16th February 2011, 04:57 PM
Sent to me today.......
http://www.deathandsociety.org/pages/eve...news_id=68
Quote:In 2008 the Ministry of Justice took over the administration of the 1857 Burial Act. Since then, licences for the archaeological excavation of human remains in England and Wales have required the eventual reburial of ALL remains and screening off of ALL sites of ALL periods, no matter what their value to scientific research, public outreach and the advancement of knowledge. (please find more info in link attached)
On 2nd February 2011, forty of the UK's leading professors of archaeology wrote to Kenneth Clarke expressing their concern about this situation. This included our head of department Prof Chris Scarre and Prof Charlotte Roberts also from Durham.
Ive had a meeting with Prof Scarre this morning about what we can do to go back to how it was pre2008 where only christian burials post 2000years were reburied after scientific analysis was carried out.
He has agreed with me in the need for as many people as possible to email there local MP, local archaeological trust (to contact the justice minister) and themselves write send an email to the Justice minister-Ken Clarke.
To make it easy the ASDS (see link attached) have provided background info on their website and also a template letter for people to send to Ken Clarke.
This is a major threat to archaeology therefore the more people who send emails and letters the better chance we have to show that archaeology opposes this new scheme and demands a return to the well tried system practised up to 2008.
I hope you can help and spread the word
NB- ASDS note: This is likely to be a long campaign and so we would like to keep a running tally of who has written in, so please email BurialLaw@uclan.ac.uk and let us know.
http://www.deathandsociety.org/pages/eve...news_id=68