'I am horrified': Archaeologists are fuming over ancient human relative remains sent to edge of space (www.livescience.com)

submitted 1 year ago by GreyShuck@feddit.uk to c/archaeology@mander.xyz

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Fragmentary remains of two ancient human relatives, Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi, were carried aboard a Virgin Galactic flight on Sept. 8. Departing from Spaceport America in New Mexico, the fossils, carried by South African-born billionaire Timothy Nash in a cigar-shaped tube, were rocketed to the edge of space.

"I am horrified that they were granted a permit," Sonia Zakrzewski, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Southampton in the U.K., wrote in an X thread, noting she would use it as an example in her class about unethical approaches. "This is NOT science."

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[-] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And potentially altered by having been unnecessarily put through extremely abnormal treatment, meaning any conclusions you draw from studying them are muddied by having been blasted out into space, regardless of having come back.

Folks have brought up that taking them into space exposes them to high levels of radiation, and the proper steps may not have been taken to protect the remains from said radiation. Folks have argued that because they were in a craft, that they won't have been exposed to any radiation, but thats not how that works- people who take a flight on a regular airplane are exposed to higher levels of radiation, nevermind spacecraft. Taking the remains into space needlessly reduces their value to scientists who may have learned things from them, and now what they learn may not be meaningful or helpful, because the remains were handled so unusually.

It was entirely unnecessary, nothing was gained by having done it, and it has a cost to science, so the scientists are unhappy- that hardly seems surprising.

this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023

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Archaeology or archeology[a] is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes.

Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time.

The discipline involves surveying, excavation, and eventually analysis of data collected, to learn more about the past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Read more...

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