Who owns the bones? Human fossils shouldn’t just belong to whoever digs them up

Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Southern Cross University; Alessandro Pelizzon, Southern Cross University; Anja Scheffers, Southern Cross University, and John Page, Southern Cross University

All humans alive today can claim a common ancestral link to some hominin. Hominins include modern humans, extinct human species, and all our immediate ancestors.

Recent discoveries of hominin remains, including the skull of a Homo erectus in South Africa, have generated high levels of interest from the public and scientific community alike.

Fossils hold invaluable information about human history. But digging deeper, there is much complexity around the question of what a “fossil” is, and who should be granted ownership of them. This is the topic of our latest research article published in the journal Heliyon.

Fossils fuel debate

The question of what qualifies as a “fossil” remains open. The Oxford dictionary defines fossils as:

the remains or impressions of a plant or animal embedded in rock and preserved in petrified form.

Dinosaur poo can become fossilised. This is called a coprolite.
Shutterstock

But this definition doesn’t encompass the broader use of the word. Eggshells or coprolites (fossilised excrement) are neither direct remains nor the impression of an animal or plant, but archaeologists often refer to them as “fossils”.

The process of fossilisation can start immediately after an organism’s death, and the term “fossil” isn’t attached to a specific time period or state of preservation.

The term also relates to the perceived value, uniqueness or rareness of remains (and what they may reveal). Given such a breadth of meanings, it’s unsurprising attempts to regulate the status of fossils are fraught.

Hands off my fossil!

There was lively debate surrounding the 2015 discovery of Homo naledi in the Rising Star cave near Johannesburg, South Africa. The public’s access to the site and its fossils drew heavy criticism from researchers. This raised the question: should fossil discoveries be freely available?

The announcement of the discovery of Homo naledi fossils in 2015 in South Africa was met with mixed responses from the research community.
GovernmentZA / Flickr, CC BY-ND

Generally, around the world a person who excavates a fossil is allowed to keep it. Not only that, they can conduct potentially destructive analyses on it, and grant scientific and public access to the information it reveals.

Such practices can generate “gentleman’s club” syndrome, wherein members of scientifically influential groups have a better chance of accessing important fossils. But despite being accepted practice in the field, the “finders keepers” approach is legally problematic.

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Read more:
Homo naledi may be two million years old (give or take)

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Humans and human remains have a special status in most nations’ legal systems. While animals can be owned, humans can’t. Compounding this, the definition of “human” is itself contested, and this muddies the legal waters when it comes to discovering archaeological human remains.

For instance, recent DNA discoveries of interbreeding between Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis and Denisovans – as well as the fact that Homo naledi and Homo floresensis existed at the same time as modern humans – indicates scientists struggle to reach a consensus on where the boundaries of “human” lie.

The definition of “human” can also be culturally ascribed. Many indigenous peoples including communities from Australasia and Africa recognise an ancestral connection to species not always classified as Homo sapiens.

So what should be done with the fossilised remains of extinct species that aren’t “human” in the sense of belonging to Homo sapiens, but are nevertheless our evolutionary ancestors?

Are human remains things to be owned?

In Australia, as in most common law systems, there can be no “property” in a human corpse. While both burial and exhumation are regulated, ownership of a corpse is not.

The export of “Class A” cultural heritage, which includes human remains, is prohibited under the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986. Also, Australian state legislation regulating the scientific use of human tissue (such as the NSW Human Tissue Act 1983) doesn’t require any consent for samples excavated before 2003.

On the other hand, Australia also has a national repatriation program for Indigenous cultural patrimony. This program seeks to restore stolen human remains and sacred objects to their original communities.

Cultural subjects

The tension between scientific interests and spiritual beliefs is apparent in the context of repatriating human remains to Indigenous communities.

While fossilised human remains hold significant scientific value, their symbolic and spiritual value can’t be ignored, particularly to communities that feel a connection to them. Human remains would be best described as both scientific objects and also cultural subjects.

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Read more:
Africa’s rich fossil finds should get the air time they deserve

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Some scientists view repatriation and reburial of human remains as a deliberate destruction of a “source of information” that belongs to global humanity.

On the other hand, historical injustices and the imbalance of power between colonial entities and Indigenous people stand against such arguments. As a result, the repatriation and reburial of human remains becomes inseparable from broader legal arguments advanced by Indigenous peoples today.

Human, hominin and hominid fossils are far more than just objects to be owned. In fact, they reside at a contested and poorly regulated scientific, cultural and legal intersection.

