The ethical treatment of human remains after excavation is a core debate in archaeology. This project explores the treatment of human remains in some European museums with an aim to support open discussion of complex ethical issues among research and heritage professionals involved in the care of human remains.

In 1949, human skeletal remains discovered by RCMP Inspector Henry Larsen near Cape Felix, King William Island, Nunavut, were identified as an adult male of European ancestry and a member of the 1845 Franklin Northwest Passage Expedition. The identification has never been questioned and is considered significant to reconstructions of the fate of the Franklin expedition because the sailor’s death presumably pre-dated the desertion of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror in April 1848 and because no other human remains of expedition personnel have ever been found between Victory Point and Cape Felix. The aim of this study was to re-examine the basis on which the ancestry of the skeleton was interpreted to be European. A review of archival records revealed previously unpublished details concerning the location and context of the discovery, and re-assessments of the antiquity and of key morphological attributes of the bones suggest they are those of an adult male Inuk and have no connection to the 1845 Franklin expedition.

This article focuses on the ancestral human remains of Indigenous peoples that were taken by European invaders during the colonial era. It begins by considering the notion of human remains. It then describes the two types of heritage that result from the removal of human remains: the tangible heritage made of the remains exhibited or stored in the museums or universities of former colonial States, and the intangible heritage made of the collective memories of the surviving communities and their descendants about the removal (and the absence) of the stolen remains. The article next examines the role of national and international laws with respect to the restitution of human remains by exploring the concept of transitional justice. This article argues that transitional justice can facilitate the meaningful repatriation of ancestral human remains and hence the healing of past injustice.

The study of human remains can provide valuable information about aspects of past populations. Here we present an updated database consisting of 590 radiocarbon (14C) dates for human remains from Holocene South Africa before European contact. We calibrated or recalibrated all the previously published dates using the most recent calibration curve for the southern hemisphere. Each date is roughly georeferenced and plotted according to their Stone Age or Iron Age contexts, revealing the broad distribution pattern of dated Holocene human remains across South Africa—perhaps reflecting aspects of past population distribution and densities, but also underscoring historical collection practices, archaeological research focus, and preservation conditions. We use Kernel Density Estimation models to show peaks and troughs of dated remains through time, with Later Stone Age peaks at ∼5.5 ka cal BP, ∼2 ka cal BP and ∼0.5 ka cal BP, and Iron Age peaks ∼1.1 ka cal BP and ∼0.5 ka cal BP, some of which show broad correspondence to climatic data. Our data, based on dated remains only, do not provide a full reflection of past populations, and our large-scale, coarse-grained analysis cannot yet assess the reasons for the peaks in dated human remains in detail. Yet, the study provides a new resource, and a data-driven overview that highlights aspects to be explored with further contextual analyses against the available archaeological records, population histories and climatic indicators through time and across space.

Previous research on the Neolithic cist graves of the Western Alpine region—also known under the term Chamblandes type graves—mostly focused on sites located in western Switzerland and eastern France. For the adjacent Aosta Valley (Italy), only a little information is available. Within the framework of our research project, it was possible to identify about 120 stone cist graves from 10 sites in the Aosta Valley. Due to the lack of distinctive grave goods and missing absolute dating, however, their chronological position has been unclear until now. Here we present the first extensive series of radiocarbon dates from Neolithic stone cist graves of the Aosta Valley. We analyzed 31 human bone samples from four sites, and most dates indicate an unexpected early chronological position around the first half of the 5th millennium BCE, in particular, the site of Villeneuve, dating to 4800–4550 cal BCE. This identifies these burials from the Aosta Valley as belonging to the oldest known Neolithic cist graves of the Western Alpine region discovered so far. Altogether, our study provides new evidence allowing the first time to clarify the chronology of these sites and trace the evolution of this burial practice in the Western Alps.

