DBP Query about Ethics Published by the IVSA

The International Visual Sociology Association published their new statement of ethics in the latest issue of their society’s journal, Visual Studies. Included in the introduction to the code of ethics is an email that I sent to the IVSA mailing list, quoted almost in full:

…As part of a wider research project researching human remains and associated artifacts excavated in 1940s Bahrain and currently curated in our Anthropology museum, we have been developing an ethics statement regarding in part the visual documentation and dissemination of materials related to the project.  As many list members may know, the visual display of human remains has become a contentious issue in archaeology and this has become even more complicated by our wish to share research with our colleagues and the public on the internet.

Most ethics statements I have seen primarily deal with people who are still living or with museum display standards–I would appreciate any insights regarding the ethics of display of past peoples and artifacts on the internet. As background we are basing most of our practices on the World Archaeological Congress’ various ethics accords, but could probably stand to shore up our arguments from other literature.

Again, any comments or insights would be appreciated!

In the coming weeks we will review the IVSA statement to see how well it meshes with our existing statement. The ethics of depiction of past people and artifacts remains a topic of deep interest for our research group, so watch this space for more updates!

Filed under: Ethics, archaeology , archaeology, Ethics, ivsa

Abstract for ICAZ Paris, August 23-28, 2010

We were excited to recently learn that our abstract for the 11th ICAZ International Congress was accepted as an oral presentation (to be given by Jennifer, mais oui). Here is the preliminary version…

Animals and mortuary practices in the ancient polity of Dilmun (Bahrain) from the late 3^rd millennium BCE to the end of the 1^st millennium CE.

PIRO Jennifer¹ J. & BOUTIN, Alexis² T.

1, New York University, Department of Anthropology, 25 Waverly Place, New York, NY 10003, jjp249@nyu.edu

2, Sonoma State University, Department of Anthropology, Stevenson Hall 2054, 1801 East Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park, CA 94928, alexis.boutin@sonoma.edu

This paper presents the initial results of the ongoing analysis of archaeozoological remains from human burials excavated by Peter B. Cornwall in Bahrain in the 1940s. The research is one component of the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project (DBP), which includes archaeologists from the University of California, Berkeley, Sonoma State University, and other institutions. Since 2008, the DBP has been studying the artifacts and human skeletal material from the Cornwall collection (Phoebe A. Hearst Museum, UC Berkeley), and more recently, the associated animal bone remains. Materials in the collection are derived from several time periods, ranging from the Paleolithic or Neolithic up to the 10^th century CE, and from a variety of mortuary contexts, including tumuli and a small cemetery, both exhibiting evidence of single/multiple burials and interments.

By integrating archaeozoological and human osteological data, the paper will examine how the nature of the relationship between animals and humans as viewed in mortuary practices may provide insight into broader notions of religion, status, and identity and their transformation over time.

Filed under: Bahrain, Conference, Faunal, archaeology

Research with the DBP: One Student’s Experience

Reflection on the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project

by Amy Brandon, B.A. Sonoma State University 2009

            Although my time with the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project was relatively short, I feel that I learned a great deal, and that the work I was able to conduct during my time will serve me well throughout my career, both professionally and academically. The project, above all else, allowed me to really get a feel for what it is to be an anthropologist/archaeologist.

            As I primarily worked with Dr. Boutin in the Hearst collections, my main responsibilities pertained to the human remains that are stored in the collection. I would typically create an inventory of an individual set of remains before checking that inventory against a second inventory list to help cancel out inter-observer error. I was also given the opportunity to conduct some forensic work on the remains, in which I examined the remains for any pathological signs of injury or illness, found the sex of the individual, approximate age, and stature of the remains, if possible. Although I had previously practiced these skills in a classroom setting, the opportunity for real world experience cannot be beaten. Even something as seemingly small as the opportunity to work with an osteometric board and sliding calipers measuring bone length or diameter was very exciting for me.

            The few times that I was able to work with Dr. Porter, I focused on either object work, identifying and inventorying pot sherds and the like, or washing bones that would be sent off for faunal analysis, in order to give the team an idea of the dietary and daily habits of the people of the area and time. The object work, while different, was also a great learning experience. Finding the type and color of the material used for the pottery was surprisingly complex. The washing of bones was also a great learning experience, even if it wasn’t particularly difficult. Any experience that could help me in the field and my any future work is knowledge I welcome.

