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CHAPTER 1 BIOARCHAEOLOGICAL ETHICS: PERSPECTIVES ON THE USE AND VALUE OF HUMAN REMAINS IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PATRICIA M. LAMBERT and PHILLIP L. WALKER (DECEASED) In the first and second editions, this chapter we work with the remains of once‐living was prepared by PLW. In the current edition people, and with their living descendants. the chapter has been revised and updated Added to these are ethical issues associated by PML. with the collection, handling, and curation of the remains of the dead, primarily emerging from differing value systems concerning con INTRODUCTION cepts of death and the afterlife, appropriate treatment of the dead, and the nature of the The rapidity of technological and cultural relationship between the living and the dead. change in current times is forcing us to con These are the ethical dilemmas we must be front a myriad of moral dilemmas over issues mindful of and prepared to deal with as we as wide ranging as the ethics of human tissue pursue our studies of human skeletal remains. donation (Hamdy 2016), the ownership of our The enormous strides we have taken toward genetic material, the meaning and limits of human equality in the last century mean that “informed consent” in relation to stored bio formerly disenfranchised and enslaved mem logical samples (Radin 2015; Smith‐Morris bers of minority groups have begun to gain 2007), the ethical use of social media (Gray power and control over their lives. In many 2017), and the rights of animals relative to countries there has been a decline in the politi those of humans. These ethical issues concern cal dominance and moral authority of organ the very nature of whatCOPYRIGHTED it means to be human ized religions. MATERIAL Notions of multiculturalism and and our relationships, not only to other people, a growing acceptance of the moral principle of but also to the plants and animals that sustain not discriminating against people based on us. In bioarchaeology, we confront many of the gender, ethnicity, or religious beliefs mean that same ethical issues found in medicine and there is no longer a predominant set of cultural other fields involving human subjects because values we can use to guide us in dealing with Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton, Third Edition. Edited by M. Anne Katzenberg and Anne L. Grauer. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 3 0003612692.INDD 3 7/4/2018 2:46:39 PM 4 BIOARCHAEOLOGICAL ETHICS: USE AND VALUE OF HUMAN REMAINS IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH moral issues (Cottingham 1994). In this between these beliefs and the value scientists context, the growing recognition of differing place on the empirical information that can be belief systems about the dead has raised impor gained through research on human remains. tant questions concerning the treatment of This is followed by a discussion of the human skeletal remains, especially those from generally accepted ethical principles that have archaeological contexts. emerged in recent years in the field of bioar The increased tolerance of cultural diversity chaeology. Finally, some practical suggestions poses ethical dilemmas because, as the range are offered for dealing with conflicts that arise of value systems and religious beliefs that when these ethical principles are at odds with are considered socially acceptable increases, those of descendant groups. so does the probability of social conflict. To deal with these issues, many scientific associations have begun to reevaluate the ethi THE HISTORY OF BELIEFS ABOUT cal principles that underlie their research activ THE DEAD ities. Ethics in bioarchaeology are especially problematic because the field is positioned Early in the history of our lineage, ancestral between medicine, with its ethical focus on the humans began to develop a keen interest in the generation of scientific knowledge that is help remains of their dead kinsmen. At first this was ful to individual patients, and anthropology, likely simply a response to the practical con with its ethical principles shaped both by a siderations of removing the decaying remains deep belief in the power of cultural relativism of a dead relative from one’s domicile or pre to overcome ethnocentrism, and profound venting scavengers from consuming their commitment to the preservation of our collec body. More elaborate patterns of mortuary tive human past. behavior soon began to develop. Cut marks on It is in this context that skeletal biologists the crania of some of the earliest members of are increasingly required to adapt their activi our species, for example, show that as early as ties to the value systems of the descendants of 600,000 years ago people living at the Bodo the people they study. Human skeletal remains site in Ethiopia were defleshing the heads of are more than biological materials of value for the dead (White 1986). It has been suggested scientific research. For many people, they also that such practices reflect a widespread belief are the subject matter of religious veneration