Ethics and Archaeology

The growing importance of ethical considerations is transforming archaeology

The first-world-war battlefields of Belgium and France are dangerous places where, even today, unexploded shells lurk, making excavation a potentially lethal activity. But as archaeologists pick up their trowels, they must consider more than their personal safety. For t e trenches, dug-outs and tunnels, many containing human remains and personal belongings, are ethical minefields too. In a paper in this month's Antiquity, Nicholas Saunders, an anthropologist at University College, London, says that archaeologists on these battlefields face a concentration of all the issues that have concerned archaeology in the past ten to fifteen years.

These ethical concerns fall into three broad areas. First there is the question of how to treat human remains. Over the past few years, archaeologists have often come into conflict with indigenous peoples over the custody and handling of excavated human remains. In Belgium and France, the situation is particularly complex because the allied armies included soldiers from a variety of faiths and ethnicities, including Africans, Indians, Australians and Native Americans, all of whose traditions may prefer to treat remains differently.

Next is the question of ownership of artefacts. In the case of first-world-war sites, local people armed with metal detectors routinely collect medals and other memorabilia. The sale of such items, says Dr. Saunders, has provided an important source of income ever since refugees first returned tu the

A third ethical problem concerns the preservation of sites. Should battlefields be left alone as memorials, redeveloped for tourism, or preserved for the archaeologists of the future? Archaeologists increasingly consider the third option: in recent years, they have become more selective about what and where they dig, so that they do not preclude investigations bv subsequent generations.

In short, archaeologists’ investigations frequently pit their interests against those of other people, and the concerns of the present against the possible concerns of the future. As ethical considerations come to matter more, there has been a change in the way the public sees archaeologists, and the way archaeologists see themselves. We went through a period when we thought "Hey, we’re scientists, we should be the number one priority here,” says William Lipe, an archaeologist at Washington State University in Pullman. But most of us have now come to see it differently.

Archaeology is now changing dramatically, says Karen Vitelli, an archaeologist at Indiana University. Dr. Vitelli also chairs the ethics committee of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) and is editor of a forthcoming book on archaeological ethics. She was one of the first archaeologists to integrate the study of ethics into archaeological training, and it has now, she says, become a standard part of many degree courses. At the same time, archaeological societies around the world (including the SAA) have adopted codes of ethics to regulate their members. What has brought about this tranformation?

Skeletons in the Closet

Ethics and archaeology began to collide relatively recently. The modem discipline traces its roots back to the gentleman amateurs of the early 19“ century, who brought statues, columns, mummies and trinkets back as souvenirs from their travels around the Mediterranean. Subsequent generations of archaeologists have tended to regard men such as Giovanni Belzoni, a one-time circus strong-man who shipped Egyptian antiquities back to the British Museum in London, as little better than tomb-robbers.

By the early 20“ century, however, archaeologists had begun to adopt the methodology of science. Increasing emphasis was placed on the accurate measurement and description of sites and publication of results in archaeological journals. Technological advances such as the advent of radiocarbon dating led to further refinements, and the few archaeology movement of the 1960s promoted quantitative methods such as statistical analysis. The transformation of archaeology, from tomb-robbing by amateurs into a coherent scientific discipline, was complete.

Paradoxically, the ethical arguments over the treatment of human remains, the ownership of artefacts and responsibility to future generations, all stem in part from archaeology's new-found scientific authority. Having eschewed their dubious forebears, archaeologists reinvented themselves as respectable scientists in search of truth. Who could argue with that?