There is a LOT of… let’s call it “discussion” going on about the recent disagreement over the journal image policy recently issued by the Southeastern Archeological Conference (SEAC). In a nutshell, it forbids the publication of photographs of burial items/funerary objects. Images of human skeletal remains were banned some time ago. Authors can provide drawings of those items and submit those so long as they show proof of consultation with Native Nations or a reasonable good faith attempt to do so.
We could go in a lot of different directions with this, and many people have. I’m going to go in a slightly different direction with my reaction to it. It’s possible I’m deliberately reading it in other ways from what is intended, but I think there’s something that doesn’t hit the discourse much. Basically…
Where does it say that the ban on photographs of burial items say it pertains only to Native American burial items?
It doesn’t, and that’s a big reason why I’m behind it.
So, if you don’t know me, one of my big research areas is Conflict Archeology, specifically 19th century conflict (American Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish-Cuban-American War). One of the things I’ve found really weird about keeping a presence in this space is the utter glibness that people, mostly outside of archeology but occasionally within our ranks (pardon the military metaphor), treat with war dead. You can get online and watch innumerable videos of people digging up the graves of hundreds of World War 2 soldiers, particularly Germans and Russians. The former in hopes of finding Nazi memorabilia (super weird that there’s such a market for it, but there yo go) and the latter because those soldiers typically wore their medals into battle and would be buried with them. There has been a lot of proper archeological work going on with the Western Front from World War 1, particularly around Ypres, Belgium (site of the first use of gas attacks during the war). It’s not hard to find excavation photos showing war dead encountered during those excavations and others in the area. Seriously, Google the “Grimsby Chums” and see what you get).
And, frankly, I don’t think any of this is OK. Some of these people were buried by their comrades, some by their captors, and others never got a proper burial, being lost on the battlefield or buried in a collapsed bunker. In none of these situations do I think it should be OK to uncritically print photographs of their remains or burials. There is a luridness to those displays that reduces their humanity and that of the comrades, parents, wives, husbands, children, and friends who never got more time with the lost. An image policy that safeguards them and the things they carried (yes, that is a Tim O’Brien reference) is a good thing. Sonny Trimble’s recent article in the SHA Newsletter about how to handle the remains of war dead highlights that this is not the only way in which we need to do better by the war dead encountered by archeologists.
Yes, I know that the image policy, after not saying anything about it being only about Native Americans at the outset then infers it by turning around and saying that drawings have to be accompanied by documentation of consultation with Native Nations. So, the above could be taken as a deliberate misread of the situation, but I don’t feel that it is, at its core. I live and work in Arkansas. After the passage of NAGPRA, the state passed our one heritage law with significant teeth. It basically makes it illegal to dig ANY grave without a permit from the SHPO. The upshot is that what began as something focused on a Native issue became a positive much more broadly, as ALL unmarked graves got protection at the state level. So, those small farm cemeteries now lost in the middle of a timber stand? Yep, they get consideration they would not have otherwise. The remains of the people who lie there are to be kept safe from having a bulldozer with a clearing blade shoving through their graves.
Nothing about the image policy as it stands seems unreasonable to me. While I do think that some of the explanations offered in Chattanooga about why it was not put before the organization first (“democracies are not good for minorities” didn’t land well), I don’t think they’re wrong. Out of all of this mess can come something that can benefit the humanity of many non-Indigenous groups, and that’s a good thing. Like, a REALLY good thing. Voting the policy down does a huge amount of damage that sets back the profession decades. Vote as you see best, but I strongly encourage you to vote “No.”
Peace,
Carl
Carl G. Drexler, PhD 