Michael Louis Blakey

The Commission on the Ethical Treatment of Human Remains (TCETHR), co-chaired by Michael Blakey (William & Mary) and Deborah Thomas (University of Pennsylvania) was charged by the American Anthropological Association to review current thinking and established practices for the handling of human remains, tissues, blood samples, burials and sacred burial objects. We have completed our Global Listening Sessions to assess the thinking of descendant communities/culturally affiliated groups and colleagues working with those group’s ancestral remains in different parts of the world. Under Wenner-Gren Foundation funding, we held extensive discussions with a broad range of Indigenous leaders and colleagues in Japan, Australia, South Africa and (under a separate Wenner-Gren grant) the United States of America. Our sessions continued both in person and on zoom in Western Canada, Senegal, Netherlands, Britain. Our reports are being completed presently, including historical background and sociocultural evidence of the ethical problems involved in research on human remains. We present 6 ethical principles, 31 recommendations, and examples of how our profession might make an informed ethical and intellectual turn away from colonial, racist, and objectifying relationships with the remains’ descendant communities and culturally affiliated groups. We explore steps to an alternate future for biological anthropology.