In the last year, there has been a rapid increase in actions that involve removing human remains and photographs of human remains from anthropology and archaeology classrooms, conference halls, publications, and museums, including the American Museum of Natural History, the Penn Museum, and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. These museums and many others around the nation and the world are also removing skeletal remains and mummies from displays.
The decision to cease using photos of human remains and artifacts at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference made headlines in Science. Larger organizations, such as the Society for American Archaeology, have also been captured by this movement. And, the new president of the American Anthropological Association stated in her presidential address that “on the morality of photo displays in anthropology reminds us that even the dead, the unnamed, deserve to have voice in our use of their stories in our research.”
Museum websites, such as Mütter Museum’s, have removed all images of human remains from their research catalog, and the Smithsonian’s Written in Bone, a website for use in high school classes to engage students with forensics, archaeology, and health, has been replaced with apologies for showing skeletal remains.
In May, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that professors of anthropology, including bioarchaeologists who study skeletal remains found in archaeological sites, forensic anthropologists who study skeletal remains at crime sciences, and even paleoanthropologists who study early humans, like Neanderthals, are taking steps to cater to students with “heightened personal and cultural sensitivity.” These mostly Millennial scholars are using “trigger warnings” before photos of skeletal remains appear in the lecture slides, or even choosing to use “drawings of the dead instead of photos in their slideshows.” Some professors even opt to “train students on plastic bones instead of real ones.” Although these changes are occurring to a greater extent in the U.S., professors in the U.K. are taking such precautions.
The disappearance of human remains and photographs of human remains from museum exhibits and in the classroom is a travesty.
We are losing the wonder of studying the past, the surprise that comes from learning about the individual diversity of bones, and the ability to separate feelings from curiosity. Ironically, even though in the WSJ article, a Harvard anthropology senior states that “[t]here’s no harm in adding a trigger warning,” trigger warnings have actually been shown to increase people’s anxiety and actually do deaden people’s appreciation of the image that they are about to view—whether this affects one’s ability to appreciate the beauty and wonder of anatomy is unknown.
As a physical anthropologist who spent my career studying skeletal remains, especially from precontact Native Americans, I can see the end of our field of study, especially in California, where three recent laws—AB275, AB226, and AB389—are burying science.
California passed AB389, which “prohibits the use of Native American human remains or cultural items for the purposes of teaching or research at the California State University.” This will empty anthropology labs that teach students the skills of osteological identification needed for careers in medicine, cultural resource management, and forensic anthropology. Forensic anthropologists help identify victims of some of the worst tragedies, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the FBI siege of the Branch Davidian cult. Their skills can only be learned on collections of real bones: intact, broken, burnt, and fragmented.
Yet, even if one thinks that models and drawings are the way forward, they will also be removed from access.
During recent Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) meetings, Native American activists and their allies discussed their concerns over pictures and casts. They spoke of ways to obtain casts from European museums and to prevent private companies from making casts for use in classrooms. The reason for these concerns: they fretted that “if you can create something to entice the spirit of someone to inhabit it, you can control it,” and the casts, they argue, can “entice the spirit.” Thus, these items—now considered a legitimate substitute for real bones—will also face calls for repatriation and will be destroyed.
A bizarre blend of squeamishness about human remains, coupled with superstition-based indigenous activism, is robbing students of the chance to learn about death properly. It will also have dire, unforeseen consequences, especially when this ideology spills out of anthropology and into fields such as medicine, as is already beginning to happen. Are you ready for the next generation of doctors, trained not on human remains but on—at best—computer simulations? Count me out!
Photo by Krakenimages.com — Adobe Stock — Asset ID#: 685818781
