The Ethics of Archaeology

Chris Scarre is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Durham. His previous publications include Monuments and Landscape in Atlantic Europe (ed.) (2002) and The Human Past: A Textbook of World Prehistory (ed.) (2005). Geoffrey Scarre is Reader at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Durham. He is the author of After Evil: Responses to Wrongdoing (2004) and the editor of Moral Philosophy and the Holocaust (2003).

• List of contributors; Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction Chris Scarre and Geoffrey Scarre; Part I. The Ownership of Cultural Objects: 2. Cultures and the ownership of archaeological finds James O. Young; 3. Who guards the guardians? Oliver Leaman; 4. Is culture a commodity? Robert Layton and Gillian Wallace; 5. Moral arguments on subsistence digging Julie Hollowell; Part II. Archaeologists and the Living: 6. Human subjects review and archaeology: a view from Indian country Jeffrey C. Bendremer and Kenneth A. Richman; 7. Trust and archaeological practice: towards a framework of virtue ethics Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh and T. J. Ferguson; 8. Truthfulness and 'inclusion' in archaeology David E. Cooper; 9. Ethics and native American reburials: a philosopher's view of two decades of NAGPRA Douglas P. Lackey; 10. Stewardship gone astray? Ethics and the SAA Leo Groarke and Gary Warrick; Part III. Archaeologists and the Dead: 11. Can archaeology harm the dead? Geoffrey Scarre; 12. Archaeological ethics and the people of the past Sarah Tarlow; Part IV. The Common Heritage of Humankind?: 13. A plea for responsibility towards the common heritage of mankind Sandra M. Dingli; 14. The ethics of the World Heritage concept Atle Omland; 15. What value a unicorn's horn? A study of archaeological uniqueness and value Robin Coningham, Rachel Cooper and Mark Pollard; References; Index.

'… a provocative, thoughtful and entirely engaging read. The key to its success is that each chapter, variously written by ten archaeologists, seven philosophers and four anthropologists … relates its arguments to real, mostly contemporary situations and events, many familiar. This is both a stimulating read and, in its separate parts, a thinking handbook.' British Archaeology