Ethical considerations and publishing in human bioarcheology

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: As bioarcheologists and forensic anthropologists, we are writing to highlight the apparent lack of ethical consideration, or mention of ethics, in published papers, especially when publishing on archeological human remains. In many situations, data deriving from excavated human remains provide the deep time perspective relevant to populations today (e.g., Binder et al., 2014). However, bearing in mind current ethical debates around the excavation, analysis, and curation of human remains (e.g., Squires, Errickson, & Márquez-Grant, 2019), and any in the future, we do need to address the ethics surrounding our research and its publication as we go forward.