            Of all the tasks performed, I would have to say that I particularly enjoyed the forensic aspect of the project, and the ability to gain some experience in aging, sexing, and determining the stature of the remains. This project has given me a leg up on many of my peers who will be entering graduate school at the same time as myself. The ability to work directly with human remains, performing the same tasks I will be asked to do in a professional capacity, has allowed me to decide if this is truly the road I want to journey down, academically. Luckily, I found that I loved the experience and my time spent in the collections was the highlight of my semester. This experience was probably the most directly relevant work I could have done to prepare myself for a future in forensic anthropology, and I’m happy that I’ll be able to continue utilizing the knowledge that was gained during the course of the project.

Filed under: Bahrain , archaeology, Bahrain, Research, Skeletal, Students

Ethics Statement, version 2.0

Because of the unique qualities of the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project, we have decided to reveal our team Ethics Statement.  It’s a working document, but it outlines our intentions in a way that we hope is quite clear, and will provide a model for future practice with collections of these kinds.  This is our second draft, based on feedback received and new research conducted during the Fall 2009 semester. Additional feedback is always appreciated!

Regarding the display and remediation of artifacts and human remains

The Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project is working with human remains excavated in the 1940s by Peter Bruce Cornwall. Although Cornwall obtained permissions both from local governing authorities and Standard Oil, who had oil exploration rights to some of these territories , we feel that we must be explicit in our methodology and goals in depicting the excavated materials curated in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum.  In this digital age it is easy for members of western academic institutions to share both visual and textual information regarding our research and while it is often desirable to keep an open dialogue with fellow colleagues and an interested public, this same openness can be seen as disrespectful when the display of human remains and associated artifacts runs contrary to the desires and beliefs of stakeholders associated with the site.  We believe that it is important to clarify this relationship and our stance regarding the data we are gathering as part of the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project (DBP).

Data Collection
During the course of our interpretation of the artifacts and human remains excavated by Peter Bruce Cornwall, we find it necessary to fully document the collection with digital photographs and digital video.  The digital photography has been performed in accordance with the wishes of the Phoebe A. Hearst museum, on a photography stand, in raw format, with neutral colored backgrounds and scales.  During this photography the artifacts were handled as little as possible, by team members wearing gloves in order to preserve their structural integrity.  In the case of skeletal photography, only the dedicated osteologist, Alexis Boutin, Ph.D., handled the remains.  These photographs and videos were then downloaded to the laptop of Colleen Morgan, the team’s digital documentarian.  The photographs were then entered into a spreadsheet and given a UUID, a universally-unique ID commonly used by digital archivists, and a selection of these photographs were then cropped, photoshopped, and shared with the team in protected online folders.  These photographs are also backed up to an external harddrive to protect against data loss.  After the collection has been completely photographed we will make the photographs available to the Phoebe A. Hearst museum in a format of their choosing. The video will be cut into short videos to share online and will also be given to the Phoebe A. Hearst museum in the format of their choosing.

Dissemination
While all depictions of the artifacts and the human remains have been shared in protected folders online to team members, a selection of the photographs and videos also will be made available to the broader online public.  Most of the artifacts in the Peter Bruce Cornwall collection were excavated from tumuli, specifically from human burials of the protohistoric inhabitants of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (i.e., the Dilmun culture).  Images of these artifacts are in broad circulation and are printed in many volumes, and our contributions in this respect will not be unusual.  We intend to contact the archaeological authorities in Bahrain to reaffirm this process.  In this case it is difficult to identify interested indigenous parties, as the excavations were performed 60 years ago and the landscape of Bahrain has changed radically since that time.  It is not our intention to reify the assumption that primarily Islamic populations only care about Islamic artifacts and remains.  Instead we hope that digital dissemination of our data will heighten awareness of the tumuli in Bahrain.  However, if our discussions with community leaders and other interested parties indicate dissatisfaction with these depictions, then we will remove offending materials from public access.  In addition to presenting traditional representations of these artifacts, we also intend to remediate the data for better understanding and interest of the online public.  Remediation, defined by Bolter and Grusin (1999) as “the formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms” can be used to resituate artifacts in new, meaningful, and interesting ways.  Given this, we intend that our remediations will be respectful of the past and present cultural context of the artifacts.

