Semester of Graduation

Spring 2025

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Geography and Anthropology

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Human remains have always been a culturally sensitive discovery when recovered from archaeological excavations. Reaching from the dark history of grave robbing to the tumultuous legal and ethical landscape of bioarchaeology today, researchers have had to navigate an array of opinions to determine proper research practices over time. No explicit international standards exist to outline the suggested treatment of ancient human remains outside of specific academic fields. A broad series of expectations for bioarchaeologists and museum curators has been summarized, but due to the unique nature of archaeological sites there is no required ethical or legal standard that can be promoted and/or enforced worldwide. The lack of specification has led to a degree of expected variation in the treatment of human remains between different countries. This thesis addresses this issue by comparing the legal and archaeological perspectives between Peru and the United States through an analysis of related legislation in conjunction with relevant ethnographic interviews. These variations in treatment are also exemplified through a study of a Peruvian human remains repatriation case performed at Louisiana State University’s (LSU) Museum of Natural Science. The drastic difference in the perception and understandings of human remains and their subsequent treatment between these two countries in part relies on the involvement of stakeholder and descendant communities advocating for the legal and archaeological personhood of the ancient individuals over time. Theoretical concepts such as postmortem agency are used as a lens to understand the effects that the memory of dead ancestors can have on modern social and legal situations. Results from my research suggest that varied colonial histories have contributed to the distinctive treatment of human remains by erasing the agency of ancient ancestors at different times in both Peru and the United States.

Date

3-25-2025

Committee Chair

Chicoine, David

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