Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T06:21:20.561Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The repatriation of human remains – problem or opportunity?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2015

Laurajane Smith
Laurajane Smith*
Affiliation:
An Australian archaeologist, currently based in the Department of Archaeology, University of York, The King’s Manor, York, YO1 7EP (Email: ls18@york.ac.uk)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The editor’s question “who do human skeletons belong to?” (Antiquity 78: 5) can be answered positively, but it must be answered in context. The question was prompted by reports from the Working Group on Human Remains established by the British government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in 2001 to review the current legal status of human remains held in all publicly funded museums and galleries, and to consider and review submissions on the issue of the return of non-UK human remains to their descendent communities (DCMS 2003: 1-8). In effect, the report was primarily concerned with human remains from Indigenous communities, using a definition which follows the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as “distinct cultural groups having a historical continuity with pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories” (DCMS 2003:7). Consequently, the report deals primarily with the Indigenous communities of Australia, New Zealand and North America.

Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 78 , Issue 300 , June 2004 , pp. 404 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

AAA 1991 Code of Ethics. On line. http:www.archaeology.usyd.edu.au/AAA/Ethics/index.html Google Scholar
ANON. 2003 Report Recommends Repatriation of Ancestral Remains. New Scientist.com. Online. http://www.newscientist.com.au/articles/news (accessed 16 January 2004).Google Scholar
Appleton, J. 2002 Battle of the Bones. Spiked Culture. Online. http://www.spiked-online.com/articles (accessed 12 January 2004).Google Scholar
Appleton, J. 2003 No Bones About it. Tech Central Station – Where Free Markets Meet Technology. Online. http://www.techcentralstation.com (accessed 16 January 2004).Google Scholar
Attwood, B. 1989 The Making of the Aborigines. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
ATSIC 2003 ATSIC News: The Other Stolen People. http://www.atsic.gov.au/news_room/atsoc_news/Winter_2003/Other_Stolen_People.asp (accessed 16 January 2003).Google Scholar
Bailey, M. 2003 UK Museums Disagree on Bones. The Art Newspaper.com. Online. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/museums/museums.asp (accessed 16 Januray 2004).Google Scholar
Baxter, M. (ed.) 2003 Contending with Human Bones, special edition, Archaeological Review from Cambridge 16(2).Google Scholar
Clarke, A. 2002 The ideal and the Real: Cultural and Personal Transformations of Archaeological Research on Groote Eylandt, Northern Australia. World Archaeology 34(2):249–264.Google Scholar
Cox, M. 1996 Crypt Archaeology after Spitalfields: Dealing with our Recent Dead. Antiquity 71:8–10 Google Scholar
Cox, M. 1998 (ed.) Grave Concerns: Death and Burial in England 1700–1850. York: Council of British Archaeology.Google Scholar
Davidson, I., Lovell-Jones, C. & Bancroft, R. (eds) 1995 Archaeologists and Aborigines Working Together. Armidale: University of New England Press.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. 1998 Science and Sensibility – Queen Elizabeth Hall Lecture, London March 24, Series title: Sounding the Century (‘What will the Twentieth Century leave to its heirs?’). Online. http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Dawkins/Work/Articles/1998–03-24science_and_sensibility.shtml (accessed 19 March 2004).Google Scholar
DCMS 2003 The Report of the Working Group on Human Remains. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Cultural Property Unit.Google Scholar
Egan, T. (1998) Old Skull Gets White Looks, Stirring Dispute, New York Times, 2 April. Online. http://nytimes.com/archive/ (accessed 26 September 2003).Google Scholar
ENGLISH HERITAGE. 2000 Power of Place: The Future of the Historic Environment. London: English Heritage.Google Scholar
Fforde, C. 2002 Collection, Repatriation and Concepts of Identity in Fforde, C. Hubert, J. and Turnbull, P. (eds) The Dead and Their Possessions: Repatriation in Principle, Policy and Practice. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fraser, N. 2000 Rethinking Recognition, New Left Review. Online. http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR23707.shtml (accessed 12 November 2003).Google Scholar
Fray, P. 2003 The Bone Keeper’s Dilemma. Sydney Morning Herald, 9 June. Online. http://www.smh.com.au (accessed 10 July 2003)Google Scholar
Field, J., Barker, J. Barker, R. Coffey, E. Coffey, L. Crawford, E. Darcy, L. Fields, T. Lord, G. Steadman, B. & Colley, S. 2000 ‘Coming back’: Aborigines and Archaeologists at Cuddie Springs. Public Archaeology 1:35–48.Google Scholar
