Anticipating Community: Slow Bioarchaeology in Legacy Anatomical Collections

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Communities of Engagement: Incorporating Deep Time and Slow Science into Community Based Research Projects" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recent publications outlining ethical guidelines for the handling of human skeletal remains stress the necessity of obtaining informed consent from donors, lineal descendants, descendant communities, and/or communities of care before conducting research. However, when consent cannot be secured—as is often the case with legacy anatomical collections—these guidelines recommend that institutions with custodianship undertake additional research to identify potential lineal descendants, descendant communities, and communities of care. Researchers working with such legacy collections can facilitate this process by designing their research to generate information that benefits not only their own studies but also descendants and communities of care that have yet to be identified. Slow science, which emphasizes research that serves the public good, provides a valuable framework for developing outputs that address both immediate research objectives and facilitates future community engagement. This presentation provides a case study outlining steps taken to improve public access to information about the Hamann-Todd Human Osteological Collection (HTHOC), identify and reduce financial barriers preventing community access to information about the deceased, and improve the accuracy of available information about the people included in the HTHOC.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Communities of Engagement: Incorporating Deep Time and Slow Science into Community Based Research Projects

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53247