Ethics and Archaeological Human Remains
As the remains of once living people, human remains require ethical considerations above and beyond those applied to other classes of archaeological material. These ethical considerations apply to their excavation, curation and display, as well as their use for research purposes.
The excavation, display and research of human remains has a long history, and treatment of the dead has varied over time. Towards the end of the 20th century, increasing discussions focused on respect for the dead and the need to produce standards and guidance to ensure that human remains were handled ethically.
The Vermillion Accord on Human Remains was adopted in 1989 at the World Archaeological Congress Inter-Congress in Vermillion, South Dakota, USA. The Accord sets out the following principles for the ethical treatment of human remains:
- Respect for the mortal remains of the dead shall be accorded to all, irrespective of origin, race, religion, nationality, custom and tradition.
- Respect for the wishes of the dead concerning disposition shall be accorded whenever possible, reasonable and lawful, when they are known or can be reasonably inferred.
- Respect for the wishes of the local community and of relatives or guardians of the dead shall be accorded whenever possible, reasonable and lawful.
- Respect for the scientific research value of skeletal, mummified and other human remains (including fossil hominids) shall be accorded when such value is demonstrated to exist.
- Agreement on the disposition of fossil, skeletal, mummified and other remains shall be reached by negotiation on the basis of mutual respect for the legitimate concerns of communities for the proper disposition of their ancestors, as well as the legitimate concerns of science and education.
- The express recognition that the concerns of various ethnic groups, as well as those of science are legitimate and to be respected, will permit acceptable agreements to be reached and honoured.
The British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO) sets out further stipulations for the ethical treatment of human remains in their Code of Ethics, which is founded on the following principles:
- The generation of knowledge about past human lifeways using archaeological data is a worthy goal. Human remains are our most direct source of evidence in this respect. Their study is therefore central to our understanding of the human past.
- By virtue of their status as the remains of once living people, treatment of human remains requires ethical considerations over and above those that pertain to other classes of archaeological materials.
- Human remains should always be treated with dignity and respect regardless of age or provenance.
- Given the importance of human remains as a source of information about our past, osteoarchaeologists should work toward the long-term conservation of the osteoarchaeological record.
- Osteoarchaeologists should be committed to public education and promote the value of the scientific study of ancient human remains.
Human remains are subject to laws and regulations that do not apply to artefacts, sites or other archaeological material. Under Scots law, all human remains must be reported to the police, even if they are clearly archaeological and found within the context of an archaeological excavation. Human remains also cannot be legally owned but can be curated and used for research by museums and similar institutions. Unfortunately, a legal loophole means that it is still legal to buy and sell human remains that are over 100 years old, and human remains do appear for sale at auction houses. A dedicated BABAO task force is leading a campaign to close this loophole and stop the practice. The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland has also intervened to prevent the sale of human remains at auction.
In Scotland, the majority of archaeological human remains that are excavated are eventually acquired by a museum. Remains that are found with objects should be kept with those objects and are allocated through Treasure Trove like any other assemblage. In the past the process for human remains found without any associated objects was unclear. However, as of 2024 the updated Treasure Trove Code of Practice now allows for human remains without associated finds to be allocated through the Scottish Archaeological Finds Allocation Panel (SAFAP).
The largest collection of archaeological human remains in Scotland is at the National Museums Scotland Collections Centre in Edinburgh, but archaeological human remains are also curated at other museums across the country and within local council archaeology collections. There are also some collections of archaeological human remains held by universities, namely the archaeology departments of the University of Edinburgh and the University of Aberdeen. At present there is no centralised database of archaeological human remains identifying the location of collections, although the need for such a resource has been recognised for some time (Lewis et al 2026).
In 2024 Scotland’s Archaeological Human Remains Collections (SAHRC) project launched to further improve ethical care, curation and research of human remains in Scotland. Based at National Museums Scotland, in collaboration with Historic Environment Scotland and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the project has expanded storage and research facilities for Scottish archaeological human remains and is further developing ethical collections care and research standards in Scotland.
Ethics, sensitivity, and public communication
Although human remains can be a sensitive topic, they are also fascinating to the public. Displays and public engagement projects involving images of human remains or the physical remains themselves often invoke a great deal of interest and encourage greater connection with the past than artefacts. Handling these projects sensitively and ethically is vital.
It must be remembered that these are the remains of once living individuals and their identities are usually unknown. Allowing the public to connect with their past must be balanced with respectful interpretation. When using human remains as part of a display or public engagement project, care must be taken over the narrative used to interpret the remains and their context.
Giving a face to the dead can be a valuable component of researching and connecting with the past and also allows the public to connect with past individuals in more depth. Facial reconstruction is becoming an increasingly common method of communicating information about past individuals to the public. Sometimes this is paired with a narrative of the individual’s life. However, interpretation should be limited to what can be reasonably inferred from the remains of that individual.
Naming the dead is controversial. For some it is part of humanising and connecting with human remains, however it can also be seen as imposing a persona on an individual whose true identity is unknown. In most cases individuals are referred to by their skeleton number or site. For example, an adult female found in a cist in Upper Largie Quarry is referred to as Upper Largie Woman.
Further guidance on ethical and legal frameworks is available in the following resources:
- BABAO Codes of Ethics and Practice
- CIfA Guidelines to the Standards for Recording Human Remains
- Museums Galleries Scotland: Introduction to Human Remains in Museums
- NMS: Scotland’s Archaeological Human Remains Collections
Representativeness of skeletal assemblages
When analysing past populations, the final assemblage that undergoes analysis is not representative of the original living population. Multiple selection events and pressures occur between the original living population and the final excavated assemblage (White et al 2012).
Firstly, the group of individuals in a burial ground is comprised of the dead and not the living. The non-adults in that group are not representative of all the non-adults in the original population, only those that failed to survive to adulthood. The health status of those non-adults can provide valuable insights into the stressors affecting a population in early life. However, it is not an accurate view of the true health status of all living non-adults from that group. This is why pathological lesions are analysed in terms of prevalence rather than incidence. The prevalence reflects the number of observable individuals affected by a lesion. The incidence would have been the number of new individuals affected in a specified period in the original living group, which is unknown (Roberts and Manchester 2007).
Also, there are numerous selection events and pressures between the moment of death and the final assemblage. There is often a selection process at the moment of burial. It may be that a burial ground, or a particular area within that burial ground, serves a specific age group, sex, social class or group. For example, in some periods there are examples of infants and very young children being buried in separate burial grounds or preferentially buried next to a church rather than following the wider pattern of distribution of graves for older non-adults and adults (Cramp 2014, Roberts and Manchester 2007).
After burial, taphonomic processes take over, with soil conditions and subsequent disturbance playing a significant role. Burial grounds in use for long periods may lose track of where burials are, resulting in early burials being disturbed and entirely or partially reburied elsewhere. Poor soil conditions may result in poor preservation of bone, or complete loss of bone all together, which can impact not just the number of individuals and skeletal elements available but also the visibility of pathology. Some pathological lesions or disease processes damage an area of bone or reduce bone density across the skeleton, which may then be negatively impacted by poor soil conditions.
The circumstances of excavation can introduce further selection and bias. Partial excavation of burial grounds is common (Roberts and Manchester 2007, White et al 2012), particularly for development led projects where the limits of the excavation area are strictly defined. The excavated area may have been the burial location for a particular subgroup of individuals, or it may be more representative of the wider group, but the potential bias is often unknown.
Analysis of skeletal assemblages must take these known and unknown biases into account and acknowledge how they may have affected the data during interpretation.
