Relatedness, DNA, and Tribal Citizenship

The fields of medicine and human biology involves work that has the potential to have both positive and negative effects on people. That’s why human subjects research requires review. But what principles underlie the assessment of help or harm? In 1985T. L. Beauchamp and J.F Childress first published an influential book on medical ethics. In it, they laid out four principles that have dominated ethical practice in medical and biological research and practice. These are: respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.

Bioarchaeologists and biological anthropologists have researched relatedness using different kinds of information deriving from different methods. One is biodistance, a method that involves taking measurements of skeletal features and then using this information to show how closely individuals in a group may be related. Another is using DNA extracted from human remains to build a genome, a picture of all the genetic material in a cell.

DNA concerns. Read the 2017 article by Michael Balter about ethical use of biological samples for Chaco Canyon in Sapiens. Assign students to research the Chaco Canyon site in New Mexico and convene a discussion about the site and its history. What were the goals of work done on ancient DNA from Chaco Canyon and who were the scientists to perform this work? How can the four principles of bioethics be applied to the Chaco Canyon case? Read also the more recent article on ancient DNA published in Smithsonian Magazine and written by Emilio Rodríguez. As a class, summarize the ethical issues associated with using ancient DNA in studies related to Native America. 

Students can acquire one perspective on what has been learned overall about the peopling of the Americas from watching a presentation sponsored by the Explorers Club featuring geneticist Jennifer Raff. Raff published Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas in 2022. As you watch the presentation, pay attention to how Dr. Raff presents her relationships with Indigenous people whose ancestry she researches. How does she frame her work scientifically? How does she frame her position? How does she present her responsibility as a researcher?  

Between 2018 and 2020, the American Association of Physical Anthropologists changed its name to the American Association of Biological Anthropologists. Ask students to research this name change and discuss the reasons that anthropologists made this change. To what extent was the name change prompted by ethical decision-making? Ask students to find the ethical principles of this organization and evaluate how these have changed in the past 30 years. Compare the AABA principles with those of the Society for American Archaeology. What other statements about ethics do these organizations have? How well do you think the statements for these organizations guide responsibilities for practicing organization members to manage the work mandated by NAGPRA? Students and instructors can find a history of ethical decision making in the field of biological anthropology in an article, Ethics in Bioanthropology, by Turner, et al, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology in 2018. An accessible version provided by the authors for public access can be found here. Ask students to search this article for information that is pertinent to repatriation and discuss ramifications for any research that might involve human remains. Ask them also to track changes in ethical perceptions and values by biological anthropologists.