Ancestral remains 'people not objects'
Anthropology needs to take a more humanising approach to its examination of ancestral remains.This is the recommendation of a North American collective of scientists.Currently, some palaeogenomic (ancient DNA) research is conducted using human remains that are held in museum collections.In certain cases, these are the disinterred ancestors of Indigenous peoples, removed in the 19th and early 20th centuries."The reason," explains lead author Dr Jessica Bardill, "that we're able... to seek out genetic information from a range of remains from ancestors, whether they be cultural objects or skeletal remains... is because of collection practices that happened over a century ago.""There are thousands [of these remains] held in collections around the world. More likely tens of thousands," added th...