Goodman, A.H. 1998. The Race Pit, Anthropology Newsletter, May. Online. http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-01–10.htm (accessed 24 October 2003).Google Scholar
Greer, S., Harrison, R. & Mcintyre, S.. 2002 Community-based Archaeology in Australia. World Archaeology, 32(2):265–287.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 1992 Theory and Practice in Archaeology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Howard, J. 2000 Media Release: Joint Statement with Tony Blair on Aboriginal Remains. Online. http://www.pm.gov.au/news/media_releases/2000/Aboriginal_4–7.htm (accessed 19 March 2004).Google Scholar
Howard, J. 2003 Media Release: Indigenous Remains UK Report. Online. http://www.pm.gov.au/news/media_releases/media_Release557.html (accessed 12 January 2004).Google Scholar
Jenkins, T. 2003 Burying the Evidence. Spiked Culture, 24 November. Online. http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles (accessed 12 January 2004).Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, M. 1999 The Archaeology of Death and Burial. London: Sutton Publishing.Google Scholar
Lahn, J. 1996 Dressing up the Dead: Archaeology, the Kow Swamp Remains and Some Related Problems with Heritage Management, in Smith, L. and Clarke, A. (eds) Issues in Archaeological Management. St Lucia: Tempus Publications, University of Queensland.Google Scholar
Mcguire, R.H. 1992 Archaeology and the First Americans. American Antiquity 94(4):816–832.Google Scholar
Mckie, R. 2003 Scientists Fight to Save Ancestral Bone Bank. The Observer 28 September, News14.Google Scholar
May, J. (2001) Kennewick Man Finds Common Ground in Old Adversaries. Online. http://www.indiancountry.com/?2390 (accessed 9 October 2002).Google Scholar
Meighan, C. 1984 Archaeology: Science or Sacrilege? In Green, E.. (ed.) Ethics and Values in Archaeology. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Meighan, C. 1992 Some Scholar’s Views on Reburial. American Antiquity 57(4):704–410.Google Scholar
Mulvaney, D.J. 1991 Past Regained, Future Lost: The Kow Swamp Pleistocene Burials. Antiquity 65:12–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MUSEUMS AUSTRALIA. 1999 Policies: Continuous Cultures Ongoing Responsibilities. Online. http://www.museumsaustralia.org.au/structure/policies/ppno/ccor.htm (accessed 22 March 2004).Google Scholar
Newman, A. & Mclean, F.. 1998 Heritage Builds Communities: The Application of Heritage Resources to the Problems of Social Exclusion. International Journal of Heritage Studies 4(3 and 4): 143–153.Google Scholar
Preston, D. (1997) The Lost Man. New Yorker 73(16):70–81.Google Scholar
Reeve, J. (ed) 1993 The Spitalfields Project: The Archaeology. York: Council for British Archaeology.Google Scholar
Rose, J., Green, T. & Green, V.. 1996 NAGPRA is Forever: Osteology and the Repatriation of Skeletons. Annual Review of Anthropology 25:81–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shanks, M. & Tilley, C.. 1987 Social Theory and Archaeology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Smith, C. & Burke, H.. 2003 In the Spirit of the Code, in Zimmerman, L.J. Vitelli, K.D. and Hollowell-Zimmer, J. (eds) Ethical Issues in Archaeology. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.Google Scholar
Smith, L. 1994 Heritage Management as Postprocessual Archaeology? Antiquity 68:300–309.Google Scholar
Smith, L. 1999 The Last Archaeologist? Material Culture and Contested Identities. Aboriginal Studies 1999/2:25–34.Google Scholar
Smith, L. In press, 2004 Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, L., Morgan, A. & Van Der Meer, A.. 2003 Community-Driven Research in Cultural Heritage Management: The Waanyi Women’s History Project. International Journal of Heritage Studies 9(1):65–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swain, H. 2002 The Ethics of Displaying Human Remains from British Archaeological Sites. Public Archaeology 2(2):95–100.Google Scholar
Richardson, R. 1987 Death, Dissection and the Destitute. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tindill, J. 1999 When What’s Mine Cannot Be Yours: Scientific Constructions of Heritage and the Repatriation of Human Remains. Unpublished conference paper given at the European Association of Archaeologists, Fifth Annual Meeting, University of Bournemouth, 14–19 September, UK Google Scholar
Trigger, B.G. 1980 Archaeology and the Image of the American Indian. American Antiquity 45(4):662–676.Google Scholar
Trigger, B.G. 1989 A History of Archaeological Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ucko, P. 1987 Academic Freedom and Apartheid. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
WAC 2003 Media Release: World Archaeological Congress Supports British Govt Report Recommendation on Returning Bones, unpublished document, Friday, 7 November.Google Scholar