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No.59 April 2004 | Contex HOME FROM THE CHAIR - ROSE BAILLIE Whose Body? Archaeologists value human remains because of what they can tell about the past. The excavator of a skeleton knows that there are scientific methods to determine its age, diet, ethnicity and state of health, while the grave layout and items with the body can lead to deductions about status and burial customs. This investigative approach to is very different from how our society expects the bodies of the recently deceased to be treated. Why is this? Partly, I think, it is a question of age and distance. The person whose last resting place is revealed by Prehistoric, Roman or Saxon excavations has died twice. Once in the flesh and again in human memory. The grave is unmarked, its occupant anonymous and there is no-one around who feels a strong sense of kinship. Compare this with hearing in our March lecture of the sensitivity and respect with which an archaeological team working on the Somme treated the fallen of 1916. Was this a family feeling? My grandmother’s brother was one of them, or rather pity at young lives brutally cut short by one shell explosion and all trace of them buried by another? The debate about the probity of museums keeping collections of skeletons and their scientific study can never be settled by logic, because it is a struggle between conflicting emotions and beliefs. It is marvellous what research can tell us about the lives they led and it is knowledge worth having, but everyone has a right to finally rest in peace. This is a debate that will not go away. |
