These two sentences are contradictory.
Thank you for such a clear and reasonable reply, Ol’Gaffer. I have just wandered into archaeology due to my research topic in another field, and really appreciate your answering from an archaeologist’s perspective.
If a development meant the destruction of a grave, is the development ever refused permission? If so, what sort of criteria are used?
I apologize for the continued hijack of this thread. I would start a new one, but I really don’t care about the topic enough to construct an OP. Anyone else is, of course, welcome.
We have a great deal of knowledge about “life.” If you think that science can give us answers about “afterlife” (or any other wacky superstition), then I’d say you have some deep misunderstandings about the nature of science.
Would you also hold the following two sentences contradictory?[ul][]No one can say with any degree of certainty what the subjective experience of being born is.[]There are no reputable reports from anyone who remembers their birth.[/ul]Or would you say that validity of the second sentence can only mean that there is no subjective experience of birth?
In the vast majority of cases, the burial locations (or presence for that matter) are not known. There may be rumors or other anecdotal evidence but in most cases, the fact that there are burials onsite is not discovered until after dirt has started moving. It is one of the major difficulties in archaeology. We can make educated guesses on the types of resources in a particular location but we are routinely surprised because 99% of prehistoric archaeology in California is buried. There are surface clues we look for but the nature of prehistoric burial (intact, cremation, crevice, or inhumation) tends to obscure their precise location. Geography, soil type, topography, and other factors can also complicate matters. For example, we often encounter disarticulated human teeth during excavations which raises the question ‘Is this a burial or a lost tooth?’, both of which have very different implications.
Environmental standards in California are quite restrictive and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get permits to proceed with a development into a known burial area. As I mentioned, it would require some serious negotiations with the native community. I have worked with many of the recognized and unrecognized tribes in CA and I can’t think of one that would agree, in the planning stages, to a development through a known burial area.
So, the most common situation we encounter is that the burials are uncovered during the construction phase. Not the ideal situation but definitely the most common. And even then, it might be an isolated one or two or it might be dozens. There just isn’t any way to tell…they didn’t leave markers 
In any case, hitting a burial is a big-time serious complication for any project. The project would likely be shut down while negotiations take place and agreement on how to proceed is reached.
However, if they were returned, they would just be put on display in a museum in Cairo. They wouldn’t be re-interred in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
Here in Panama, there is a major problem with people looting ancient burial sites for gold ornaments and ceramics. The archaeologists (some of whom I work with) are concerned about this, not because they are interested in the commercial value of the objects, but rather because taking them out of their context destroys their informational value. Finding these objects in situ enables them to be dated and associated with the culture they came from, and tells us about their cultural value. The archaeologists have very little interest in gold pieces or other artifacts when they don’t know exactly where they came from.
[quote=“Randy_Seltzer, post:23, topic:489488”]
Would you also hold the following two sentences contradictory?[ul][li]No one can say with any degree of certainty what the subjective experience of being born is.There are no reputable reports from anyone who remembers their birth.[/ul]Or would you say that validity of the second sentence can only mean that there is no subjective experience of birth?[/li][/QUOTE]
…but we are not talking about the *subjective experience of there being an afterlife.
We know *that thought is a material process, indicated by electro-chemical activity in the brain. So, absent any evidence to the contrary, as you say, we can be certain that without such activity, there is no life.
Science rules things out all the time. The only real difference between science ruling out phlogiston or afterlives as real, is that delusional people still insist that the latter MUST be real. Regardless of the evidence.
I can give a slightly different perspective then Ol’Gaffer. I am in charge of the archaeologists that my company hires to examine our drilling locations in the local national forest. According to the USFS any item that has been left unattended for more then 50 years is archaeology. Unfortunately, this includes cans of chew that hunters dropped in the 50s.
We haven’t dealt with remains that I know of but during several construction projects we have run into buried structures in areas that were cleared on the initial arch report. In those situations we are required to expose the entire impacted site and allow for a full documentation before we are able to continue our project. Typically when indications are found that there is arch in an area we try to avoid it but sometimes that is not possible and we either have to takes steps to minimize our impact and record the impacted part or if the arch is deemed minor enough by the regulatory agencies, including affected tribes, we are able to destroy the site.
I do not think that graves being catalogued and the items removed is any more grave digging then cataloguing a pit house is breaking and entering. After a certain amount on time with no one looking after something I think the owner loses all claim to the item and if 50 years is good enough for the government that works for me even though I wish they would move the number back closer to 100 years.
I’d tend to agree - to me the important factor is whether anyone alive personally cares about the remains buried. Once everyone who ever actually knew that person is themselves dead, a wholly different and lesser set of considerations apply.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean…are you referring to a scientific context? As in “once everyone who ever actually knew that person is themselves dead” then unfettered scientific inquiry should be able to proceed? The problem with this approach is that many native groups view their ancestors in a very different light than anglos.
My meaning is this: that respect and reverence is not due to the dead (who, as inanimate objects, cannot care) but to the living. The reason interfering with a grave is "bad’ is because it upsets people who are alive today, not the remains in the grave.
The quality of that “upsetness” felt by the living has both a subjective and an objective component. While someone may, subjectively, feel a connection with an cro-magnon’s remains that transends how they feel about their mothers’, as a matter of policy it makes sense to state that the connections between people who actually knew each other have priority: my wishes respecting the disposal of my parent’s remains ought to be honoured above my wishes respecting a cro-magnon hunter-gatherers remains, because the latter lived 50,000 years ago, I never knew him or her, and so my grief over his passing has not the same objective quality as that over my mother’s passing.
Now, no doubt some religious or cultural groups may feel differently - I’m not as familiar with “natives”, but as a volunteer on a dig in Israel, I’m very familiar with the feelings of ultra-orthodox Jews, who were dead against any interference with mortal remains. The issue is how much 'we", that is policy-makers, should accomodate such wishes. There must be some sort of ability to judge their import, otherwise a group which subjectively believes nothing can be disturbed can in effect completely impede not only scientific investigation, but indeed any sort of excavation.
I would suggest that an appropriate cut-off for absolute respect for the wishes of the living is that the living have personally known the dead in question. Beyond that, wishes of the living are entitled to respect which decreases in purportion to the tenuousness of the connection, genetically or culturally, with the remains. Certainly some defference is owed to if they intend to disturb my great-grandfather’s remains, but someone who is 9,000 years dead? That is getting absurd.
Case in point; in Boston harbor, there is a cemetary located on a harbor island (Spectacle Island). The cemetary holds the remains of people who died 250+ years ago. The area is now being washed away by the sea-so, is it grave robbing to dig these skeletons up and ananlyze them? Nobody know who these people were, and frankly, who cares? If an anthropologist or archaeologist can get soem useful information, why not? Of course, i would expect that the remains be cremated or re-interred with respect.
As far as the sanctity of the burial site…eternal restlessness of the soul…ect.
Not everyone got a pyramid or tomb back when; some people were fed to lions, some sacrificed and chuncked into a volcano or burned at the stake.
They didn’t care about everyones afterlife…some souls were just better than others.