The Vermilllion Accord on Human Remains (also Vermillion Accord) is a 1989 international archaeological ethics agreement calling for the respectful treatment of human remains.
The accord was adopted at the 1989 meeting of the World Archaeological Congress in Vermillion, South Dakota [1] . It was a response to concerns raised by indigenous peoples about the circumstances surrounding the collection and preservation of human remains. In particular, it addressed concerns that many remains were collected in the context of clashes with settlers and colonizing authorities, and that their display failed to address the customs and interests of the communities they represent. [2] [3]
The accord calls for archaeological work to be based on six principles addressing:
The accord has provoked widespread reconsideration of the ethics of collecting, displaying, and working with human remains. It was incorporated into the Tamaki Makau-rau Accord which sets standards for the display of human remains and other culturally sensitive objects. These accords prompted many museums to review their policies with respect to such holdings. For example, in 1991 the Council of Australian Museum Directors adopted new policies regarding the remains of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. [2] It has also led researchers to explore other methods of examining remains, such as the use of CT scans. [3]
Just a month after its adoption, the United States Congress passed the National Museum of the American Indian Act which called for the Smithsonian Institution to inventory and work with tribes to arrange repatriation of its extensive holdings of Native American remains. It was also influential in the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act a year later. [4]
In the United Kingdom, the accord informed the activities of the Working Group on Human Remains in Museum Collections, which received its mandate in 2001 and reported its findings in November of 2003. [5]
Archaeologist and academic Sarah Tarlow has criticized the Vermillion Accord and other ethical codes, suggesting that they ignore the complexity of the ethical dilemmas archaeologists face and tend to preempt debate. She advocates a case-by-case approach instead. [6]
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Pub. L. 101-601, 25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq., 104 Stat. 3048, is a United States federal law enacted on November 16, 1990.
Yagan was an Aboriginal Australian warrior from the Noongar people. Yagan was pursued by the local authorities after he killed Erin Entwhistle, a servant of farmer Archibald Butler. It was an act of retaliation after Thomas Smedley, another of Butler's servants, shot at a group of Noongar people stealing potatoes and fowls, killing one of them. The government offered a bounty for Yagan's capture, dead or alive, and a young settler, William Keats, shot and killed him. He is considered a legendary figure by the Noongar.
Everton Cemetery, in Long Lane, Fazakerley, Liverpool, opened in July 1880.
Archaeological ethics refers to the moral issues raised through the study of the material past. It is a branch of the philosophy of archaeology. This article will touch on human remains, the preservation and laws protecting remains and cultural items, issues around the globe, as well as preservation and ethnoarchaeolog.
The exhumation of Yagan's head was the result of a geophysical survey and archaeological dig at a grave site in the Everton Cemetery, Liverpool in 1997. Yagan was an Aboriginal Australian warrior who was murdered in 1833 by British colonists, because of his resistance to the colonial British settlements in the Swan River Colony in Western Australia.
Repatriation is the return of the cultural property, often referring to ancient or looted art, to their country of origin or former owners.
Robot ethics, sometimes known as "roboethics", concerns ethical problems that occur with robots, such as whether robots pose a threat to humans in the long or short run, whether some uses of robots are problematic, and how robots should be designed such that they act 'ethically'. Alternatively, roboethics refers specifically to the ethics of human behavior towards robots, as robots become increasingly advanced. Robot ethics is a sub-field of ethics of technology, specifically information technology, and it has close links to legal as well as socio-economic concerns. Researchers from diverse areas are beginning to tackle ethical questions about creating robotic technology and implementing it in societies, in a way that will still ensure the safety of the human race.
The World Archaeological Congress (WAC) is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization which promotes world archaeology. It is the only global archaeological organisation with elected representation.
Conflict archaeology is a sub-discipline within archaeology focused on intergroup and intragroup conflict. Closely linked to battlefield archaeology and Military Sites Archaeology, conflict archaeology is developing as an umbrella sub-discipline that encompasses these others, allowing for greater epistemological elasticity than other terms. Modern conflict archaeology deals with technological, social, cultural, psychological aspects of present conflicts. Unlike battlefield archaeology, modern conflict archaeology delves deeper into the anthropological study of the conflicts rather than the physical manifestations of the battles. As stated by Nicholas J. Saunders in his book Beyond the Dead Horizon, "These complexities are generated partly by nature of modern wars/conflicts of industrialized intensity and they incorporate political and nationalistic motivations and notions of ethnicity and identity."
The Negro of Banyoles was a controversial piece of taxidermy of a San individual, which used to be a major attraction in the Darder Museum of Banyoles. In 2000, the remains of the man were sent to Botswana for burial.
The Father Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum is a museum in the town of Hanga Roa on Rapa Nui in Chilean Polynesia. Named for the Bavarian missionary, Fr. Sebastian Englert, OFM Cap., the museum was founded in 1973 and is dedicated to the conservation of the Rapa Nui cultural patrimony.
The repatriation and reburial of human remains is a current issue in archaeology and museum management on the holding of human remains. Between the descendant-source community and anthropologists, there are a variety of opinions on whether or not the remains should be repatriated. There are numerous case studies across the globe of human remains that have been or still need to be repatriated.
Joseph Barnard Davis was an English medical doctor now remembered as a collector and craniologist.
Communication ethics is a sub-branch of moral philosophy concerning the understanding of manifestations of communicative interaction.
The conservation and restoration of human remains involves the long-term preservation and care of human remains in various forms which exist within museum collections. This category can include bones and soft tissues as well as ashes, hair, and teeth. Given the organic nature of the human body, special steps must be taken to halt the deterioration process and maintain the integrity of the remains in their existing state. These types of museum artifacts have great merit as tools for education and scientific research, yet also have unique challenges from a cultural and ethical standpoint. Conservation of human remains within museum collections is most often undertaken by a conservator-restorer or archaeologist. Other specialists related to this area of conservation include osteologists and taxidermists.
Jane Hubert was a social anthropologist, known in particular for her work in mental health and intellectual disability. She was also known for her work in the field of cultural memory studies and archaeology.
Sarah Tarlow is a British archaeologist and academic. As professor of historical archaeology at the University of Leicester, Tarlow is best known for her work on the archaeology of death and burial. In 2012, Tarlow was awarded the chair in archaeology at the University of Leicester.
Funerary archaeology is a branch of archaeology that studies the treatment and commemoration of the dead. It includes the study of human remains, their burial contexts, and from single grave goods through to monumental landscapes. Funerary archaeology might be considered a sub-set of the study of religion and belief. A wide range of expert areas contribute to funerary archaeology, including epigraphy, material culture studies, thanatology, human osteology, zooarchaeology and stable isotope analysis.
Repatriation is the practice of returning a cultural artifact to its place of origin. Within the context of Canada, this is often associated with institution and collectors returning cultural artifacts to their original Indigenous community. Cultural artifacts may have been appropriated, stolen, sold, or taken from their place of origin. Many of the early collectors of Canadian indigenous cultural items did so with the assumption that the culture was on the brink of destruction. Many scholars considered it imperative to obtain and collect these items before they were destroyed under the guise of salvage ethnography. This was supported by racist ideologies suggesting that indigenous cultures were primitive and therefore inferior to the culture of dominant colonial society.
Cal NAGPRA was an act created by the state of California which was signed into law in 2001. The act was created to implement the same repatriation expectations for state-funded institutions, museums, repositories, or collections as those federally supported through NAGPRA. Cal NAGPRA also supports non-federally recognized tribes within California that were exempt from legal rights to repatriation under the federal NAGPRA act.
Vermillion Accord on the official website of the World Archaeological Congress