Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: Human Remains Curation in the United Kingdom
- 1 International Perspectives towards Human Remains Curation
- 2 Dealings with the Dead: A Personal Consideration of the Ongoing Human Remains Debate
- 3 Care, Custody and Display of Human Remains: Legal and Ethical Obligations
- 4 The Impact and Effectiveness of the Human Tissue Act 2004 and the Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums in England
- 5 Dead and Forgotten? Some Observations on Human Remains Documentation in the UK
- 6 Tethering Time and Tide? Human Remains Guidance and Legislation for Scottish Museums
- 7 The Quick and the Deid: A Scottish Perspective on Caring for Human Remains at the Perth Museum and Art Gallery
- 8 The Museum of London: An Overview of Policies and Practice
- 9 Curating Human Remains in a Regional Museum: Policy and Practice at the Great North Museum: Hancock
- 10 Curation of Human Remains at St Peter's Church, Barton-upon-Humber, England
- 11 Archaeological Human Remains and Laboratories: Attaining Acceptable Standards for Curating Skeletal Remains for Teaching and Research
- 12 ‘No Room at the Inn’ … Contract Archaeology and the Storage of Human Remains
- 13 Changes in Policy for Excavating Human Remains in England and Wales
- 14 Conclusions and Ways Forward
- Appendix 1 DCMS Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums: Contents page and Part 2
- Appendix 2 MGS Guidelines for the Care of Human Remains in Scottish Museum Collections: Contents page and Chapter 2
- List of Contributors
- Index
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
10 - Curation of Human Remains at St Peter's Church, Barton-upon-Humber, England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: Human Remains Curation in the United Kingdom
- 1 International Perspectives towards Human Remains Curation
- 2 Dealings with the Dead: A Personal Consideration of the Ongoing Human Remains Debate
- 3 Care, Custody and Display of Human Remains: Legal and Ethical Obligations
- 4 The Impact and Effectiveness of the Human Tissue Act 2004 and the Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums in England
- 5 Dead and Forgotten? Some Observations on Human Remains Documentation in the UK
- 6 Tethering Time and Tide? Human Remains Guidance and Legislation for Scottish Museums
- 7 The Quick and the Deid: A Scottish Perspective on Caring for Human Remains at the Perth Museum and Art Gallery
- 8 The Museum of London: An Overview of Policies and Practice
- 9 Curating Human Remains in a Regional Museum: Policy and Practice at the Great North Museum: Hancock
- 10 Curation of Human Remains at St Peter's Church, Barton-upon-Humber, England
- 11 Archaeological Human Remains and Laboratories: Attaining Acceptable Standards for Curating Skeletal Remains for Teaching and Research
- 12 ‘No Room at the Inn’ … Contract Archaeology and the Storage of Human Remains
- 13 Changes in Policy for Excavating Human Remains in England and Wales
- 14 Conclusions and Ways Forward
- Appendix 1 DCMS Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums: Contents page and Part 2
- Appendix 2 MGS Guidelines for the Care of Human Remains in Scottish Museum Collections: Contents page and Chapter 2
- List of Contributors
- Index
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
Summary
Introduction
This chapter outlines why long-term archiving of archaeological human remains for research purposes is important. It then discusses a policy initiative by English Heritage and the Church of England that entails, where appropriate, the archiving of important collections of human remains in redundant or partially redundant churches. The main part of the chapter discusses an example of such a facility, at St Peter's Church, Barton-upon-Humber. The creation of church archives of human remains involves its own challenges, and the Barton-upon-Humber case illustrates some of these. In closing, the chapter discusses the prospects for the creation of further church archives of human remains in England.
Archaeology is about people and how they lived in the past. The study of human remains is therefore a central component of archaeological enquiry. Most would consider the acquisition of knowledge to be a significant benefit for humanity and, in particular, research into our past enables us to understand ourselves better. As well as being a vital source of evidence about the past, human remains from archaeological sites also help increase our understanding of some of the diseases that continue to afflict populations around the world today, for example osteoporosis (Mays 1999; Agarwal and Stout 2003), tuberculosis (Roberts and Buikstra 2003), leprosy (Monot et al 2009), Paget's disease of bone (eg Mays 2010a) and osteoarthritis (eg Rogers and Dieppe 1994; Inoue et al2001).
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- Information
- Curating Human RemainsCaring for the Dead in the United Kingdom, pp. 109 - 122Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013