Anticipating and addressing the social implications of scientific work is a fundamental responsibility of all scientists. However, expectations for ethically sound practices can evolve over time as the implications of science come to be better understood. Contemporary researchers who work with ancient human remains, including those who conduct ancient DNA research, face precisely this challenge as it becomes clear that practices such as community engagement are needed to address the important social implications of this work. To foster and promote ethical engagement between researchers and communities, we offer five practical recommendations for ancient DNA researchers: (1) formally consult with communities; (2) address cultural and ethical considerations; (3) engage communities and support capacity building; (4) develop plans to report results and manage data; and (5) develop plans for long-term responsibility and stewardship. Ultimately, every member of a research team has an important role in fostering ethical research on ancient DNA.

In the 1970s, public archaeology, a major theme in anthropology, sought to articulate the field's new orientation toward engaging the nonprofessional, general public, particularly in the realm of cultural resource management (CRM). Over the decades that followed, this approach evolved to focus increasingly on ways to connect archaeological heritage to different kinds of publics. Through this work, among the most important publics that emerged were groups who claimed descent from the ancient peoples archaeologists studied. By the end of the 1990s, a significant branch of archaeological practice had shifted toward new theories and methods for directly and meaningfully engaging descendant communities. This article focuses on how in the United States, and beyond, research with Native peoples in particular has created a rich dialogue about such wide-ranging themes as ethics, collaboration, indigeneity, and multivocality. Although critiques have emerged, the increasingly active role of descendant communities has fundamentally shifted the way museums present culture and contributed to community development, tribal heritage management programs, social justice, and the advancement of the CRM industry. Descendant communities have helped to fundamentally transform archaeology into a science that is driven by an ethical engagement with key publics invested in the interpretation and management of the material past.

ast month, shocking news reports revealed that what are thought to be the skeletal remains of Tree and Delisha Africa, two Black girls killed in a US police bombing in 1985, might have been studied for years by researchers at two US universities, without their families' permission. The finding, involving the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and Princeton University in New Jersey, is just the latest in a series of discoveries in university collections related to the mistreatment of African American human remains.A week earlier, the University of Pennsylvania announced that it would rebury the remains of more than 50 enslaved people held in its anthropology museum. In January, Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced that it was creating a committee to consider policies around its museum collections after the discovery of the remains of 15 people who were enslaved. In 2017, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville acknowledged that it had lost track of grave-robbed remains from African American cemeteries, which the medical school had once used for anatomical study 1 .The call for institutional accountability over African American remains in academic collections comes at a time when the US Congress will soon convene hearings on the African American Burial Grounds Network Act. This bill would survey and offer recommendations for the protection of African American burial grounds. It is a good first step.Although this could become one of the most significant pieces of legislation in the fight to safeguard Black heritage, the United States needs much stronger laws to respectfully care

In recent years, the field of paleogenomics has grown into an exciting and rapidly advancing area of scientific inquiry. However, scientific work in this field has far outpaced the discipline’s dialogue about research ethics. In particular, Indigenous peoples have argued that the paleogenomics revolution has produced a “vampire science” that perpetuates biocolonialist traditions of extracting Indigenous bodies and heritage without the consent of, or benefits to, the communities who are most affected by this research. In this article, we explore these ethical issues through the case study of a project that sequenced the ancient DNA (aDNA) of nine Ancestral Puebloan people from Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. By providing a “thick description” of this controversy, we are able to analyze its metanarratives, periodization, path dependency, and historical contingencies. We conclude that the paleogenomics revolution needs to include an ethical revolution that remakes the field’s values, relationships, forms of accountability, and practices.