Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on September 14, 207) Includes bibliographical references.

Halvadzic, S. 2015. Ethics in Archaeology: Treatment of human remains with comparisons between Sweden and the US. BA thesis in archaeology. Linnaeus University.  The main aim in this thesis is to analyse how ethical dilemmas concerning human remains are created within the subject of archaeology and how they are processed and handled. Additionally there will be four actual cases presented within this study that will contribute to the illustration of how previous situations of this sort has been dealt with and the analysis of these cases will affirm how it has affected the lives and work of people today. The cases presented will be Soejvengeelle, the remains from Rounala, the Kennewick man and the La Jolla remains, and there will also be comparisons made between Sweden and the US. Furthermore the primary method of collecting empirical data is based on the hermeneutical perspective and the theories used for the study are deontology and utilitarianism. The analysis introduces the subject of who should rightfully own cultural heritage. Different groups are discussed and the reasons why, such as the foundations for our identity and the rights to claim our ancestors and practice religious beliefs. Thereafter the archaeologists work is presented and how ethical dilemmas affect this work and prevents further information from being gained and shared with the world. Finally the differences between Sweden and the US are compared where weaknesses and strengths are highlighted. In conclusion there must be balance between the public and the archaeologists. Neither can truly function without the other and it is important to be respectful and understanding on this matter. There is also no one, perfect method of handling these situations which means that neither Sweden nor the US are superior in any aspect.

The identification of metabolic diseases is a crucial aspect of osteoarchaeological analysis and of paleopathological studies. This study is specifically concerned with the study of scurvy and its bony manifestation. This investigation considers the recognition of the bony lesions of scurvy in adult skeletons that originate from English archaeological contexts dating to the Post Medieval period. In order to identify scorbutic bony lesions, assemblages were analysed that derived from the Georgian period Navy that were known to suffer from endemic scurvy, namely Haslar hospital near Portsmouth and Stonehouse hospital in Plymouth. These assemblages were complemented by two Non-Naval skeletal collections of a broadly contemporaneous time period, one of which was a prison assemblage from Oxford Castle in Oxford and the other was from Darwen, Lancashire and consisted of a Primitive Methodist cemetery. For the purpose of this study, an extensive literature review was carried out and a specially modified scurvy recording form was created. In total three hundred and fifty-eight skeletons were analysed using the scurvy recording form on which a total of twenty-one potential scorbutic indicators were scored. The data was then subject to statistical analysis and a set of primary and secondary scorbutic indicators was established. The primary scorbutic lesions were femur, sphenoid, posterior maxilla, scapula, endocranial and mandible. Nine secondary lesions were also established and these were lesions of the foot, humerus, ulna, radius, hand, clavicle, innominate, fibula and the ectocranial surface of the skull. In total, 66.7% of the Haslar assemblage was found to have suffered from scurvy, followed by Plymouth with 20.6%, Darwen with 16.4% and Oxford Castle with 7.9%. It was found that scurvy could be identified in adult skeletal material through the recognition of a number of lesions that could not be attributed to any other disease process. The results indicated that scurvy was present in all of the skeletal collections studied but was more common in the Naval assemblages. This is an important development in the detection of scurvy in the archaeological record and is crucial in the reconstruction of past diets and metabolic disease patterns.

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No / The 15th century Inuit mummies excavated at Qilakitsoq in Greenland in 1978 were exceptionally well preserved and represent the largest find of naturally mummified specimens from the Arctic. The estimated ages of the individuals, their distribution between two adjacent graves, the results of tissue typing, and incomplete STR results led researchers to conclude that the eight mummies formed two distinct family groups: A grandmother (I/5), two daughters (I/3, I/4), and their two children (I/1, I/2) in one grave, and two sisters (II/6, II/8) and a daughter (II/7) of one of them in the other. Using mtDNA from hair and nail, we have reanalyzed the mummies. The results allowed the unambiguous assignment of each of the mummies to one of three mtDNA haplogroups: A2b (I/5); A2a (I/2, I/3, II/6, II/8); A2a-311 (I/1, I/4, II/7), excluded some of the previous relations, and pointed to new ones. I/5 is not the grandmother/mother of the individuals in Grave I, and she is not maternally related to any of the seven other mummies; I/3 and I/4 are not sisters and II/7 is neither the daughter of II/6 nor of II/8. However, I/1 may be the child of either I/4 or II/7 and these two may be sisters. I/2 may be the son of I/3, who may be the daughter of either II/6 or II/8, and these two may be sisters. The observation of haplogroups A2a and A2b amongst the 550-year-old Inuit puts a lower limit on the age of the two lineages in Greenland.

No / We have investigated the susceptibility of degraded human hair shaft samples to contamination by exogenous sources of DNA, including blood, saliva, skin cells, and purified DNA. The results indicate that on the whole hair shafts are either largely resistant to penetration by contaminant DNA, or extremely easy to successfully decontaminate. This pertains to samples that are both morphologically and biochemically degraded. We suggest that this resistance to the incorporation of contaminant DNA relates to the hydrophobic and impermeable nature of the keratin structures forming the hair shaft. Therefore, hair samples represent an important and underestimated source of DNA in both forensic and ancient DNA studies.

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Yes / Over the past two decades, archaeology has been confronting an ethical crisis with regards to the past treatment of human remains by specialists and institutions. From the creation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in the United States (McManamon 2000), to further calls for the repatriation of remains and artefacts to colonised communities from European countries (Fforde 2003), the archaeological community has been actively attempting to become more respectful in their approach to the handling and curation of human remains. However, there has been less consideration to the ethics of handling and curating faunal remains. This is arguably due to the inherent anthropocentrism of archaeology as a discipline, which automatically "others" animals and, in some cases, literally "objectifies" them as "artefacts" rather than the remains of a once-living creature. This can be observed in the process of handling faunal remains post-excavation, the lack of legal procedures regarding the ethicality of remains, and even the emotional reaction to remains on display (Fitzpatrick 2018). This paper utilises recent work in social zooarchaeology and post-humanist studies (Russell 2012; Overton and Hamilakis 2013) to critically examine the role of ethics in zooarchaeology, specifically from a non-anthropocentric perspective. By drawing comparisons with ethical concerns for human remains, this paper will further explore the possible reasons that cause such a different ethical approach for animal remains, as well as propose alterations to the currently accepted form of ethics in zooarchaeology.