The ethics of studying human remains

There’s some fundamental rules about life which really ought to be in the manual. The yellow snow one. The one aout not drinking anything from a bottle with a worm in it. Another one is never assume that the news media have given a fair and accurate account of somebody’s arguments. Take for instance this story, Decision to come on girl’s skeleton. The arguments are all pretty simplistic and easily dismissed. It’s possible that the case for reburial really is that shallow, but it’s also possible that a brief column in a local paper is not a place for extensive philosophical discussion. Unfortunately the Council of British Druid Orders don’t make a case on their website for reburial, which reinforces the appearance of a lack of thought. It’s a shame because working with human remains isn’t a simple situation. While I’m quite happy to survey tombs, I hadn’t come to a conclusion about the ethics of excavating human remains, so I didn’t do it for a few years. I didn’t tut at anyone else who did work on them, because I don’t know is a statement about me rather than the universe. I’ve since come to some conclusions. Feel free to disagree. By the way, this is a long one, so it’s under the fold. I think it was Sam Hardy who came up with the best starting place for the ethics of handling the dead. The argument goes that the wishes of the dead aren’t a problem. Instead the reason for there being an ethical problem is the distress it causes people living today. That works for me because it cuts out a lot of pointless metaphysical musing about the wishes of the dead. The world they left isn’t the world their remains are in, so it’s impossible to determine their wishes. It also puts the focus on why human remains are an issue without tying anyone into a relgious viewpoint. Your distress may be because of your religion, but I don’t have to accept your gods to agree that you’re concerned. So enter the first argument.

“Beyond all the other philosophical, scientific and religious arguments, in the end it comes down to common human decency.”

Rollo Maughfling, Archdruid of Stonehenge

The thing about common human decency is that it isn’t that common. There’s an example from the earliest history that survives, a tale from Herodotus’ History.

It is clear to me therefore by every kind of proof that Cambyses was mad exceedingly; for otherwise he would not have attempted to deride religious rites and customary observances. For if one should propose to all men a choice, bidding them select the best customs from all the customs that there are, each race of men, after examining them all, would select those of his own people; thus all think that their own customs are by far the best: and so it is not likely that any but a madman would make a jest of such things. Now of the fact that all men are thus wont to think about their customs, we may judge by many other proofs and more specially by this which follows:—

Darius in the course of his reign summoned those of the Hellenes who were present in his land, and asked them for what price they would consent to eat up their fathers when they died; and they answered that for no price would they do so. After this Darius summoned those Indians who are called Callatians, who eat their parents, and asked them in presence of the Hellenes, who understood what they said by help of an interpreter, for what payment they would consent to consume with fire the bodies of their fathers when they died; and they cried out aloud and bade him keep silence from such words. Thus then these things are established by usage, and I think that Pindar spoke rightly in his verse, when he said that “of all things law is king.” Herodotus 3:38

Tom Rood (2006:299-300) goes into this in more detail, but it’s quite clear that common decency regarding burial practice is actually unpredictable. I can’t tell you what the burial practice is for Huari people, or Lapita colonisers without looking it it. If you’re not going to get this data by excavating remains you can’t say what the intended way of treating them is. It doesn’t help that in its terse form in the story you could say that Archdruid Maughfling is implying that anyone who disagrees with him doesn’t have human decency – if you wanted to take umbrage. Rather than go down that road I’ll make a case for not reburying the dead.

With a nod to Le Corbusier, a monument is a machine for remembering. If you want something forgotten you don’t draw attention to it. Avebury, where these skeletal remains came from, was a colossal task. Whatever the meaning of the monument was, it was clearly important. Stone, banks and ditches were imposed on huge swathes of the landscape to make sure something was remembered and the buried remains were part of this. For all sorts of reasons, we’ve lost what the meaning of Avebury is. Still, the study and display of the artefacts and remains found on site is part of a search for that meaning. If the use of the skeletal remains is part of that search, then at the very least it shows respect for the people who built Avebury. I think that would be an example of human decency.

In contrast there’s elements of reburial which bother me. Memory is important, so the disposal of the remains has to be appropriate. I don’t think anyone believes they should just be tossed in the green bin with the organic waste for recycling. But what kind of reburial would be appropriate? Originally these bones were buried as part of an effort which took around 1,500,000 man-hours Castleden (1993:146). Now I’m not saying there should be one and a half million hours of back-breaking work to rebury these bones. On the other hand if there’s less than half a million then the pro-memory lobby would be entitled to ask how much of this was about respect for the remains, and how much was about self-aggrandisement. A small ceremony in a grove with a couple of sprigs of heather clearly isn’t going to cut it.

That’s not a perfect smack-down of Maughling’s argument, I’ve taken up several hundred words while all he got to represent his position was a sound-bite that someone else chose. Nonetheless I think I’ve shown why that by itself is pretty vacuous. Arthur Pendragon in contrast doesn’t appeal to what everyone knows, but instead makes a much more personal claim.

These are human remains – you wouldn’t dig your grandmother up from a churchyard.”

King Arthur Pendragon, Honoured Pendragon of the Glastonbury Order of Druids, Official Swordbearer of the Secular Order of Druids, Titular Head and Chosen Chief of the Loyal Arthurian War Band, a member of the Council of British Druid Orders, Bard of the free Gorsedd of Caer Abiri, Swordbearer to the Cotswold Order of Druids, Champion of the free and open Gorsedd of Caer Badan and Honourary Life President of the Harrow Ramblers.

