Why do you think you’re entitled to dig up peoples bodies and conduct research on indigenous people? That kind of entitlement is the cause of everything bad in the tech industry.
There's a limit, surely. After 3 generations of nobody having known you living: surely your body must have reverted to general property.
I don't want to start a holy war, I understand sentimentality. But if you dug up my great grandfathers great grandfather then honestly I have absolutely no connection to the man and his body could be anywhere on earth. It's not my property and despite sharing some of my genes it's part of the earth at that point.
What once was a man merely returned to the atoms and microbes of the planet that bore it.
That would be massively influenced by culture. An atheist materialist from the West is going to have a totally different view to someone from a culture where burial has all sorts of codified behaviours and beliefs associated with it.
Many indigenous cultures care deeply about their ancestors. And not just the most recent batch of them. Your idea that the remains of the dead should become "general property" that can be harvested, used, and/or abused as anyone sees fit is both absurd and offensive. Sorry, but we are sentimental creatures pretty much as a rule. We do get to pick and choose what we are sentimental about (to some degree), but it turns out a lot of people care about their ancestors and perhaps even the ancestors of other people in their community/culture who they aren't directly related to.
>What once was a man merely returned to the atoms and microbes of the planet that bore it.
Bones last for centuries, millennia, and longer. In fact bones are the very thing we are discussing (in the form of teeth), and they are obviously very much intact beyond your arbitrary 3 generation cutoff. So while your sentiment may be noble and erudite, it's not relevant at all.
thats kinda my point though. If you accidentally come across 300 year old human remains then of course care should be taken.
However after 8 generations there is already so little connection left, keeping in mind 8 generations is roughly 160-240 years.
Yes, we are sentimental creatures, however if we hold that human remains are permanently sacred then we will run out of habitable space on the planet if we continue to bury our dead.
Except we're not talking about "indigenous people". The study wants to investigate the teeth of pre-industrial Europeans, the polar opposite of indigenous people in that slightly vague dichotomy.
> pre-industrial Europeans, the polar opposite of indigenous people
I don't understand what you mean? Why would pre-industrial Europeans not be indigenous? Because they (in Britain) partly displaced the previous Celtic inhabitants (who themselves had likely displaced others before them)?
You appear to be missing the part where these are not British scientists researching British remains in Britain.
Yes, the Americans and Australians should ask before taking British remains from Britain away for research in their labs. I don't see where the research is conducted but there isn't any mention of collaboration with the UK so this would involve exporting the remains.
Good example for why such rules were introduced. Although not perfectly applicable since there is no hope to locate an Egyptian mummy's heirs nowadays. Although we are quite sure that they would have disapproved.
The bulk of modern Europe was covered in thick glacial ice, when it receded the "first Europeans" walked in from the south.
A number got a lot paler after many generations in the more northern parts, others less pale, and those near the Mediterranean were neither ghost white nor midnight black.
Now throw in a steady low rate of long distance trade - traders travelled, as did those enslaved and traded.
The Roman settlements in England were mainly established by people not from modern Italy, they came from across a broad part of the full Roman Empire, one fort was manned by Africans.
So - legitimately mostly white skinned people with a small percentage of every other shade. Depending very much which bit of "Europe" you're looking at.
> A number got a lot paler after many generations in the more northern parts, others less pale, and those near the Mediterranean were neither ghost white nor midnight black.
IIRC the current theory is that genes responsible for white skin in Europe were initially introduced by farmers migrating from Anatolia and the middle east (white skin appearings somewhere there or closer to the Caucasus). They almost entirely replaced the indigenous much darker skin hunter gatherers in many areas of Europe,
> one fort was manned by Africans.
North Africans. Who were most likely more "white" back then than now (Trans-Saharan slave trade which transported millions of people from Sub-Saharan Arica wasn't a thing back then).
As I stated, travelling throughout Europe, through the territories of the Roman Empire, all manner of complexions could be seen, some less frequently than others - but there were certainly rich, powerful, and very dark traders from abroad along with no shortage of Mediterrian complexions.
The assumption is that unlike minorities, indigenous Europeans are represented by their governments. As Europe becomes more diverse, that may become less true and it will be necessary to ask them directly.
You completely missed my point. How can anyone possibly ask the descendants of 500+ year old plague victims whether they consent to research on their teeth. Do you just go round knocking on every door in a 10 mile radius? I'm British, and so might be descended from the bodies they did research on. They didn't ask me - and they shouldn't have to.
Fine, clear it with an ethics committee, be open about what you're doing and debate the implications. But asking the descendants? That's not practical.
For the record, I've never conducted research on indigenous people - and have no plans to.
> How can anyone possibly ask the descendants of 500+ year old plague victims whether they consent to research on their teeth. Do you just go round knocking on every door in a 10 mile radius?
How many bodies do UK museums have stolen from other countries? The British museum alone states 6,000 human remains of which I don't know how many are non-UK.
>"Held in a number of departments for display and research, over 6,000 human remains are in the care of the Museum"
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I don't want to start a holy war, I understand sentimentality. But if you dug up my great grandfathers great grandfather then honestly I have absolutely no connection to the man and his body could be anywhere on earth. It's not my property and despite sharing some of my genes it's part of the earth at that point.
What once was a man merely returned to the atoms and microbes of the planet that bore it.