Paleontologists use the term taphonomy (from the Greek taphos – burial or tomb – and nomos – meaning rules or law) to describe all events that happen to the remains of an organism between the time it dies and the time it is buried. Many events can affect the leftovers between these two events. For example, remains can be looted, broken or transported long distances before being buried. In this article, we will begin to examine the ambiguity between the indecisiveness of property laws, the open nature of what a “fossil” is, and the increasingly divergent practices of anthropologists and archaeologists concerned with the discovery of fossilized and human-like human remains. We argue that the appropriation and management of access to fossils has been subject to uneven, unjust and unethical controls for too long. Far from being an obvious “object” capable of clear ownership, human, hominid and hominid remains reside at contested and poorly regulated cultural and legal intersections. In order to initiate a discussion on current codes of conduct and research practices on fossil remains and to indicate a new ethical framework, it seems necessary to first describe, compare and understand existing legal frameworks. From a legal point of view, the jurisdictions examined in this paper deal only at a very complex level with the nuanced issues mentioned above, which calls for more in-depth and in-depth comparisons; Moreover, they reflect the most classical duality of the Western legal tradition, that is, the classical distinction between civil law and common law. There are a variety of laws, guidelines, and unwritten agreements regarding human, hominid, and hominid remains. Legal loopholes and inadequate definitions of what constitutes a fossil have led to a “keeper of the finder” approach often applied to the ownership and control of the remains of our ancestors.
Such shortcomings raise many legal and ethical mysteries. Protocols to respect, protect and preserve remains, while providing more equitable access to information about our shared ancestors, are both desirable and urgent. Fossils are often vaguely defined, as the term has recently taken on a broader meaning. The term comes from the Latin fossilis “excavated”, but has been defined by the Oxford Dictionary ((en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fossil, 2017) as the remains (or footprints) of a plant or animal embedded in rock and preserved in fossilized form. However, this narrow definition does not summarize how scholars use the word in contemporary literature. For example, eggshells or coprolites, when found in archaeological excavations, are neither the direct remains nor the footprint of an animal, but are nevertheless called fossils. Similarly, bones that are being fossilized but not yet fossilized are often classified as fossil by scientists in their studies. Therefore, in this article, we propose to extend the definition of fossils to all evidence obtained from the biological activity of an earlier organism. We include anything that survives directly from the activity of the organism, but without technological activities and artifacts such as stone tools, cave paintings or chimneys. Since fossilization processes can begin immediately after an organism`s death, but can take millions of years to complete, the term “fossil” can refer to remains from very different eras.
Therefore, the definition cannot be accurately assigned to a specific time or state of conservation. Australia, Kenya and the United Kingdom provide an overview of the common law treatment of the dead. The United Kingdom is the doctrinal “home” of the common law; A legal tradition that has been exported throughout his empire. As former colonies, Australia and Kenya are an example of how the common law adapts to different “foreign” contexts. Hominid fossils contain invaluable information about universal human history, but most of the time they are treated as the presumed “property” of another entity. Depending on where the fossil is found, the custodian may be a museum, a government agency, a public or private research institute, or simply the archaeologist or paleoanthropologist who discovered the fossil. Each can have their own governance protocols and legal frameworks, and establish their own rules about who has access to the remains and the analytical methods available to extract information. On 26 and 27 April 2007, a workshop was held at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig to “answer the question of how the preservation of hominid fossil remains for the future can be balanced against the application of current scientific analyses”. As a result, “participants developed a set of recommendations that could be useful to museums and other institutions, as well as scientists making decisions regarding requests for invasive sampling of hominid remains.” While the article contains useful recommendations, it does not take into account the existing jurisdictional landscape in which these recommendations are to be made. By not dealing with existing regulatory systems, the article presents a series of wishes without reference to the basis on which these wishes are to be determined. Therefore, a number of questions arise, all of which are relevant to the inclusion of these recommendations in the tapestry of existing legislation. However, this does not mean that soft tissue is never preserved as fossils.
In rare cases, soft tissue is preserved and fossil collection sites with this type of preservation (called deposits) are of great interest to paleontologists. This is because they provide important windows into the ancient biodiversity and body shapes of ancient species (beyond the generally preserved hard parts). The most famous deposit is the Burgess Shale in British Columbia, Canada, which illuminates strange species from the beginning of animal life; An excellent overview of this repository has been developed by the Royal Ontario Museum. Fossils of similar age from Utah can be found on the Cambrian Life of Utah website. A list of important repositories from other regions and time intervals can be found on Wikipedia. In Italy, for example, human remains cannot be subject to rights because they are not considered goods under Article 810 of the Italian Civil Code. Human remains are not considered a “thing” but an extension of the deceased person [17]. Similarly, in France, a person cannot be regarded as the object of rights, since Articles 16 to 19 of the Civil Code refer to the inviolability of the human body both in its entirety and in its parts, in this case also for commercial purposes.
However, with the agreement of the donor, body parts may be removed for medical or scientific purposes in accordance with Article L1211-2 of the Public Health Code. In addition, under the Penal Code, the penalty can be imposed for assaulting a corpse on French soil [18]. Spain, for its part, has formulated a very precise definition of what a “human corpse” is and how it should be treated [19]. China, although not a country normally associated with the civil law tradition, has many characteristics typical of civil law systems and, according to Article 3 of the Supreme People`s Court Interpretation on Several Issues Related to the Decision on Civil Liability for Violation of Moral Prejudice (adopted at the 1161st Session of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People`s Court on February 26, 2001, Promulgated on 8 March 2001 and entered into force on 10 March 2001), the People`s Court approves the next of kin of a deceased person with regard to compensation for moral prejudice caused by the illegal use or damage to human remains or damage to human remains in the form of a violation of the public interest.