One would not normally seek out the annual meeting of the Society of American Archaeology (SAA) for intrigue and drama, but this year’s web-based conference provided some heat.In April, San Jose State University anthropology professor Elizabeth Weiss was set to deliver a pre-recorded address to the meeting. Her talk, titled “Has Creationism Crept Back into Archaeology?” discussed the role of “religious literalism” as a way of determining whether human remains should be repatriated to indigenous communities near where the remains were found.
‘Trust the science’ fails when liberalism dominates science
The problem with “returning” the remains to indigenous people is that there often isn’t sufficient scientific evidence the remains ever belonged to