I think that’s a pretty strong argument. I certainly wouldn’t dig up my own grandmother.

Ok, so I would but my first thought was that I would if her graveyard was going to be destroyed. That’s not the case here. The bones were dug up for scientific curiosity and I certainly wouldn’t do that.

Well ok, yes I would if it turned out that the body needed to be exhumed for use as evidence in a Harold Shipman-style case. I’d be there digging away with everyone. But even that isn’t a good analogy because it’s not just about excavation it’s about storage and display. The bones would be returned to the ground after use, whereas these bones are on display. I certainly wouldn’t agree to that.

…Unless they served some useful education purpose. If for instance those bones needed to be displayed because they were in some way unique, and stored in hope of better scientific analysis then I would.

I also think the words are important. Grandmother is emotive. You know your grandmother, but great-grandmother? Great-great-grandmother? Somewhere along the genealogical line things become less raw, and this is where I think Sam Hardy’s observation is really helpful. It’s about distress to the living. I knew my grandparents. I didn’t really know my great-grandparents, and to be honest I wouldn’t be that upset about them being excavated. I don’t even know who all my great-great-grandparents are. So to flip Arthur Pendragon’s question round “Is it reasonable to think of the skeleton of a young girl buried in the Neolithic as someone’s grandmother?”

The objections that Maughfling and Pendragon make are not inherently stupid. On the contrary they’re interesting because they say something about being human. In this case they both clearly feel distate for study of dead bodies, and that’s a perfectly natural human reaction – especially if you don’t come into contact with them very often. But distaste alone does not make ethics.

In this story the last comments are by Terry Dobney, I’ll admit I struggle with this one because the words all make sense, but I can’t make sense of all the sentences. It’s quite possible the soundbites have mangled much of the argument.

“We need to honour the dead and treat everyone equally.”

“At the moment the skeleton in Avebury is a bit of a freak show.”

“We need to learn what we can about it and others like it and put it back in the ground.”

“The current display is exploitation because it is a child. As of yet there has been no carbon dating or DNA profiling.”

Terry Dobney, Keeper of the stones at Avebury

The first sentence is the easiest to rebut. There is absolutely no demonstrable need. There’s also the problem of what it means to be equal. “To each according to his or her needs” might sound unfashionably Marxist, but the plain fact is I don’t need ante-natal care. I am never going to be pregnant. That’s not a reasonable excuse for withholding it from pregnant women. Instead we treat people according to their circumstances. and words like ‘equal’ gloss over that. I also wonder what ‘learn what we can about it’ means. The skeleton was dug up eighty years ago. Since its discovery many techniques have been invented for studying the bones which did not exist at the time of excavation. So should the bones be returned? In their official claim CoBDO make the point that scientific techniques which may or may not exist in the future cannot be used as justification of spiritual beliefs which exist now. I think that’s wrong, but again it’s interestingly wrong rather than stupidly wrong. The fact is that the expectation of things which haven’t happened yet is built into the fabric of human society. Our days and years are built on the bedrock of imaginary futures. We’re spending what we used to call a ridiculous amount of money on the Olympics, which may or may not happen in 2012. Future causation is a reasonable cognitive behaviour, and one past developments the expectation of better technology to study the bones is not unfounded. I think I may have to write a proper paper.

On the other hand the appeals to emotion really don’t move me. ‘Freak show’? If so that could be an argument for better display rather than burial. Exploitation? Again I can’t make sense of this. I’m assuming from the tone, that he’s using it in the sense of gaining an unfair advantage, rather than simple use (as in exploiting the summer weather to hold a festival). The idea that the fact the skeleton is exploited because it was a child is a line of reasoning I simply can’t follow. I’m not sure if it’s even sincere because children aren’t its, they’re hes or shes which aren’t words that Dobney is using. Even so, how do you determine what is unfair? If the bones are a person then in what way are they disadvantaged? If the child was buried there against her will could her display actually be a liberation?

Tutankhamen would be an example of how exploitation is not a simple matter. Memory was important to the ancient Egyptians. This was to the extent that after his death Tutankhamen’s name was obilterated from some monuments. He became a very minor pharaoh. Since his discovery he’s become a household name. He’s known for his wealth and aura of power. If he is looking at Earth from an afterlife is he really annoyed his tomb was disturbed or is he swanning around and annoying Djedefre with comments “Look at that, another photo of me. Tsh! I get no peace, it’s just non-stop veneration. It’s a shame your pyramid didn’t work out mate, else you’d know what I’m talking about.”

I think the greatest compliment you can pay anyone is to take an interest in them. I’m not a Neolithic priest and I can’t pretend to be one. I can be a 21st century investigator, and I give the remains respect within my culture. It’s a matter of taking the remains seriously. Equally while I don’t agree with the CoBDO claims, I can respect them if they take the reburial seriously. As I said above that’s going to take an awful lot of effort. If they’re not going to take the bones seriously then they should be ignored.

Further reading The original story doesn’t do much justice to the druid claims. Unfortunately neither does the official CoBDO claim in my opinion. You can read more about the reburial claim at English Heritage’s website.