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Agree. No distinct answers with all cases sensitive, fluid and need to be handled individually (yanks NAGPRA:Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). One thing in OZ (which is same in the Americas and Kiwiland) is to encourage more indigenous students into anthropology/archaeology as its mainly white, middle class (in my case middle aged!) guys n gals (with good intentions). I think ethics come down to respect of others as well as the archaeology and a little bit of thought and soul searching at times.
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The gradual loss of tribal identity in your example is surely, more a reflection of the extent to which the capitalism of the western nations has been a catalyst for nothing short of "acculturation" of other cultures through the imposition of dominant ideologies.I agree, we should discuss why British archaeology does not attract a more culturally diverse workforce.
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yeah sure, but where do we draw the line. look in any archaeology text book and you'll see pictures of dead people (ok maybe skeletons)
presented in photo montage format, now to me this is unethical and quite wrong. but the people who write these books are generally university lecturers, if they are unethical how can we expect any different from their students?
deep
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Deep, I think there are some issues on the publication of human remains, but if its part of the archaeological record then its part of the recorded recorded. As long as the remains are not treated as a side show. In my lectures, prior to the display of human remains (physical or photographs) lecturers would ask if anyone had issues (usually of a cultural nature i.e. Aboriginals don't talk about the deceased) about seeing them. If there was a yes then they were not shown.
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the one problem with that being that if just one person does not want to see pictures of human remains, which is their right, no one else gets to see them either.
++ i spend my days rummaging around in dead people ++
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I realise what your saying and I think its more to do with a level playing field in education. In this instance it's within a general level of information, where as if it was a specific osteo or a bio anthropology course then those people with issues would not be there in the first place (one should hope!).
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Take a look at the way that the dead are represented in Mark Edmonds ancestral geographies of the neolithic as an example. the skeletons are treated as a sideshow i think.
deep