ABSTRACT
To be human, it seems, is to dispose of deceased kin with care, and to mourn and commemorate their passing. The emergence of mortuary ritual therefore is often understood to define the very boundaries of being human. Archaeological work around the dead emerged in a context where the excavated dead were understood as socially other, and positioned as outside the community. Burial of the dead seems at first sight to set humans apart from other species, yet there is a significant debate over the status of the earliest human burials. This chapter traces the recent history of archaeo-logical exhumation and explores the attitudes that underpinned it and have informed the treatment and interpretation of excavated mortuary assemblages. The example of Kennewick man, and the many other cases of contested archaeo-logical human remains, reveal the terms under which the dead have traditionally been defined as exterior to the community of the living before they could be studied.