This paper sets out the results of radiocarbon, histological, and contextual analysis of human remains from non-mortuary contexts in Middle and Late Bronze Age Britain. In the latter period in particular, human bone (much of it fragmentary and disarticulated) has frequently been recovered from settlement contexts and from other locations, such as waterholes, across the wider landscape. However, the source and post-mortem trajectories of such finds are poorly understood. The results of our analyses indicate that some of these finds come from primary burials while others were the result of post-mortem processes such as excarnation. Certain fragments appear to have been curated for lengthy periods of time but there is much less evidence for deliberate curation of bone than there is in Early Bronze Age graves, although other forms of manipulation, such as cutting and shaping of bone fragments, have been recorded. In contrast to the Early Bronze Age, where it has been argued that curated bones may have belonged to venerated ancestors, some of the individuals from the sites discussed in this paper had suffered violent deaths, suggesting that bones selected for manipulation, curation, and deposition may have belonged to a variety of different categories of person.

In the summer of 1986 a mass grave was discovered along the bank of the river Tryggevælde Å where it empties into Køge Bugt, the bay south of modern Copenhagen, Denmark. The human remains, dating to the late Mesolithic Ertebølle culture, consisted of eight individuals of multiple ages, ranging c. 35–45 years old to newborn children. Four were arranged on one side of the grave, with four on the other, placed head to foot. How they were related and what befell them is a mystery. Herein, we present a bioarchaeological assessment of these individuals for the first time and apply an acid etch-based analysis of dimorphic sex chromosome-linked tooth enamel peptides to confirm their biological sex. Our results allow a direct connection between engendered grave treatment and biological sex in non-adult individuals as young as c. 4 years of age. We conclude with a discussion of the possible circumstances of their deaths and their possible relationships to one another.

While the Early Neolithic chambered tombs of the Isle of Man are well known and the Late Neolithic has been clearly defined with reference to a distinctive suite of artefacts, little is known about the Middle Neolithic. This article reports on 17 new Neolithic radiocarbon dates from cremated human remains from the Isle of Man. These identify five burials in cists as Middle Neolithic and indicate new sequences of activity at cemeteries starting in the Middle Neolithic. Each of these sites is examined in detail. The dates also spur a reconsideration of the development of Ronaldsway pottery and the integration of Grooved Ware pottery and motifs into early 3rd millennium practice on the island. The paper ends with a consideration of the changing effects of mortuary practices throughout the Neolithic on the Isle of Man and a discussion of connections with Middle and Late Neolithic activity in Ireland and Britain.

This text is a reflection on the fate of a special kind of scientific object - anatomy collections - and their place in contemporary times. Though the phenomenon of keeping and displaying such collections is generally dying out, those specimens which survive continue to puzzle and fascinate us. To understand the current status of such collections, and the nostalgia evoked by the specimens within them, I argue, we should approach them as modern ruins. This allows us to think of them as places of absence, pointing to unfinished lives and unfinished scientific projects. The paper begins with the story of a preserved human face from the Francis I. Rainer anatomical-anthropological collection (Bucharest), and continues by discussing the fate of that collection, and of anatomy collections more widely. Ultimately, the paper asks, what is it that we want to preserve: specimens, practices, or research philosophies?

Jacob’s Well, located in modern city of Nablus and ancient Shechem (Tall Balata) in the northern West Bank of Palestine, attracts modern day tourists and pilgrims. It is found in the eastern suburbs of the city. Since 333 AD, pilgrims have been writing accounts of the well, and it has been venerated by both Christian and Jewish communities throughout its history. It is believed to be the well referred to in the New Testament, where Jesus conversed with a Samaritan woman, the orthodox saint, Photini. It now forms the central feature in the crypt of the St Photini Greek Orthodox church in the walled grounds of a monastery. In order to gain more information on the chronology of the site, we analyzed human skeletal remains found at the site in 1997. These consist of three skulls and a femur. One of the skulls was found in a sarcophagus alongside the church and the two other skulls and a femur were found in a burial ground alongside the monastery, north of the church, over which a room has now been built. Radiocarbon analysis reveals that the remains date to four historical periods or events: the early Christian period, before structural additions to the well by Constantine the Great in the fourth century; the Samaritan Revolts (AD 529 and 556), the Sassanid Invasion (AD 614–628), and Abbasid rule (AD 750–1258). Dating of one skull suggests it may have been that of Germanus, a fourth century bishop of Nablus, and that there may have been a very early structure, shrine, or burial chamber at the site before the fourth century. We provide contextual information based on historical and contemporary literature.

