugal, Italy, and other areas of Europe). However, the expectation that the dead, once buried, will be allowed to rest in peace is a comforting fiction, as archaeologists working in CRM or heritage management know only too well. Most members of the public are unaware that the dead far outnumber the living, making their eventual disturbance due to human activity, such as urban sprawl or industrial development, and natural forces, such as coastal or riverine erosion, virtually assured. Archaeologists serve as one of the few buffers between the random and violent destruction of such remains, as often happened in the past, and their careful recovery and respectful analysis. Pat Richards has spent the better part of her professional career dealing with the tension between the public perception of mortuary archaeology and its practical reality. This paper will unpack the challenges of engaging in mortuary archaeology in an increasingly politically motivated anti-science ecosystem with global reach.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• There and Back Again: Celebrating the Career and Ongoing Contributions of Patricia B. Richards   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37751.0