of among our ancestors concerning the role of the great symbolic and cultural significance brain in reproduction (La Barre 1984). (Sadongei and Cash Cash 2007). Over the past By 50,000–100,000 years ago, mortuary thirty years, formerly disenfranchised groups practices had evolved into elaborate rituals that such as Native Americans and Australian involved painting bodies with red ochre and Aborigines have increasingly been able to including food or animal remains with the assert their claims of moral authority to control body as offerings (Mayer et al. 2009). Through the disposition of both the remains of their time these cultural practices became associated ancestors and the land their ancestors occupied with increasingly complex religious beliefs (Howitt 1998; Lambert 2012; Scott 1996; that helped people cope with the uncertainties Walker 2004). This trend toward repatriating of death. Depositing utilitarian items and valu museum collections and granting land rights to ables such as ornaments in graves became indigenous peoples is most readily understood commonplace in the Upper Paleolithic period. within a broader social and historical context. Such practices suggest continued use of these To provide this historical perspective, we items was anticipated in the afterlife (Giocabini describe the evolution of religious beliefs 2007). Expressions of such beliefs can be about the proper treatment of the dead and the found in some of the earliest surviving reli conflicts that have arisen over the centuries gious texts. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 0003612692.INDD 4 7/4/2018 2:46:39 PM THE historY OF BELIEFS ABOUT THE DEAD 5 for instance, provides spells and elaborate which were laid in the grave, being then again directions for use by the souls of the deceased raised up by the power of Christ (Laderman during their journeys in the land of the dead 1996:54).” (Allen 1960; Ellis N. 1996). Although religiosity appears to be declin The belief that the soul persists in an after ing in modern Western societies as a whole world has deep roots in Western religious tra (Eurobarometer 2005; Franck and Iannaccone ditions. The ancient Greeks held elaborate 2014; Lipka 2015), such beliefs in the funeral rituals to help a dead person’s soul find continuance of life after death nonetheless its way across the River Styx to a community remain prevalent. For example, about 72 % of of souls in the underworld. Once in the under American adults believe in heaven and some world there was continued communion 58 % believe in hell (Pew Research Center between the living and the dead. For example, 2014). These numbers are lower but still the soul of a dead person could be reborn in a substantial among Canadians, with 53.5 % new body if their living family members con expressing belief in an afterlife, though less tinued to attend to their needs by bringing them than 30 % express belief in a fiery hell honey cakes and other special foods on cere (Johnson 2010). Other surveys show that 24 % monial occasions (Barber 1988). By medieval of American Christians believe in reincarna times most people continued to view death as a tion (Ryan 2015) and 25 % of European semi‐permanent state in which the living and adults report having contact with the dead the spirit of the dead person could maintain (Haraldsson and Houtkooper 1991). contact with each other. Folktales about ghosts Belief in God also varies considerably in and corpses coming to life were widespread Western countries, from a reported high of and contributed to the idea of the dead func 95 % in Malta to a low of 16 % in Estonia tioning in society with the living (Barber 1988; (Eurobarometer 2005). In the U.S., 89 % of the Caciola 1996). The issue of the integrity of the general population say “yes” to a belief in God corpse and its importance to the afterlife or a universal spirit (Lipka 2015). In spite of dominated medieval discussions of the body: speculation about the secularizing effects of salvation became equated with wholeness, and education and academia, about 88 % of highly hell with decay and partition of the body educated people in the U.S. believe in God and (Bynum 1995:114). 70 % are members of a religious congregation After the Reformation, conservative (Winseman 2003). While it is true that scien Protestant groups continued to emphasize the tists tend to be less religious than the general profound significance of a person’s physical population, this pattern varies globally. Over remains after death. In fact, one of the more 50 % of scientists in countries as diverse troublesome issues facing Protestant reformers as India, Italy, Taiwan, and Turkey identify as after the abolition of purgatory in the early religious, and in places such as Hong Kong and sixteenth century was the need to provide a Taiwan scientists are actually more likely to rational explanation for the status of the body identify as religious than members of the gen and soul in the period intervening between eral public (McCaig 2015, citing the work of death and resurrection (Spellman 1994).

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