Human remains interred in parish churchyards or in consecrated portions of local authority cemeteries are within the faculty jurisdiction of the consistory courts of the Church of England. A faculty is required for the disturbance of human remains lying within the faculty jurisdiction. This article will examine the law surrounding consecrated burial grounds in England and the disinterment of human remains therefrom and what this demonstrates about the principles of the ecclesiastical law of England relating to their protection. If ecclesiastical law provides for the protection of human remains, what is the justification for that and how adequate is the protection? The article will compare the consistory courts’ treatment of human remains with the regulation of remains outside the faculty jurisdiction, and attempt to relate canonical principles towards human remains with the legal character of consecrated ground. It will investigate whether the modern treatment of human remains is different from the treatment of remains in the past. By these comparisons I hope to better explore what justifications exist for the approach the consistory courts have taken in regulating disturbance of human remains.

The excavation of a building in the village of Felanitx in the eastern part of the island of Mallorca (Balearic Islands) has revealed the existence of a small necropolis. The inhumations did not provide grave goods except for a bronze belt buckle for which the typological study suggests a Late Antique chronology. The stratigraphical sequence however seems to suggest a possible evolution of the space across time since some graves are cut by others. In order to obtain an absolute date for the necropolis and to verify if there are chronological differences between the graves, a total of 6 human bones samples have been 14C dated by AMS. The results of the radiocarbon dating confirm a Late Antique chronology (4th to 7th century AD) for the graves but do not suggest a chronological evolution. Despite the fact that the knowledge of the necropolis is still fragmentary, the results are extremely important because they provide an absolute date for a Late Antique necropolis in the Mallorcan rural area.

Physical evidence of weapon trauma in medieval burials is unusual, and evidence for trauma caused by arrowheads is exceptionally rare. Where high frequencies of traumatic injuries have been identified, this is mainly in contexts related to battles; it is much less common in normative burials. Osteological analysis of one context from an assemblage of disarticulated and commingled human bones recovered from a cemetery associated with the thirteenth-century Dominican friary in Exeter, Devon, shows several instances of weapon trauma, including multiple injuries caused by projectile points. Arrow trauma is notoriously difficult to identify, but this assemblage shows that arrows fired from longbows could result in entry and exit wounds in the skull not incomparable to modern gunshot wounds. Microscopic examination of the fracture patterns and spalling associated with these puncture wounds provides tentative evidence that medieval arrows were fletched to spin clockwise. These results have profound implications for our understanding of the power of the medieval longbow, for how we recognise arrow trauma in the archaeological record and for our knowledge of how common violent death and injury were in the medieval past, and how and where casualties were buried.

The archaeology of genocide, war crimes, and mass death has become a growing sub-discipline in recent decades, with the most attention given to the locations of National Socialist ‘terror and mass death’. Within genocide research, the porajmos, or genocide of Romani people, is not a well-known topic, especially in Slovenia. Contrary to popular belief, the mistreatment of Romani and violence against them was not inflicted only by the Nazis and their allies, but by pro-communist-orientated Slovenian partisans as well. Archaeological traces of three mass executions have provided us with evidence of serious and poignant crimes committed against the Romani ethnic minority. The remains might have a significant role in determining whether these crimes are a part of porajmos or not and represent a unique material testimony of crimes against the Romani population in the Slovenian and the wider European context.