Scattered Episode 24: Ethics and Human Remains – Interview with Kimberlee Moran

Kimberlee Moran is a professor of forensic archaeology at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey. She holds an undergraduate degree in Classical and Near Eastern archaeology from Bryn Mawr College and a Masters of Science in forensic archaeological science from the Institute of Archaeology at University College London. Kimberlee worked as a contract archaeologist for Hunter Research, a CRM firm based in Trenton, NJ, prior to moving to the UK. She moved back to New Jersey in 2010. Her archaeological research includes ancient fingerprints, artificial cranial deformation, the Whispering Woods site in Salem, NJ, and the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia also known as “The Arch Street Project”.

In this episode we talk about:

• Working with human remains raises ethical questions around consent, cultural perspectives, and scientific study versus dignity.
• Her experience working at a construction site in Philadelphia, which led to the excavation of approximately 500 individuals from an historical cemetery and working with the legal and ethics implications of that experience.
• How factors like the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia highlighted issues with the treatment and repatriation of human remains.
• Ethical frameworks from moral philosophy and how they can provide rationales for decision-making around human remains.
• How attitudes in the use of human remains can vary from using remains in classroom teaching to complete removal from classrooms and museums.
• How anthropologists may consider differing cultural and disciplinary perspectives on working with remains.
• How ethical dilemmas have no easy answers. They requiring thoughtful consideration of issues from multiple viewpoints.

You can find more information about Kimberlee Moran on her webpage here: https://kimberleemoran.camden.rutgers.edu/

You can find more information about:

• the MOVE group here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE_(Philadelphia_organization)

• Mount Moriah Cemetery here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Moriah_Cemetery_(Philadelphia)
• The Arch Street Project here: https://www.archstbones.org/

Kimberlee references the following books:

Ethics and Professionalism in Forensic Anthropology
by Nicholas V. Passalacqua & Marin A. Pilloud

A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox by Anthony Weston

If you’re interested in ethics in archaeology, you can check out the following:

Society for American Archaeology: https://www.saa.org/career-practice/ethics-in-professional-archaeology

Notes from the start:

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