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Spending months on the debate around those controversial pre-Columbian skull collections changed my view on keeping them in study
Everyone acts like displaying them for science is always justified, but to me it still feels like we're treating sacred remains as data points without enough respect.
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the_tessa6mo ago
Yeah, that line about "respecting them as part of studying" is the whole heart of it, isn't it? I get so tired of science talk that just treats everything like a cold object. When you see a person's actual bones, it stops being just data and you feel that weight. It makes the argument for keeping them feel really thin sometimes.
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dakota_burns966mo ago
Heard about my friend who used to catalog those bones? She told me once she had to box up a child's skull for shipping, and the way it fit in her hands messed her up for days. She said all the research notes called it 'specimen 442' but holding it, she just kept thinking about a real kid who lived and died. The whole thing made her quit that job, because the science felt like an excuse to ignore the person it once was. Now she says keeping them locked away for study without giving back to descendants is just wrong.
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