|
Welcome
Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
A Taphophilia Thank You...
Taphophilia (dot) Com would not be possible without the knowledge, experience and talent of DarkestWeb. From its conception and early development, DarkestWeb was faced with many challenges; from inspiring and motivating, to providing guidance and direction. The continued dedication and support has produced results greater than ever expected, and for this, I owe a huge debt of gratitude.
Announcements
Graveyards of Chicago:
The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries
By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski. Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!
Green-Wood Cemetery Arcadia Publishing announces the release of Alexandra Mosca's historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery and to browse other available titles!
Men of Mortuaries Calendar
To purchase your 2008 calendar, learn more about the KAMMCARES Foundation, or to be featured in the 2009 calendar, please visit Men of Mortuaries.
Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints, Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture
with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman is now
available. Please visit
Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
|
|
Written by DeadGirl
|
|
Tuesday, 03 August 2004 |
As anthropologists gain confidence the 8-year fight to study skeleton is over, a new hurdle emerges
LOS ANGELES TIMES
August 3, 2004
SEATTLE - For a few days last week, the United States' top forensic anthropologists thought they were finally going to get their chance to study Kennewick Man.
The eight-year legal battle regarding the 9,300-year-old bones, one of the oldest skeletons found in North America, appeared finished after five Northwest Indian tribes decided not to pursue their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The tribes claimed Kennewick Man was an ancestor and should not be desecrated by study.
Two courts ruled in favor of the eight plaintiff scientists who believe the bones - discovered in 1996 along the Columbia River near Kennewick, Wash. - could yield insights on the earliest inhabitants of the Americas. The skeleton was found to have some Caucasian features, suggesting groups other than Asians may have migrated to the continents thousands of years ago.
But soon after the scientists' apparent victory, a new legal obstacle emerged late last week, this time from the federal government.
New litigation possible
The Army Corps of Engineers, which has custody of the skeleton and which sided early on with the tribes, has objected to so many aspects of the scientists' study plan that new litigation is probable, according to the scientists' attorney.
The earlier battles focused on whether Kennewick should be subjected to scientific study. The new battle will be about how his bones will be studied.
"This case is long from over," said Alan Schneider, a Portland, Ore., lawyer representing the anthropologists. Schneider said the government is using the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, which empowers the owners of archaeological finds, to hinder the scientists' plan of study.
Schneider predicts that he will have to go to court "to compel the government" to hand over the skeleton. "That seems to be the direction we're heading." Jennifer Richman, an attorney for the Army Corps of Engineers in Portland, would say only that the scientists' plan was "subject to reasonable terms and conditions."
The tribes also want to have a say in how the bones are studied, hoping to minimize "destruction of tissue" and the "desecration of the remains," said Debra Croswell, a spokeswoman for the 2,500-member Umatilla Tribe in Oregon.
Along with the Umatilla, the Nez Perce, Yakama, Colville and Wanapum tribes also claim Kennewick Man as an ancestor. The tribes refer to the skeleton as "the Ancient One."
But a U.S. District Court in Portland and later a federal appellate court said the tribes failed to prove an ancestral link to the skeleton. The deadline to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court was July 19.
What's at stake
Kennewick, made up of more than 350 bones, is being kept at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle.
Scientists believe the bones belonged to a man who stood about 5-foot-9, suffered a severe spear wound to his hip, and was 40 to 50 years old when he died. The man, according to one reconstruction, had more angular facial features than those typically associated with American Indians.
The skull resembled those of Polynesians or the Ainu, the original inhabitants of Japan, whose features were more Caucasoid, scientists say.
The discovery caused a stir, not just among tribes, whose identity as the continents' "original" inhabitants seemed jeopardized, but also among scientists whose long-standing theory on how the Americas were populated was turned on its head.
As recently as the mid-1990s, the prevailing theory was that North and South America were first populated by people from the Asian interior who crossed the Bering land bridge about 11,000 years ago.
Kennewick Man and the recent discoveries of ancient skeletons in South America seem to suggest that the continents were populated by several waves of early migrants who used different routes.
George Gill, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Wyoming and one of the plaintiffs in the Kennewick Man case, said evidence indicates that seafaring people from Southeast Asia or Polynesia could have reached the Americas by traveling along the Pacific Rim, landing somewhere in what is now South America. He said an ancient European people could also have reached the northeast corner of North America.
To believe that the early inhabitants of the Americas all came from the same place "has always seemed a little too simple for me," Gill said. American Indians, he said, show a remarkable variety of physical features. And differences in tools, artifacts and cultural practices between tribes also suggest different origins.
Most of the "new thinking" on how the Americas were populated has not reached the public yet, remaining in the domain of a small group of scientists. Gill said this is partly because the discoveries are coming so quickly, and the theories changing so rapidly, that scientists can barely keep up.
A decade or two from now, he said, the scientific community will likely have a radically different view on the "original" inhabitants of the Americas.
"Most of us in this line of plaintiffs already have gray hair," Gill said. "The way it's going, we may not be around long enough."
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hskin033916414aug03,0,4634537.story?coll=ny-health-headlines |
|
Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” George S. Patton, Jr.
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
|