This above set of standards does not apply for depictions of the human remains.  We recognize, in accordance with the 1989 Vermillion Accord on Human Remains and the 2005 Tamaki Makau-rau Accord on the Display of Human Remains and Sacred Objects promoted by the World Archaeological Congress that “respect for the mortal remains of the dead shall be accorded to all irrespective of origin, race, religion, nationality, custom and tradition” and recognize that the depiction of these remains is a sensitive subject.  Until the permission of the potentially affected community is obtained, we will not display human remains unless it is absolutely necessary for explanation, and even so, we do so with extreme forbearance.

Human Remains In answering the question, “Why study human remains?,” Patricia M. Landau and D. Gentry Steele point to human remains as a unique source of direct information about ancient peoples’ biology and behavior: that is, what they looked like, how they acted as members of a society, and how they responded to their environments. Issues such as these form part of the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project’s research agenda, although we are also particularly interested in understanding these human remains within their mortuary contexts. How were these peoples’ identities related to the ways they were treated in death? Under what circumstances were people buried together, and with what types of objects? Who was “allowed” to be buried in a tumulus?   But this research agenda aside, the DBP is studying this particular set of human remains because they had never been studied before. Since Cornwall collected the skeletons in Bahrain in the early 1940s and shipped them to the U.S., they have been stored in the collections of the Hearst museum, curated carefully but never subjected to osteological analysis due to lack of funding. Cornwall doubtless had the best of scholarly intentions when he unearthed the skeletons and their funerary accoutrements: his writings reflect an interest in mortuary practices as an indicator of cultural affiliation. Nevertheless, the removal of human remains from what had been intended as their final resting place might be interpreted by some as culturally insensitive and disrespectful. The fact that these remains were never analyzed by an osteologist- presumably the purpose of their excavation – gives that interpretation more credence. Thus, the BBP aims to carry out Cornwall’s presumed research goals with the human remains from the Bahraini tumuli and, in the process, redress any oversights – however unintentional they may have been – committed against these ancient peoples and their descendants.

The following ethical guidelines are based on chapters in Cassman et al. (2007). All contact with the human remains is undertaken by the person of, or under the direct supervision of, Alexis Boutin, Ph.D., a qualified osteologist. Gloves are always worn to avoid contaminating the human remains or violating their personal integrity. The skeletal remains were marked in permanent ink with a museum “object” number at some point prior to our research; we do not employ any permanent systems of reconstruction or stabilization. Those temporary systems that we have employed (in limited instances, water-soluble glue) will be removed at the request of affected descendant populations. So far, our analyses have been non-destructive (i.e., strictly morphological and metric). Should we decide that invasive or destructive analyses (e.g., DNA or biochemical sampling) are essential to our research goals, we will request permission from the appropriate Bahraini authorities and, if possible, descendant communities.   We approach our tasks with a sense of reverence and of the privilege we have been granted to interact with, and learn from, these earthly remains. Above all, we recognize that these skeletal remains are not “objects of study,” but persons who deserve the same dignity and respect, and have the same rights as, the persons who walk the earth today.

Landau, P. M. and D. G. Steele

2000    Why Anthropologists Study Human Remains. Pp. 74-94 in Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains? Ed. Devon A. Mihesuah. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

V. Cassman, N. Odegaard, and J. Powell, eds.

2007    Human Remains: Guide for Museums and Academic Institutions. Lanham, Md.: Altamira Press.

Filed under: Bahrain , Bahrain, Ethics, Museum, Skeletal

Research Assessment Report, 2008-2009

We’re all back from our summer field seasons and are eager to begin our work on the Cornwall collection once again! The report is quite long (for a blog post) so I’ve split it up into pages. A few of the highlights include more information on Peter Cornwall and the skeletal and object analyses.

Introduction – The Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project

The Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project (DBP hereafter) is a joint team of scholars drawn from UC Berkeley and Sonoma State University.  The team currently consists of seven people.  Benjamin Porter is an assistant professor of Near Eastern archaeology in UC Berkeley’s Near Eastern Studies Department and a curator of Near Eastern archaeology in the Hearst Museum of Anthropology.  Alexis Boutin is an assistant professor of anthropology at Sonoma State University.  Colleen Morgan, Alan Farahani, and Amber Zambelli are graduate students in UC Berkeley’s Anthropology department, Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology program, and Near Eastern Studies Department, respectively.  Sheel Jagani is the team’s undergraduate research apprentice and is earning two majors in Anthropology and Integrative Biology.  Kathryn Killackey serves as project illustrator and Athna May Porter serves as the project family historian.  Despite the obvious differences in academic rank, the team organizes itself as an
egalitarian research group who encourages and appreciates each member’s unique contributions to our collective goals. This team will certainly grow in the coming years as we identify new needs beyond our current talents.

