Semester Award Granted

Spring 2025

Submission Date

May 2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Meredith Ellis

Abstract

Florida Atlantic University has a skeletal teaching collection made up of nine disarticulated individuals. Like other anatomical skeletal collections housed in universities, FAU’s collection has unknown origins. With the current shift in bioarchaeology, it is important to take any steps necessary towards a more ethical practice and properly answer for the unethical practices that led to countless collections being obtained without consent. Keeping proper documentation should always have been a necessity, but moving forward, instructors can introduce curation taphonomy forms into their routine documentation. I drafted and tested these forms on five of the nine skeletal individuals in FAU’s collection to document any damage that has been caused by routine handling. Moving towards a more ethical method of collection, forms like this will be necessary as future collections will be from bodies actively donated with informed consent or obtained with the informed consent of descendants.

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