Managing collections of human remains in South African museums and universities: Ethical policy-making and scientific value

Sealy, Judith

Managing collections of human remains in South African museums and universities: Ethical policy-making and scientific value

Journal Article

2003

Journal Title

South African Journal of Science

Link to Journal

https://www.sajs.co.za/

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Archaeology

Faculty

Faculty of Science

Abstract

Several articles in this issue describe recent work on fossil hominid remains or on the emergence of modern humans (between 200 000 and 100 000 years ago) — major issues in archaeology and anthropology to which South African finds have made and continue to make a key contribution. Ancient human remains can be meaningfully assessed only in a comparative framework, by tracing the emergence or disappearance of features, or investigating relationships between lineages. The study of recent human skeletons (those from the last 10 000 or so years) plays an important role in such comparisons: a role that can be critical, as in the question of whether early modern humans in South Africa were or were not the direct ancestors of more recent Khoesan populations — an as yet unresolved question.