03.09.2016 change 03.09.2016

Human bones - problematic find of archaeologists

Archaeologists study traces of the human past. Often during the excavations they find bones. How should they be treated? Should they be stored, or perhaps quickly reburied? Head of the Laboratory of Anthropology at the National Archaeological Museum in Warsaw, Dr. Łukasz Maurycy Stanaszek told PAP about the problematic matter of research of human remains.

"Scientists should study ancient cemeteries - is the largest source of information about our ancestors. Such detailed information about people cannot be obtained by conducting excavations only within settlements" - said Dr. Stanaszek.

However, for researchers of the past, the matter of treatment of human bones is problematic. There is no single standard that would regulate this matter - according to Dr. Stanaszek, common sense dictates that the remains from World War II (for example from a place of execution) should be treated differently from the remains that are a few thousand years old.

"Most of the excavated skeletons, which belong to the people who lived from the late Middle Ages to our times, after excavations are returned to the place of their discovery. Sometimes ossuaries are created, in which larger collections of bones are deposited" - explained Dr. Stanaszek.

In the case of the bones of the dead who lived before the Middle Ages, in most cases after of the excavations the bones end up in cartons on the shelves of vast archaeological storages. In the meantime, they are subjected to anthropological analysis and DNA samples are taken.

"Then they remain untouched for years" - added Dr. Stanaszek.

Why do thousands of years old skeletons end up in boxes, and the younger ones are reburied with reverence?

"People do not feel the connection with ancients. The gap between is and them is too big - for the average person it is not so much a deceased, but rather a +hominid+ or an archaeological culture. In a way we deny that they are people too, our kin" - added the anthropologist.

According to the researcher, this approach has its explanation. We are closer to the ancestors in the faith, in this case - the Christian religion. The consensus is that since the Middle Ages there has been a relative stabilization of settlement in what is now Poland. Thus, the skeletons discovered in the cemeteries from the Middle Ages can be regarded as "ours", which of course is a gross oversimplification. Besides, since the Middle Ages we know the names of the people - the earlier communities in the Polish lands were anonymous, which further enhances the feeling of strangeness.

"Human remains are biological material accompanying archaeological finds" - said Dr. Stanaszek. According to the anthropologist, researchers often they treat them in an intuitive way.

In his view, bones are the largest source of information about ancient communities - no monument, especially from the prehistoric period, can tell as much about people, as their remains.

"DNA analysis brought a real revolution in the study of remains. Modern physical anthropology can not exist without genetics! Progress in the study of DNA in recent years allows for a close insight into the life of ancient communities. The data obtained only in the form of bone measurements interpretation of race - are now considered outdated and unreliable" - said the researcher.

Dr. Stanaszek pointed out that many of the ongoing research grants involve reinterpretation of finds from old excavations. Both items and bones are subject to new interpretations. He mentioned the National Archaeological Museum project concerning the re-examination of all bones from the Mesolithic period (approx. 8 thousand years ago), the period between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic.

Even when collecting small samples, skeletons are damaged. Therefore, after at the National Archaeological Museum they are properly supplemented. In the case of tooth extraction - these are used for laboratory analyses as a whole, and their copies are placed in the jaws of skeletons. "We do it for ethical reasons - so that the remains are not incomplete" - explained Stanaszek.

What should be done with the remains after they are dug up and analysed? According to Dr. Stanaszek, the dead deserve respect regardless of their dating.

"In many cases, after the measurement, examination, DNA sampling or testing elements (i.e. strontium, oxygen), the remains should be reburied. Genetic samples are particularly important. I am a supporter of the creation of a central database of fossil DNA for the prehistoric communities in Poland, which would broaden our research perspective. It would be a genetic library for ancient history" - he said. He noted that the database should be prepared in a way that would allow to carry out advanced research, such as Next Generation Sequencing (NGS).

According to anthropologist, prolonged storage of remains means that they become useless for researchers. They dry and collagen, essential for DNA analysis, disappears.

There is a debate among the scholars of the past whether human bones should be treated as historical monuments. According to Dr. Stanaszek, for ethical reasons, the bones can not be valuated, and thus treated like other monuments. "Valuating skeletons is absolutely out of the question, unless we assess them together with the whole sepulchral inventory" - added Dr. Stanaszek.

According to head of expertises and analyses of archaeological objects in the National Institute of Heritage, Jakub Wrzosek, the Law on the Care and Protection of Archaeological Monuments permits that. However, as he noted in an interview with PAP, bones may not be considered monuments if there is a living relative of the deceased, or the memory of the deceased is still alive. The bones, however, are a monument, when the public interest outweighs the interests of the heirs - suggested Wrzosek, and noted that in the case of skeletal remains each case should be treated individually.

PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland, Szymon Zdziebłowski

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