15th October 2005, 11:13 PM
The new guidelines only cover skeletons from Christian burial grounds, and it is rather a weighty tome, but it basically says that unless developers can mitigate the disturbance of human remains by changing their plans or rafting the site (the Home Office will not grant a licence for disturbance of human remains if the site is going to be piled), then all skeletons have to be fully excavated if they lie within the excavation area. This excavation also extends to recovering and wet-sieving the grave fill to recover small bones and teeth. In terms of post-excavation work, the developer has an obligation to provide funds for further work on the skeletons, at least upto the assessment phase, and onto analysis if the collection is deemed to be osteologically and archaeologically important (a decision that has to be made by the osteologist at the assessment phase) and also for the reburial (which cannot take place before the assessment phase has been completed, and should not take place if the collection is deemed as important) or long term storage of the collection.
++ i spend my days rummaging around in dead people ++
++ i spend my days rummaging around in dead people ++