Digital Remains Made Public: Sharing the dead online and our future digital mortuary landscape

Abstract

We live in the information age, and our lives are increasingly digitized. Our quotidian has been transformed over the last fifty years by the adoption of innovative networking and computing technology. The digital world presents opportunities for public archaeology to engage, inform and interact with people globally. Yet, as more personal data are published online, there are growing concerns over privacy, security, and the long-term implications of sharing digital information. These concerns extend beyond the living, to the dead, and are thus important considerations for archaeologists who share the stories of past people online. This analysis argues that the ‘born-digital’ records of humanity may be considered as public digital mortuary landscapes, representing death, memorialization and commemoration. The potential for the analysis of digital data from these spaces could result in a phenomenon approaching immortality, whereby artificial intelligence is applied to the data of the dead. This paper investigates the ethics of a digital public archaeology of the dead while considering the future of our digital lives as mnemonic spaces, and their implications for the living.

To Replicate, or Not to Replicate? The Creation, Use, and Dissemination of 3D Models of Human Remains: A Case Study from Portugal

“…Moreover, although the sharing of 3D models should occur with written authorization by custodians (i.e., institutions and/or descendant communities), all those involved in the digitalization process should be acknowledged, including students, technicians, and funding bodies [21,52]-though this is often not the case. Finally, although data sharing is envisaged to avoid gatekeeping, and promote broader access to data and information [28,47,53], a lack of standardization on digitalization procedures might induce observation error and bias when using multiple databases [42,[54][55][56].…”

Using deceased people’s personal data

“…In addressing the legal issues related to digital heritage, Ulguim (2018) and Williams and Atkin (2015) referred to the concept of digital public mortuary archeology, which is the involvement of digital methods in the archeological content of the deceased. Following their discussion of this concept, an ongoing debate has explored the issue of digital heritage on Internet platforms within the theme of the digital archeology of death.…”

“…Following their discussion of this concept, an ongoing debate has explored the issue of digital heritage on Internet platforms within the theme of the digital archeology of death. According to Ulguim (2018), the ethical issues of publishing images of human remains online in archeology studies were debated intensely, such as at the 2013 Higher Education Academy event and by the European Association of Archeologists in 2015.…”

“…According to Ulguim (2018), most online content includes little to no contextual data documentation, which poses a danger for the publishers and researchers who deal with this type of data. In addition, some three-dimensional (3D) images already had thousands of views and were available for reuse, modification, public download, and 3D printing.…”

Archaeodeath as Digital Public Mortuary Archaeology

“…Blogs thus allow mortuary archaeologists and bioarchaeologists to operate as educators and enablers to students and the public (Meyers and Killgrove 2014), and sometimes also as lobbyists and public critics of the uses and misuses of mortuary data (Meyers and Killgrove 2014;Meyers and Williams 2014: 162-163). Mortuary archaeologists can thus join a wider range of online environments for engaging people in mortuary remains and debating death-positive themes (see Myers and Williams 2014: 163;Ulguim 2018).…”