During the research assessment stage, this team divided itself into four research groups: 1) Collections history (Porter, Porter, Jagani), 2) skeletal analysis (Boutin, Jagani), 3) object analysis (Porter, Farahani, Morgan, Jagani, Killackey), and 4) dissemination (Morgan, Farahani, Killackey).  The results of each research group are presented here.

Filed under: Bahrain, Museum, archaeology

Status Report on Skeletal Analysis

During the Spring 2009 semester, the skeletal analysis team focused on creating a preliminary inventory of skeletal remains, with the aim of evaluating the collection’s research potential. So far, we have been able to estimate the minimum number of individuals (MNI) represented in the Cornwall collection, obtain a sense of the sample’s demography, health, and behavior, and track burial patterns (e.g., single vs. multiple interments, burial taphonomy). Continuing research will include finalization of the inventory, as well as confirmation and further exploration of demographic characteristics already noted for each skeleton.

Approximately 24 burial features are represented: one jar burial, two features in a “small cemetery locality,” and 21 tumuli. Only one tumulus has individuals represented from multiple cists (Tumulus B2). The remains of at least 32 individuals are present in the Cornwall collection (MNI=32). The vast majority of burial features appear to have been single interments (n=20), with three double burials, and two multiple burials. At least 13 of the burial features included faunal remains.

Inventory data have been used to estimate the completeness of the 32 skeletons, which conveys the possibilities and limitations of the Cornwall sample, based on preservation issues. Overall, 34.4% of the skeletons were mostly complete, 12.5% were fairly complete, and 53.1% were fragmentary.  Although the proportion of mostly complete skeletons may seem low, we observed further that the majority of these were very well preserved, i.e., major bones and diagnostic features were extant and intact. Preliminary estimates of sex revealed ten possible or probable males and six possible or probable females.  An age assessment of twenty-eight individuals revealed a majority of adults (n=20; 71.4%) with some older adolescents (n=3; 10.7%), children (n=2; 7.1%), and infants (n=3; 10.7%). Several pathologies are exhibited at high frequencies, including antemortem tooth loss, degenerative joint disease, and Schmorl’s nodes. A handful of seemingly isolated pathological conditions also require further study and research, as well as confirmation of diagnosis. These include a healed depressed fracture of the cranium, a traumatic injury to the medial epicondyle of the humerus, and a congenital growth defect.

Filed under: Bahrain, Skeletal , archaeology, Bahrain, Skeletal

Old Bones, Digital Narratives: Re-investigating the Cornwall Collection in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum

(Abstract for UMAC’s upcoming 9th International Conference)

A joint team of archaeologists from the University of California, Berkeley and Sonoma State University are examining a collection of artifacts and skeletal material excavated in Bahrain and Eastern Saudi Arabia in the 1940s and curated in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum. This collection has hereto remained un-investigated since the time of Cornwall’s Harvard dissertation. Motivated by modern innovations in the examination of skeletal materials and a greater awareness of broader Near Eastern history, we are considering this collection from a contemporary bioarchaeological perspective as well as in terms of the personal history of Peter B. Cornwall and his team. During this process we have attempted to raise public interest in the project, while remaining sensitive to the issues regarding the depiction and documentation of the remains of past peoples. In making our research methodology more transparent through this digital documentation and presentation, we hope to distribute awareness of the Cornwall collection across a number of online platforms in a non-traditional format. In this paper we critically examine the tensions between access to museum collections and respectful digital remediation of assemblages involving human remains.

Filed under: Bahrain, Conference, Museum , abstract, archaeology, Bahrain, Conference, Museum

Welcome to the Bahrain Bioarchaeology Project’s Blog

We hope to keep this blog updated with our latest finds and news while we investigate the Cornwall collection at the Hearst museum at the University of California, Berkeley.

Filed under: Uncategorized