The talk consisted of two distinct parts:-
- Recent scientific research
- Issues concerning public sensitivity to conducting research on human remains, and even displaying them in museums.

Scientific issues. Here Bas Payne (BP) particularly picked on 3 issues:-
Stature
It was a remarkably persistent myth that our ancestors did not have our current stature, but in fact there was extensive evidence fdrom human burials that stature had not changed significantly since Neolithic times. Why does the myth persist? Some possible reasons were trivial e.g. small doors in medieval buildings might mean no more than that people were prepared to duck their heads in order to keep heat in. However, there was also a serious point that growth was generally slower due to factors such a worse nutrition, so that the age at which full stature was achieved may have been as high as 25, rather than a 20th century figure of say 18. BP illustrated this with a graph based on a study of the churchyard of the deserted medieval village of Wharram Percy. Thus the muster roll for an Tudor army might show apparently small soldiers if a lot of them were under 25 and still growing.

Diet
Some 99.6 % of Nitrogen in bones (or indeed anywhere else) is the form of Nitrogen 14,but there is also a small proportions of the isotope Nitrogen 15, and tiny variations in this have proved to be a useful indicator of diet. The highest level of Nitrogen 15 is in Mother's milk, but meat has higher levels than cereals. We are what we eat, so remains of children before weaning show particularly high levels, but then (at least for lower status children such as at Wharram Percy) up to say 10 years we see a lower level of Nitrogen 15 reflecting a poor cereal diet. However older adults might then show slightly higher levels if some meat came back into their diet.

Bone density
There is another myth that persists in the modern medical profession that the problem of osteoporosis is due to modern lifestyles, while in fact careful studies such as Wharram Percy can show that loss of bone density was every bit as much a problem for the medieval population as it is today

Sensitivity Issues
For English Heritage (EH) this issue had particularly surfaced when some modern druids had objected to public display of remains found close to Stonehenge. A positive result of this had been that EH had been prompted to commission a serious piece of market research on what public attitudes really were. Respondents were asked questions that distinguished between say remains that were less or more than 100 years old, and also asked questions about their age, sex, socio-economic class etc.

The overall answer was strikingly clear, at least for remains that were genuinely 'archaeological' (i.e. more than 100 years old). The respondents did not have problems with research or even public display. Even if the respondents were analysed by age, sex, socio-economic class etc. there was no category where the positive answers fell below 80%, and in many categories they exceeded 90%.

Although the general results of this survey were very positive, BP still accepted that there were cases where 'special rights' had to be given to wishes of:-
-the dead themselves
-family and friends
-people of the same religion
-those with close social or cultural ties

BP gave various examples where such issues had been relevant (although he argued that the modern druids of Stonehenge were not such a situation). The example of some Tasmanian remains served to illustrate an important distinction between two questions:-
-who should be custodian of the remains?
-should remains be reburied in a way that makes any future scientific research impossible?
The Tasmanian remains had been removed during the colonial era in a way that most would now accept as highly inappropriate, and clearly this was a powerful argument for returning the remains to Tasmania. However, BP would argue that the current generation of Tasmanians have a duty of stewardship towards future generations to store the remains so that future research would be possible. Sadly the intention had been simply to rebury them.

As a positive example on this point, BP quoted Barton-on-Humber, where licences had been granted in the 1960s to excavate a large graveyard subject to an agreement to rebury. However, as it had been realised that the project had particularly important research possibilities, a practical solution had been worked with remains stored in an ossuary on consecrated ground whilst the parish council was represented on the research committee, and were very supportive.

Peter Brown