We need common standards for ownership, protection and access controls. One solution would be to establish an international delegation with key stakeholders including scientists, lawyers, community representatives and policy makers.

Ideally, this could exist under the umbrella of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Such a body could foster constructive dialogue on how we value human fossils, and how we assign them ownership.

Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Senior research fellow, Southern Cross University; Alessandro Pelizzon, Senior lecturer, Southern Cross University; Anja Scheffers, Professor, Southern Cross University, and John Page, Associate professor, Southern Cross University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A home for everyone? Property ownership has been about status and wealth since our convict days

A house and land on the River Derwent, Tasmania, 1822.
National Library of Australia

Imogen Wegman, University of Tasmania

While Australia has an egalitarian mythology, where everyone has a chance, the roots of problems with access to housing lie in our history. The first land grants were given to former convicts as a way to control an unfenced prison colony. As free settlers arrived in Australia, priorities changed, land ownership gained prestige, and smaller landholders were pushed out of the market.

When Governor Phillip stepped onto Australian soil for the first time, in 1788, he carried with him a set of instructions to guide him through the early days of the newest British colony. Included was some authority to grant land, and the number of acres each male convict could receive at the end of his sentence. Eighteen months later, the colony received further instructions from Home Secretary William Grenville, permitting soldiers and free settlers to receive parcels of land if they chose to stay in the colony.

Grants given to former convicts at Norfolk Plains, northern Tasmania, 1814.
G.W. Evans, held by Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, AF 396/1/1325

Grenville’s instructions also set out the pattern of land granting that would dominate the colony for the next two decades. Groups of grants were to be placed at the edge of a waterway, with each individual property stretching back into the land rather than along the bank. These rules had a long history; the American colony of Georgia received almost identical phrasing in 1754, but other versions had been in place since the early 18th century.

The rules had two specific purposes in Australia: to foster productivity; and to maintain surveillance over the landholding population, which consisted largely of former convicts.

Initially, all land grants were required to conform to these instructions, and status was shown by the amount of land received. Former convicts started at 30 acres, while free settlers got at least 100 acres.

Under this scheme everyone would receive a mixture of good and bad soils, access to a navigable river and the safety of a surrounding community – important in an unfamiliar land. These grants would reduce the colony’s reliance on imported provisions. Instead, it could feed excess produce into the ports that restocked passing ships.

Colonial exploration and expansion could then continue to stretch to the furthest parts of the globe. But the rules also kept the grantees contained and within a dayʼs travel of a centre of governance (Hobart or Launceston, for example).

Free settlers’ arrival changed the rules

In 1817, the Colonial Office began to encourage voluntary emigration to the Australian colonies, and ambitious free settlers arrived. People complained about the failings of the former convicts, as they practised a rough agriculture that did not fit British ideals.

At the same time the management of convicts in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) moved towards the harsh penitentiary system today associated with convicts. Using land grants to pin the former convict population to specific locations, while permitting them the freedom to live their lives, conflicted with free settlersʼ aspirations for the colony.

It is no accident that Bothwell, in Tasmania’s Derwent Valley, was not directly connected to Hobart by river and was dominated by free settlers. The spread of Europeans across the land resulted from the mix of an expanding overland road network and the reduced need to keep these higher-status settlers within armʼs reach.

Grants at Bothwell were given primarily to free settlers.
Surveyor and date unknown, Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, AF 396/1/338

Land granting policies that excluded poorer settlers (most of whom were former convicts or the children of convicts) were introduced. Only those people with £500 capital and assets (roughly A$80,000) would be eligible. The minimum grant would be 320 acres.

One writer, the colonial surveyor G.W. Evans, asked at the time whether this was intended to drive those without means to the United States of America instead. Even if they scraped together the money, the sheer quantity of land would be beyond their ability to cultivate.

Average grant sizes, taken from specific representative regions to eliminate duplicates in the records.
Author, 2017

Locating former convicts on the rivers ensured productivity and the reliable transportation of goods, but these grants also kept them under close observation. As the penal system became more punitive convicts lost the hope of gaining a small piece of land after their sentence.

But before this, far from being intended as any kind of reward or enticement, the first land grants given in Australia represented ongoing control over the lowest class of settlers – those who had been “transported beyond the seas”. Since the beginning of our colonial history, land ownership in Australia has been intricately connected with role and status.

Imogen Wegman, PhD candidate, History and Classics, University of Tasmania

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Ancient Artefact Ownership?