Dayak carved trophy skull. Image courtesy of a US gallery.
As part of an article by Owen Jarus for Live Science, members of the History Department, Professor Shawn Graham and Dr. Damien Huffer, explain what drives collectors of human remains. A short excerpt is below, with the full article “Looted skulls and human remains are being sold in black markets on Facebook” available online.
Collectors appear to have a variety of motivations for buying human remains, said Shawn Graham, of Carleton University in Ontario, and Damien Huffer, of Carleton University, both archaeologists who study the trade in human remains, in a jointly written email. Some collectors seem to be driven by a fascination with death, while other collectors have an interest in trying to replicate displays of human remains shown in museums. There also seems to be a sense of kinship among those in the human remains trade, the researchers said.
Can the trade be stopped?
A number of experts that Live Science talked to said that Facebook needs to enforce its existing policy banning the sale of human remains on their platform. Graham and Huffer said that law enforcement agencies need to get better at enforcing existing laws against the sale of human remains.
In addition, according to Peters, governments should pass regulations that put the onus on social media companies to remove illegal transactions from their platforms. “Because commerce on the internet and on social media is so poorly regulated, it’s literally like the Wild West with no sheriffs,” Peters said.
Live Science also contacted Facebook to alert the company of the human bone trade. In response, a spokesperson said that once they become aware that a group has violated their policies they take action against them. As of July 3, Live Science found that three of the private groups had been shut down, although others remain in operation.