Sorry, Chris is right, I meant the British Museum (been reading so much about MOL recently I've got it on the brain).

The British Museum features artifacts so their prehistory would be largely limited to lithics and bits of carved bone. All the rest resides with the NHM I'm afraid. Still, with the Early Human Occupation of Britain project steaming ahead there's a lot more interest these days and a fresh exhibition in the pipeline. If you want to see more stuff, just make an appointment. Public access to the study collections is getting easier.

The Lewis chessmen do travel about and if someone wants Stonehenge I'm sure we can work out a price ;-)

quote:

Originally posted by mlh:
The British Museum features artifacts so their prehistory would be largely limited to lithics and bits of carved bone. All the rest resides with the NHM I'm afraid.

I'm sure that last time I visited the BM there were a few bits of metal from Prehistoric Britain lying around there somewhere.

Quite a few bits of metal, yes!

Swede gives back Acropolis marble

A retired Swedish gym teacher is the toast of Greece after returning a piece of sculpted marble taken from the Acropolis more than a century ago.

BBC News Story

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM RETURNS ABORIGINAL REMAINS TO AUSTRALIA

The Natural History Museum in London is to repatriate the remains of 17 Tasmanian Aboriginal people to the Australian Government.

Story from: 24Hr Museum

To be more exact, a government ethical committee appears to have advised NHM trustees that the bones should go back. No member of the science staff had any say in the matter. All this is high politics now. My personal view is that if these 17 items and any others kept by other museums around the world are repatriated, it will be as if the Tasmanians had never existed. The Australian government makes no secret of the fact that the remains will be destroyed. As Norm McLeod said this morning , it's a clash of cultures. Western Science wants to keep them in trust for all mankind but down-under they see things differently. I wonder if two generations down the road the Aussies will wish they had more than a memory to remind them of the last of the Tasmanians.

While we are at it....

Value of Human Remains in Museum collections symposium
3 to 4 March 2007
A two day international conference organised by the Museum of London, to be held at the Museum in Docklands.
The debate about the value of human remains is developing rapidly. In the last 15 years there have been new developments across the world that have seen human remains move away from simple display items and sources of archaeological and medical information to complex, often contested, cultural property.

Wow Mandy you have such an ability to make me think contradictory things at the same time! I feel a sense that human remains should be the subject of political and ethical discussion rather than solely scientific, but having said that I don't feel humans are anymore important than anything else. I somehow feel we are as transitory and unimportant as any other species.

The remains should be destroyed maybe, like mine will be when I'm dead. Why should Tasmanians be any different on a human level? But then, yes the loss of a human record. I'd be in two minds if I wasn't so confused.

" Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the museum, said it was regrettable as the remains would also be lost to Tasmanians if they were cremated. Robert Foley, professor of human evolution at Cambridge University, said: "As a scientist I deeply regret that this invaluable material will be lost forever."

I'm tempted to add another 2 pence worth here but it is drifting from its topic. Why not someone start another thread on this interesting and important deviant subject.

Be our guest

What was reported in the The Guardian, was that cremation was the traditional Aboriginal means of disposing of the dead. So rather than being seen as a heinous crime against science, could it not be seen as a proper end for 'relics' that should never have been picked at in the first place? There is a certain arrogance to science at times. That human remains can be mere 'materials' for research can at times seem harsh, especially when the humans concerned have not consented to becoming material.

There are no purebred Tasmanians left and the original inhabitants seem to have preferred burying their dead in shallow graves, which is how they were still available for collecting. Natural erosion reveals the bones and they were picked up. Mainlanders may have had alternative rituals. The ones we are sending down the Swannee were part of the historic College of Surgeons collection, which only came to the NHM after the war. The Australian Government has been asking museums worldwide for anything that was collected over there to be returned, not just human remains. It's part of a polital process. Make of it what you will.

Regarding the "arrogance" of science. I think scientists, particularly taxonomists, take their custodianship very seriously. Your first instinct was correct, we should not automatically separate ourselves from the rest of the planet's biodiversity. Care of material remains is paramount and evidence for succeeding generations who wish to know more about who they are and where they came from. Have we the right to destroy the heritage of generations to come, based on the traditions of generations past ? Give it some thought.

I will do mlh. But there are no succeeding generations of Tasmanians as you said, so to claim custodianship on their behalf isn't quite a straight argument is it. That said it seems the Guardian article was misinformed about 'disposal'.

Repatriation is part of a political project? Maybe but is that necessarily bad? Science is not beyond politics itself. The whole process is shot through with politics from funding, to peer reviewing, to academic 'tribalism'. The royal colleges of this that and the other are 'political' and often in ways that are seriously undemocratic. I researched a 'spat' between midvives and obstetricians a few years ago that was claimed to be based on scientific evidence, but it wasn't. It was far more based on th epolitics of class and gender. Don't get me wrong, I do not hold scientists in contempt but do wish sometimes they would be less 'naive' about the politics of their work.

But thanks mlh for your informative contribution too. Your well informed views always give me food for thought.

I don't think we would have been so worried about giving the Tasmanian skeletal material to the Aussies if it was going to stay intact. I think we would regard the material as having global importance. Curators do try to stay clear of politics because they take a very long view. Researchers on short-term contracts who need to win grants are in a different game.

The Elgin Marbles dilemma

Letter to the Times

quote:

The Elgin Marbles dilemma

Letter to the Times

Sir, Dalya Alberge’s judgment that the Greeks have failed to reclaim the Elgin Marbles, from the British Museum must be viewed as strictly interlocutory (report, Dec 13). The Greek claim, dating from 1842, has been renewed by Britons and Greeks of every subsequent generation, and will not be over until it’s over.

Letter From: The Times Online

Elgin Marbles.

Ah! The sweet smell of the archaeological fraternities hypocricy,do as they say not as ......etc
Priceless,or are they?

quote:

Originally posted by kevmar:
Elgin Marbles.

Ah! The sweet smell of the archaeological fraternities hypocricy,do as they say not as ......etc
Priceless,or are they?

Except that they are not archaeologists are they. Not everyone who works in a museum or obtains and keeps artefacts and works of art is an archaeologist. I would not have called Elgin an archaeologist. Well, let's face it - he wasn't. He was more of an art collector at best, treasure hunter at worst.

quote:

Originally posted by Steffan:

quote:

Originally posted by kevmar:
Elgin Marbles.

Ah! The sweet smell of the archaeological fraternities hypocricy,do as they say not as ......etc
Priceless,or are they?

Except that they are not archaeologists are they. Not everyone who works in a museum or obtains and keeps artefacts and works of art is an archaeologist. I would not have called Elgin an archaeologist. Well, let's face it - he wasn't. He was more of an art collector at best, treasure hunter at worst.

He wasn't an archaeologist, he was an artefact hunter.
We still have people like him around today squirreling away to their private collections.

What does ns mean?

Sorry chris,no idea,it might have been the remains of a copy paste thingy.


Kev.

Going back to the Tasmanians and other early settlers down-under. I found an interesting article about the tensions surrounding certain kinds of aboriginal art. It appears the people we now regard as Aussie first footers might