How would you feel if...?

It's a question that we got asked a lot during undergrad; an invitation to look through another person's thought process, usually after learning about early archaeological practices. Early archaeology was just as exploitative as any other exploratory science, and still struggles with the implications and actions of the past.  Modern digs do their best to be respectful, however there are always ethical issues with artifacts, much less human remains. 

            One day, after going over NAGPRA, the specific question was “How would you feel if your ancestors were exhumed for study?”  My dad’s side of the family has a cemetery, so that's where my thoughts went to.  I had spent hours walking among the graves, reading the names, and wondering about their stories. At the time I thought it might be cool to be able to compare the family and see how different people’s lives were.  I also thought about how interesting it would be to see how all the different genetics combined and who most resembled whom.  There were so many things that could be learned. 

            We were at Thanksgiving dinner, with my mom’s family, when my sister asked what I had decided to study.  Although this wasn’t early days of college, I didn’t declare my major until a week before it was required, so no one at home had any idea what I had decided on. I told her a little about the anthropology and archaeological classes I had been taking and how much fun it had been learning about the region and actually getting to do some mock excavation. For some reason the conversation upset my grandfather who stayed quiet the rest of the night. He would stop talking to me anytime I dyed my hair, let it get too long, got a tattoo, or piercing.  It was just a part of my life, so I barely noticed.  We didn't talk for nearly two years, and it took an emergency for a it to happen.  We never discussed what that specific issue or instance was. Time did its thing; I graduated from college, moved away, went back to school, and got married.  He developed lung cancer and passed from complications.

            After the funeral I was talking to my mom and the incident came up.  She hadn't realized we didn't talk through college.  I described the time after I told them my major and she got quiet for a while.  The story she told flipped everything I thought I knew about what I wanted. When he was a young man living in rural New Mexico a local university had been caught grave robbing.  They dug up a couple of unrelated graves, and one of his uncles.  They were caught on a third raid trying to exhume his infant sister. They were chased off, but no remains were returned.

            How did I feel when? Devastated. Violated. Not the “Ohh they were doing research” feeling I had decided on. I remember people in the anthropology department where I studied swearing there were no human bones in the vault, and others saying there definitely were. I do know we only used plastic bones during class. I was accepted into grad school at the same university around that time and didn't go back.  Sometimes I’ll still say I miss digging holes, but this story changed my path.  Had I heard it earlier in life I probably would have made a different choice about what to study.  Over time I’ve thought about the stories I had been told of bony specimens that had been destroyed in both early and recent research. There are days I wonder if their bones are still or were ever there.

            I do know it doesn't matter how anyone might feel about a thing that happens to someone else. No one can ever know how something will affect them until it's too late.  The best we can do is plan and state a course of action to have some hope of follow through. No matter how hard one tries to look through another person's lens the view will always be skewed by a lack of experience. When dealing with an unfamiliar situation it's best to take the people involved at their word and put any personal feeling we may have aside.  We know how people react in traumatic situations and those reactions should always be enough to offer support.  Deal with the feelings first, and then tackle the problem.