From a scientific perspective, the human skeleton contains a wealth of information about the life and death of that individual, a direct means by which we can reconstruct aspects of that person as a biological and social being. We can make interpretations about diet, disease, mobility, and activity patterns, all of which (when informed by archaeological context) provide us with a richer understanding of human behavior and the human experience in the past. None of this is in question.

At the same time, we need to be more reflexive about why we excavate in the first place, and ask ourselves if our research goals can be accomplished without disturbing even more human burials. After all, these are not objects or specimens, but people, and as such, must be treated with dignity and respect. Instead of continuing to generate new human skeletal assemblages through excavation, I would urge ANE bioarchaeologists to seek out and rehabilitate understudied legacy or orphaned collections. This is in line with Pamela Geller’s concept of bioethos — to move past the mere acknowledgement of ethics, and instead, to voluntarily and proactively carry out ethical actions, beyond mandated legislative requirements.

The choice to conduct research on skeletal assemblages that have already been excavated — sometimes decades (or more) ago — is not an easy decision to make, particularly as our identities as archaeologists and bioarchaeologists are often tied to our ability to excavate and generate new materials or skeletons with which to work. On the other hand, though, substituting excavation with rehabilitation is equally, if not more, important. It means committing serious time to combing through the field notes of others to re-attach context to these bodies, and to work to properly curate these individuals so that with consent, their skeletons can be studied. If legacy collections can help us to answer similar research questions that we seek to explicate by excavating, we have to seriously consider this as a more ethical option. Alternatively, if we do not have consent from descendant communities to study these skeletons, or if too much context has been lost to make studying them productive, we need to work towards repatriation and reburial, instead of hoarding these once-living people who did not give consent to be excavated or stored in this way.

To be clear, I am not advocating for a moratorium on the excavation of human skeletons. Under the right circumstances — which beyond consent, include an obligation to follow through with a commitment to properly document, curate, and store the assemblages we produce — I still think it’s incredibly important for us to do this as bioarchaeologists. But, it’s also time for us to recognize that we need to take responsibility for our predecessors who accumulated these collections in the first place, and to normalize working with these kinds of collections instead of constantly generating new individuals for study. While legacy collections certainly require us to invest a great deal of time and resources to their rehabilitation, they also hold invaluable information that can be unlocked if we don’t allow our own biases towards such collections to stand in the way.