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this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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From my time majoring in Arch, I'd say the rule of thumb is:
"Is the culture the body came from vanished or changed to the point where no one has a personal stake in it."
So for example, vikings are long since gone. Modern northern europeans are generally a completely different culture, therefore not grave robbing. Same with Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, etc...
Indigenous tribes in North America and Australia for example, still very much around and still very much grave robbing (though that opinion is controversial)
Basically, if the existing culture still shows reverence to those ancestors...leave them alone. If the existing culture no longer honours them as ancestors, dig baby dig.
Is your intent to learn from and preserve a lost culture, or profit off of stolen goods?
I feel like it's pretty simple.
Even if there was something to learn I don't want anyone digging up my grandma. If someone's descendants are saying "Don't do that to our ancestor's grave, it's disrespectful in our culture" then you're defiling a grave.
"I swear, the feet from this ceramic were missing when I found it."
I feel like it should be simpler: did the culture the body came from have good enough records in other ways that we would be unlikely to learn anything by digging up the body that we couldn't learn by studying other records? Then leave it alone.
If they failed to keep good enough records, and knowledge would be gained by the study, then study away.
I thought these days it was less digging and more radar/sonar type stuff? Trying to preserve the original site or something.
likely yes. I was in university in the late 90s. My knowledge is very out of date.
That would usually be done before digging. Only after learning all you can through deep soil scans and confirming structural integrity so as to not have it break upon moving it. Then you may dig it up.