Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia Ancient Human Reconstructions and aDNA Is there an ethical dilemma? Anna Sointula Kandidatuppsats 15 hp i arkeologi VT 2020 Handledare: Helene Martinsson-Wallin Campus Gotland Abstract Sointula, A. 2020. Ancient Human Reconstructions and aDNA – Is there an ethical dilemma? The Department of Archaeology and Ancient History. Sointula, A. 2020. Forntida Mänskliga Rekonstruktioner och aDNA – Finns där ett etiskt dilemma? Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia. In recent years, archaeogenetic studies have been widely discussed in popular media and they have raised many questions, especially regarding cultural identity and ethnicity. This thesis discusses reconstructions based on ancient human remains and how they are related to the current academic hegemony and political circumstances in Europe. People of Britain have reacted particularly strongly to the reconstruction of the Cheddar Man, exhibited in the Natural History Museum in London. Based on this and few other reconstructions of ancient individuals, the ethical issues behind human reconstructions are analyzed and how museums and popular media as the public spaces displaying these pieces of art should deal with such issues as cultural heritage, human origins, and identity. Under de senaste åren har arkeogenetiska studier diskuterats allmänt i populära media och de har väckta väckts många frågor speciellt kring kulturell identitet och etnicitet. Denna studie diskuterar rekonstruktioner baserat på forntida mänskliga kvarlevor och hur de är relaterade till den nuvarande akademiska hegemonin och den politiska omständigheter i Europa. Människor i Storbritannien har reagerat särskilt starkt på rekonstruktionen av Cheddar-mannen, utställd i ”Natural History Museum” i London. Med utgångspunkt i denna och ytterligare några rekonstruktioner av forntida individer analyseras etiska frågor bakom mänskliga rekonstruktioner och hur museer och populära medier ska hanterar frågor om kulturarv, mänskligt ursprung och identitet. Keywords: Human and Facial reconstructions, Ethics, Ethnicity, Race, Cultural identity, Archaeogenetics, aDNA Nyckelord: Människo och ansiktsrekonstruktioner, Etik, Etnisitet, Ras, Kulturell Identitet, Arkeogenetik, aDNA Kandidatuppsats i Arkeologi 15 hp. Handledare: Helene Martinsson-Wallin. © Anna Sointula Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia, Uppsala universitet, Campus Gotland, Cramérgatan 3, 621 67 Visby, Sweden Acknowledgments I would like to express my gratitude towards my thesis advisor, Helene Martinsson-Wallin, who has helped me with the structure of this thesis and been patiently correcting my grammatical errors. Without this guidance, this thesis would have not become complete. I am also very grateful for my mother and friends who have provided me with their love and support during this process. Table of contents 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 5 1.1. Aim and research questions ..................................................................................................... 5 1.2. Method and material ................................................................................................................. 6 1.2.1. Source criticism.................................................................................................................. 6 1.2.2. Delimitation ....................................................................................................................... 6 1.3. Theory ....................................................................................................................................... 7 1.3.1. Definitions of ethics, ethnic group and cultural identity .................................................... 7 1.3.2. Postcolonialism .................................................................................................................. 7 1.3.3. Agency and practice ........................................................................................................... 8 2. Background ....................................................................................................................................... 9 2.1. History of human reconstructions ........................................................................................... 9 2.2. Archaeogenetics ........................................................................................................................ 9 2.3. Ethics of museum displays ..................................................................................................... 10 3. Material presentation ....................................................................................................................... 12 3.1. Cheddar Man .......................................................................................................................... 12 3.2. Whitehawk Woman ................................................................................................................. 13 3.3. Cro-Magnon Man ................................................................................................................... 13 3.4. Myrtis ....................................................................................................................................... 14 4. Analysis ........................................................................................................................................... 16 4.1. Nobel whiteness and savage darkness? .................................................................................. 16 4.2. aDNA – problem or possibility? ............................................................................................. 18 4.3. Human reconstructions of Ancient people at Museums and Popular Media ...................... 20 5. Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 23 6. Results ............................................................................................................................................. 26 6.1. Future studies ......................................................................................................................... 27 7. Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 28 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 29 Illustrations .......................................................................................................................................... 33 1. Introduction Facial reconstructions have always managed to fascinate many people. The older the depicted individual is and the more precise details the reconstruction contains, the better. Recently, there have been a growing number of headlines in public media focusing on the latest results in the art and science of human reconstructions and it seems that people today have a growing interest in what their ancestors might have looked like and their origin. Therefore, archaeologists today are also facing many new and important questions. The results of the latest ancient DNA studies have proved helpful in making human reconstructions more precise. However, these recent studies in the field of archaeogenetics have caused a lot of controversy regarding ethnicity and cultural identity, for example. The results regarding the skin and eye colour of these ancient people are the results which people have seemed to be surprised by and some scholars have even deemed the methodology behind these studies questionable (Furholt 2019) and have argued that there might be a danger of people drawing overly hasty conclusions and wrongly using this scientific data (Niklasson 2014). This thesis discusses the ethics of human reconstructions of ancient people, which is a relevant and important topic due to those recent results and discoveries of ancient DNA studies. There are as yet no common ethical guidelines which especially touch on the issue of ancient DNA sampling (Austin et al. 2019). This makes it important to question how these studies should be interpreted and employed for the benefit of the general public and how ancient human reconstructions should be interpreted and displayed in public spaces, such as museums and popular media. 1.1. Aim and research questions The aim of this thesis is to give new points of view on the ethical concepts and issues that the field of archaeology faces today. There is a great need for bringing information and awareness to the public as well as the academic community on how to interpret and communicate scientific results regarding archaeogenetics. When carrying out reconstructions of ancient human skeletal remains it is important to discuss which information is important for research and if there is a risk for misuse of this scientific data. In addition, the ways that ethnicity and cultural identity and their relation to human origins in Europe are represented through ancient human reconstructions should be considered. The aim of this study was to find out whether there was an ethical dilemma in relation to human reconstructions of ancient people, especially concerning those constructed based on the results from ancient DNA studies. In order to fulfil the aim of