Body Farms, Archaeology, Death and Ethics!

A little while ago I was talking with a classmate about death, burials... the usual... and the topic of body farms was brought up.  Body farms are facilities people donate their bodies to where decomposition can be observed, studied, and used in the understanding forensic anthropology.

Stemming from this slightly morbid conversation, I began thinking about concepts related to this class; concepts of consent and ethics related to the investigations and diggings of artifacts and human remains in archaeology. In the case of the body farms, people consent to their bodies being used for science, however, the bodies examined in archaeology is not necessarily a consensual thing.

Excavations can arise from the unexpected.  For example when people start building a house find bones in the ground, a quick archaeological excavation most-likely would occur.  Also, archaeologists may go out hoping to uncover remains and artifacts in various terrains, such as the high-altitude burial sites of the Inca child sacrifices (for more information on this, check out our project).  But, should these remains be uncovered and examined?  How should they be used? What is appropriate treatment of the remains?

As the class is drawing to an end, and before I submit my blog, I'm left feeling a bit torn about the ethics surrounding archaeology.  Ethics, like Erin said today, are culturally based.  If they are culturally based, how can there be a overall acceptance in what is appropriate archaeology (i.e. how sites should be excavated and what do do with remains).  

So going back to body farms... the bodies found in these farms have consented to the acts that occur.  Remains, both artifacts and bodies, found across the world did not consent to the examinations that are occurring in archaeological digs.  So what can one do?... Are case-by-case investigations useful? Is it appropriate to create a committee that has a say on what should happen with remains? Should remains be left alone? If remains are left alone, where does archaeology lie?  I'm left with a million questions, which I think is a good thing, and I wonder how other people in this class feel about the ethics surrounding archaeology as well...

I think that archaeology is useful, you can gain a lot of information about societies both past and present, but I must admit that studying archaeology has often brought up concerns for me regarding the ethics that surround the discipline.  As I've progressed through this degree, the one thing I think is important for me to remember when examining the past is to try and keep an open mind and to be critical about all information. I need to remember that not everyone has the same beliefs and values as I do.

Kinship and Archaeology

Topic of this entry:
- Examination of kinship and burials in archaeology
- What are the newer approaches to kinship

For my article assignment in this course, my focus of investigation was on how anthropologists study kinship through archaeology.  In class we were asked to explore the newer approaches used in examining kinship.  While finding an article, I was surprised by how limited newer anthropological articles on kinship studies were. When I did find anything newer, a lot of the articles were based on biological approaches.    

In our class text, Archaeology of Death and Burial by Parker Pearson (1999), the end of chapter 5 examines some newer approaches in kinship studies.  Biological investigations are becoming a more prominent approach used to uncover kinship of the deceased.  Depending on the remains, for instance if soft tissue is still present or if the teeth are available, scientific examinations are proving useful by providing connections and leading to potential interpretations and meanings in past societal organization and structure.

One example where biological techniques are used is in the examination of DNA.  If there are multiple burials in an area and DNA information is something archaeologists are able to access, anthropologist can determine whether or not the individuals were related biologically.  Another example of these techniques is the examination of teeth.  Teeth can be used to understand the diet of the deceased allowing for the potential to understand class differences through diet - if the diet was the same or similar, this may indicate the individuals were related or close in societal organization.

Examining kinship through archaeological artifacts such as houses or the locations of the deceased in a burial never seemed right to me; there are so many potential interpretations that can arise.  So after reading the research on biological approaches in uncovering kinship, I was beginning to favor the direction of biological techniques as the better approach to questions of kinship...

However...

There are some issues in biological approaches to kinship as well.  For example, it is limited when DNA isn't available... furthermore...

One interesting fact Erin brought up in class was that even if you were able to uncover biological connections amongst the deceased this may not be accurate either.  For instance, biological approaches used in examining DNA of the deceased can indicate whether or not the individuals were blood related, but what if the kinship relations in the society being investigated is not based on blood relations?  What happens if kinship ties are based on social relations and blood relations do not have close (or even any) ties with each other?

So, I'm still torn on how I feel about kinship studies.  Understanding past societal relations are often examined in anthropology, but how can it be examined accurately?  Furthermore, if we use, for instance, nuclear family structures as our template, we are examining a very western notion related to kinship - how can we avoid these types of biases in anthropology?

Cave People of the Himalaya

For our group project on Inca child sacrifice, a lot of these mortuary practices have been found at high elevation mountain summits.  I came across another archaeological site, exploring mortuary practices on mountains this time in the Himalayas. On this webpage, you can find information and a short video clip/trailer on this site and research.  The video is pretty neat; technical climbers were hired to help the archaeologist reach the caves on the mountain cliff face.  The process of getting to these caves is pretty extreme... this process gives me a new perspective on how extreme finding mortuary remains can be.

March 10th Blog Prompt

In order for our wee 3 person group, consisting of a mountain, a little c-diddying, and myself (a guinea pig farmer?!), I searched for a website to compare our current project to.  The three of us are exploring the topic of Inca child sacrifice - a slightly morbid topic, but a topic that is very suitable for the group of Cadavers Inc. who also enjoy interpretive expression to share ideas and stories... sadly this is too hard to show via blogging, so I'll use written comments instead today...


My website of comparison, is wonderful site for guidance and examination.  The topic of my chosen site is based on a news article about 3 frozen Inca child mummies from the high elevation site of Mount Llullaillaco.  My chosen website uses this news article as their basis of discussion, however the website quotes the article word for word for the most part - a problematic aspect since plagiarism is a bit of an issue.  The website, itself, has pictures of a mummy between some of the paragraphs, something that I think can draw in the reader and thus be useful in our own website.  Another thing this website has, is a section for comments. There is quite a mix of comments posted, but some fairly useless or even inappropriate ones.  I'm not sure comments would be good for our project's website, but it can bring in an interesting potential for further analysis and dialogue.  

In the meantime, since I know we all have lots of free time, here's another website and video with more information on the topic of Inca child sacrifice!

--> website

--> video on the documentry discussed in the above website

The documentary is an example of another way to share archaeological findings and research to the general public.  

Inca Child Sacrifice as Computer Wallpaper!?

For our project we're looking into Inca child sacrifice and I was exploring the internet for an website for our blog prompt, and stumbled upon the National Geographic site photography section.  I was surprised to find that you can download an image of a child sacrifice for your computer wallpaper.  The image itself is of the lower portion of the child's body in a crouching position.  You cannot see the face of the child, but you can see the arm, hand, and feet of the child.

I found this somewhat disturbing - a place where you can download images of the remains of people for your computer wallpaper?  It got me thinking, how I react to images of skeletons and mummies on the internet and how I react to images in our articles.  Would I have reacted the same way if this image was not of a child or a mummy? Is the reason that you can download this image for the sole purpose of a computer background what startled me?  How do these images on the internet affect you? Do you react differently to  images that are in academic sources versus images that can be accessed for entertainment or for the general public as computer wallpaper?

Click here for the link... you can choose the size of wallpaper you want and find other images for computer wallpaper (there's also a image of an "iceman").