Collecting the Dead: Archaeology and the Reburial Issue

by Cressida Fforde

The controversial 'reburial issue' first developed about thirty years ago when some indigenous groups started to campaign for the return of their ancestral human remains from museums and collecting institutions, and these requests were refused. Since then, museums in some countries have responded positively to repatriation requests while those in others continue to refuse them. This incisive book provides the reader with what has been generally missing in the current debate and available literature - a detailed historical understanding of how and why these collections were amassed, and the responses of indigenous groups and collectors at the time. The book focusses particularly on Australia as a background to its documentation and examination of the issue. The reburial question has had wide repercussions for all involved. Today, the topic is of continuing relevance for archaeologists, anthropologists and museum professionals, as well as for many indigenous groups worldwide. The issue highlights two very different approaches to items which hold exceptional importance in many cultures - human remains.It is also about the relationship between science and the people whose past is the subject of academic enquiry, and how the sometimes hegemonic nature of this relationship has, through the issue documented here, relentlessly bubbled to the surface. What may appear at first a simple clash of interests is thus revealed to have many deeper aspects.

208 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2004

Reviews

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for my MSc Archaeology dissertation very interesting and helpful!

[Mick Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I would give this book 4 stars. It presents one side of a very complex situation and gives a good history of the reburial issue. Having the references in the text rather than as footnotes is annoying but it is well researched, written and thought-out. The issue became prominent in the 1970's & 80s with the rise of various indigenous political groups mainly in New Zealand and Australia who claimed ownership of remains held in collections amassed over the past 200 years or so. As the original theories which gave rise to the collections were realised to be erroneous the remains were relegated to basements as mere curios largely uncatalogued and forgotten. When the politics of indigenous groups came to the fore and demanded the return of 'their' ancestors many curators must have been secretly quite happy for the chance to clear out the now useless relics.

A few years later it began to be released through the new science of ancient DNA analysis that the collections could provide us with an amazing amount of information about humanity's shared origins. Sadly political expediency triumphed over science and the aboriginal communities set about reclaiming and destroying what they regarded as thefts by their colonial oppressors. Good politics but bad science as they also destroy the chance to understand more of their own history and ultimately everybody loses the chance to explore our common origins.

The author tells us that there is a proven living descendent of the 5,000 year old iceman but doesn't tell us if she would support that relative if they were to claim ownership and demand reburial. Nor if she agrees with the claims of the modern day Druids and would hand the remains found at Stonehenge over to them for reburial. For me this was a very depressing book particularly when I read that the demands include the 'return' of fossils many thousands of years old.

For balance try "Who We Are and How We Got Here' by David Reich for an understanding of what can be learned from the retention of such collections and how the possibilities increase almost daily.