Human Remains In Society

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Human remains and society presents a groundbreaking account of the treatment and commemoration of dead bodies resulting from incidents of genocide and mass violence. Whether reburied, concealed, stored, abandoned or publically displayed, human remains raise a vast number of questions regarding social, legal and ethical uses by communities, public institutions and civil society organisations. Through a diverse range of international case studies, across multiple continents, this highly innovative book explores the effect of dead bodies or body parts, either desired or unintended, on various political, cultural or religious practices. How, for instance, do issues of confiscation, concealment or the destruction of human remains in mass crime impact on transitional processes, commemoration or judicial procedures? Multidisciplinary in scope, Human remains and society will appeal to readers interested in the crucial phase of post-conflict reconciliation. This includes students and researchers of history, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, law, politics and modern warfare.

"This book offers a systematic overview of the responses made by museums and other repositories in the UK to the ownership, care, storage, display and interpretation of human remains." -- back cover.

An examination of the construction of contestation over human remains from a sociological perspective, this work advances an emerging area of academic research, setting the terms of debate, synthesizing disparate ideas, & making sense of a broader cultural focus on dead bodies in the contemporary period.

This book examines Maya sacrifice and related posthumous body manipulation. The editors bring together an international group of contributors from the area studied: archaeologists as well as anthropologists, forensic anthropologists, art historians and bioarchaeologists. This interdisciplinary approach provides a comprehensive perspective on these sites as well as the material culture and biological evidence found there

Human remains and identification presents a pioneering investigation into the practices and methodologies used in the search for and exhumation of dead bodies resulting from mass violence. Previously absent from forensic debate, social scientists and historians here confront historical and contemporary exhumations with the application of social context to create an innovative and interdisciplinary dialogue, enlightening the political, social and legal aspects of mass crime and its aftermaths. Through a ground-breaking selection of international case studies, Human remains and identification argues that the emergence of new technologies to facilitate the identification of dead bodies has led to a "forensic turn", normalising exhumations as a method of dealing with human remains en masse. However, are these exhumations always made for legitimate reasons? Multidisciplinary in scope, this book will appeal to readers interested in understanding this crucial phase of mass violence's aftermath, including researchers in history, anthropology, sociology, forensic science, law, politics and modern warfare. The research program leading to this publication has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n° 283-617.

Human bones form the most direct link to understanding how people lived in the past, who they were and where they came from. The interpretative value of human skeletal remains (within their burial context) in terms of past social identity and organisation is awesome, but was, for many years, underexploited by archaeologists. The nineteen papers in this edited volume are an attempt to redress this by marrying the cultural aspects of burial with the anthropology of the deceased.

Highlights the importance of best practice in dealing with human remains, and discusses the key ethical and legal issues.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED for the 2021 Lionel Gelber Prize Thoughtful and brilliant insights into the very nature of war--from the ancient Greeks to modern times--from world-renowned historian Margaret MacMillan. War--its imprint in our lives and our memories--is all around us, from the metaphors we use to the names on our maps. As books, movies, and television series show, we are drawn to the history and depiction of war. Yet we nevertheless like to think of war as an aberration, as the breakdown of the normal state of peace. This is comforting but wrong. War is woven into the fabric of human civilization. In this sweeping new book, international bestselling author and historian Margaret MacMillan analyzes the tangled history of war and society and our complicated feelings towards it and towards those who fight. It explores the ways in which changes in society have affected the nature of war and how in turn wars have changed the societies that fight them, including the ways in which women have been both participants in and the objects of war. MacMillan's new book contains many revelations, such as war has often been good for science and innovation and in the 20th century it did much for the position of women in many societies. But throughout, it forces the reader to reflect on the ways in which war is so intertwined with society, and the myriad reasons we fight.