Episode 36 - The Unsettling Business of Curating Human Remains

Here at The Dirt, we talk a lot about the things that people leave behind, but we’ve not spent much time talking about what’s left behind of the people themselves. That changes this week, when Anna and Amber discuss excavating, storing, studying, and selling archaeological human remains, and take a look at some of the legal and ethical challenges involved. Content note: this episode contains descriptions of violence done to deceased people and discussion of trafficked human remains.

To learn more about the topics discussed this week (and be advised that there are a lot of images of archaeological human remains included), check out:

They Sell Skulls Online?! A Review of Internet Sales of Human Skulls on eBay and the Laws in Place to Restrict Sales (Journal of Forensic Sciences)

Human Skulls Are Being Sold Online, But Is It Legal? (National Geographic)

FAQ (Pandora’s Box UK)

The Long Ethical Arc of Displaying Human Remains (Atlas Obscura)

Human Remains: The Sacred, Museums And Archaeology (Public Archaeology)

Prof. Bob Muckle on Twitter

Mourning an Aboriginal death (Creative Spirits)

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (Wikipedia)

Grave Injustice: The American Indian Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA

NAGPRA as a Paradigm: The Historical Context and Meaning of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 2011 (Proceedings of the Ninth Native American Symposium)

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) (via National Parks Service)

Repatriation and Traditional Care (Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology)