Repatriate? or not?

[BAJR]

[h=5]Ceri drops this debate onto you

Open for debate

http://musingsofanunemployedarchaeologis...riate.html

[/h]

[Jack]

Interesting.

Two things I can think of.

When are human remains just bones, or when does a human become scientific data?

Why would modern pagans or druids have any more of a say on what happens to ancient remains than anyone else.....both their religions started in the modern era.

[kevin wooldridge]

The recent fuss over Richard III seems to me to epitomise the pointlessness of this debate. Should he be buried in Leicester or York. Should we be returning the 'Viking' dead of Repton or the St Brices massacre in Oxford to some vague Scandinavian locale, or all Romans to Rome. Start on a slippery slope and imagine where it might lead. How about if the French/Belgians went along with this and returned 1 million British war dead from WWI....where would we put them all!!

[Oxbeast]

This got kicked around ad infinitum a couple of years ago when a small group of pagans requested reburial of some of the human remains from Avebury. The NT hald a pretty wide reaching public consultation on it. There was also a gigantic thread on here, which might be useful to Ceri. It boiled down to:
We KNOW that more analytical techniques will be developed. We don't know that there is continuity between modern and ancient beliefs.

@Kevin, I think a Welsh group asked for the repatriation of the Stonehenge bluestones last year.

[P Prentice]

the interesting aspect of the debate then is - who owns the dead?

[Dinosaur]

legally? nobody. they're dead.

and as such I seriously doubt that they care...what business is it of the Druids etc anyway? They're as likely to be my relatives and I want them left where they are thanks

[Sith]

..something along the lines of telling the whining ninnies to get lost, it's our stuff now.

Sounds like a quote from a potential English Heretics/IfA guidance document.

[P Prentice]

i think i threw in all my ranting about this sort of thing when the druids originally started trying to hijack history; did i delete it when i threw that strop a while back? can't remember, if you can work up the energy to look for it, i think i said something along the lines of telling the whining ninnies to get lost, it's our stuff now.

isnt hijacking history what we do?

[BAJR]

Owning the dead is a good one for us up here in Scotland as there is no way to own the dead. and this is causing much legal debate with treasure trove and splitting up grave assemblages... as the crown have rights over the items but not the skeletal remains. and who is the relative you contact for that iron age person?

Ah... I miss the druids! ( not!)

[P Prentice]

by 'hijacking' do you mean our goal of excavating and recording as objectively as we can, and making our archives openly accessible so that other researchers can draw their own conclusions?

yep hijacking with our own particular interpretations