In a shock move, every single archaeologist has co-signed the same agreement.
No longer will there be disputes about how much meat ancient humans ate, whether they migrated across ice, or what the oldest Homo sapiens remains are – the leading researchers in the field, and also every other researcher in the field, have finally come to the same conclusion.
“There’s enough discord and disagreement in the world as it is. We don’t need to add more rigorous academic debate,” says Professor Helen Hoakes, deputy head of archaeology at the University of Eastern Australia.
“Archaeologists are famous for putting forward different and conflicting theories about what their evidence suggests,” explains Dennis Ovan, director of the Johannesburg Old Knowledge Institute for Excellence in Skulls (JOKIES).
“But when we finally sat down and talked, we realised that almost all of these arguments stemmed from petty disputes on field trips.
“Limited and competitive funding, massive ideological differences, the publish-or-perish world of academia – all of that can be smoothed over by apologising for waking up a whole tent one time, even though you said you weren’t a snorer.”
The centrepiece of the agreement is a comprehensive and universal primer on archaeological ethics, detailing the most ethical way to do archaeological research.
“It turns out that the ethics of archaeology was the easiest to solve of all,” says Dr Anna-Indie Jones, an ethicist at the Centre of Innovation for Dusty Stuff we Thought Looked Important.
“Everyone in the world places exactly the same cultural and spiritual significance in the past, and they all have the same codes for dealing with historic artefacts and ancient human remains.”
Jones would not provide any examples of these codes, saying “it’s all in the agreement” while gently edging out the door of the lab. READ MORE...
