5 ms·

>more probably 18 years 'marked for attention' with a recent 18 months or so of grad student work. Your new article mentions several years of excavations, but

>more probably 18 years 'marked for attention' with a recent 18 months or so of grad student work. Your new article mentions several years of excavations, but you're right that saying eighteen years of digging was wrong. >Bodies likely needed moving to allow building | roads | something to use the ground. And they were fine waiting eighteen years? Maybe they legally had to, but I'd imagine that would be mentioned. The media loved mentioning that Richard III was found in a car park. >it's been all about picking through trash, toliet pits, and mass graves of commoners for some time. For periods before the printing press, sure. We have an abundance of data about the seventeenth century. That's why we know this padlock likely means they were worried the child would be a revenant. Would you see the same value in digging up nineteenth or twentieth century corpses? >indicates the ability to gather statistics on migration that aren't reliably availablle in other ways. Maybe he's doing a more scientific analysis on this at the same time, but this revenant nonsense feels rather trivial and exploitative. For comparison, the seventeenth century is around when you start seeing colonizers taking home bodies of the natives and displaying them. That has started to get some serious blowback, and I don't see this story as being massively better.

defrost 3y ago
I don't the specifiic background here and it sounds very much as though neither do you so very many things are possible here (that have been true elsewhere). > And they were fine waiting eighteen years? Dunno, possibly somebody dug a well twenty years ago, found bones, they were investigated, and now some infrastructure needs to go through - I have no idea. > We have an abundance of data about the seventeenth century. We have an abundance of partial data about the seventeenth century, as I mentioned, as the article mentions, these are unrecorded unconsecrated burials - official town parish records are sort of complete (no instagram photos for example) for some of the population (rich well to do parishioners (oh, actually, kind of like instagram)), blank slates OR biased takes on others (the poor, the not our church folk, any others we don't talk about). As I mentioned, physical evidence acts to ground truth "History" (that which is written but may have gaps | be incomplete | be biased). > but this revenant nonsense feels rather trivial and exploitative. Media sources like to play up this stuff, sure, and that's what one outlet is reporting on, yes. Back to the archeology work which appear to be looking at and recording everthing; should they record or leave out that some of the bodies appear to be chained and detained in various ways? Should they be noting any related customs and beliefs of the times that might relate to these practices? > For comparison, the seventeenth century is around when you start seeing colonizers taking home bodies of the natives and displaying them. That has started to get some serious blowback, and I don't see this story as being massively better. Oooh, I do - I definitely do. I'm far happier seeing Europeans digging up the graves of their own ancestors on their own grounds than I am seeing Europeans coming over here and cutting off the heads of my great grandparents "for science". Damn near impossible getting any of them back, to be honest, and the archeologist skill sets are handy for some of those recovered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_of_Yagan%27s_head https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_of_Yagan%27s_head
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  We agree that neither of us know what the possible aim is in this excavation. They should note the conditions they found the corpses in if they are doing this, with citations to why they think the conditions were like that, but I don't see why they're doing this. The argument that they could always learn more works just as well as a justification for digging up bodies buried in our lifetime too, some of which are also undocumented burials. >I'm far happier seeing Europeans digging up the graves of their own ancestors on their own grounds That's an improvement, but then taking pictures of the bodies and publishing them in American publications with a worldwide audience makes it nearly as bad. A Polish person making a spectacle out of a Polish corpse is better than a British person doing it, but they're pretty similar.
  - defrost 3y ago
    Graveyards very frequently need to be moved .. that's been part of the European tradition of christian burial for at least a thousand years .. with catacombs in major cities being resting places for bodies until the flesh melts away and bones are gathered and stacked .. occasionally made into 'artworks' in ossuaries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary Now, there's some spectacle. Clearly(?) it's not in line with your specific value system that a chandelier of bones is a respectful treatment of soul less body parts. I do get the impression that it is part of your belief system that others should abide by your mortuary practices and that you get upset if others don't behave in the manner you wish them too. That seems worse than what is happening here in this story. Still, at least you're not projecting the mortuary rites of the South Fore upon us all.
    - boomboomsubban 3y ago
      The first thing I said was I don't find the body sacred. However this family was so worried about their child being unentombed they padlocked him to the casket. Sure, this wasn't what they imagined when they padlocked him, but they wanted him to stay buried. Making art out of the bones would be better than parading the corpse around saying "look at how silly their beliefs were."

defrost 3y ago

I don't the specifiic background here and it sounds very much as though neither do you so very many things are possible here (that have been true elsewhere). > And they were fine waiting eighteen years? Dunno, possibly somebody dug a well twenty years ago, found bones, they were investigated, and now some infrastructure needs to go through - I have no idea. > We have an abundance of data about the seventeenth century. We have an abundance of partial data about the seventeenth century, as I mentioned, as the article mentions, these are unrecorded unconsecrated burials - official town parish records are sort of complete (no instagram photos for example) for some of the population (rich well to do parishioners (oh, actually, kind of like instagram)), blank slates OR biased takes on others (the poor, the not our church folk, any others we don't talk about). As I mentioned, physical evidence acts to ground truth "History" (that which is written but may have gaps | be incomplete | be biased). > but this revenant nonsense feels rather trivial and exploitative. Media sources like to play up this stuff, sure, and that's what one outlet is reporting on, yes. Back to the archeology work which appear to be looking at and recording everthing; should they record or leave out that some of the bodies appear to be chained and detained in various ways? Should they be noting any related customs and beliefs of the times that might relate to these practices? > For comparison, the seventeenth century is around when you start seeing colonizers taking home bodies of the natives and displaying them. That has started to get some serious blowback, and I don't see this story as being massively better. Oooh, I do - I definitely do. I'm far happier seeing Europeans digging up the graves of their own ancestors on their own grounds than I am seeing Europeans coming over here and cutting off the heads of my great grandparents "for science". Damn near impossible getting any of them back, to be honest, and the archeologist skill sets are handy for some of those recovered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_of_Yagan%27s_head https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhumation_of_Yagan%27s_head

boomboomsubban 3y ago
We agree that neither of us know what the possible aim is in this excavation. They should note the conditions they found the corpses in if they are doing this, with citations to why they think the conditions were like that, but I don't see why they're doing this. The argument that they could always learn more works just as well as a justification for digging up bodies buried in our lifetime too, some of which are also undocumented burials. >I'm far happier seeing Europeans digging up the graves of their own ancestors on their own grounds That's an improvement, but then taking pictures of the bodies and publishing them in American publications with a worldwide audience makes it nearly as bad. A Polish person making a spectacle out of a Polish corpse is better than a British person doing it, but they're pretty similar.
- defrost 3y ago
  Graveyards very frequently need to be moved .. that's been part of the European tradition of christian burial for at least a thousand years .. with catacombs in major cities being resting places for bodies until the flesh melts away and bones are gathered and stacked .. occasionally made into 'artworks' in ossuaries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary Now, there's some spectacle. Clearly(?) it's not in line with your specific value system that a chandelier of bones is a respectful treatment of soul less body parts. I do get the impression that it is part of your belief system that others should abide by your mortuary practices and that you get upset if others don't behave in the manner you wish them too. That seems worse than what is happening here in this story. Still, at least you're not projecting the mortuary rites of the South Fore upon us all.
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    The first thing I said was I don't find the body sacred. However this family was so worried about their child being unentombed they padlocked him to the casket. Sure, this wasn't what they imagined when they padlocked him, but they wanted him to stay buried. Making art out of the bones would be better than parading the corpse around saying "look at how silly their beliefs were."