OMG SAMEEEEE. However, I would like to develop my opinion.
Coming from Mexico where archaeology and later on cultural anthropology, have settled down the foundations of the "State" and employing the Mesoamerican cultures as the "root of 'our' identity as mexicans", just to built a story of victors against the foreign enemy while historycally forgetting and putting in disadvantage their indigenous communities.
The Mexican State sells the idea of these 'great and advanced civilizations' by proffiting of the economical gains the archaeological record offer in tourist attractions, but keep turning its head from the demands of the actual "descendants". Being in Tumblr, in contact with what a lot of usamericans posts, it still schocks me when I see things like the mayas magically disappeared, when they're right there.
Yes, the archaeological and physical remains are important, but these artifacts have been employed to encapsulate the indigenous communities in the past and looking over them.
What the general public omits when they think about forensic anthropology is that this branch does not just worry about any remains.
When you live in a context where thanks to forensic anthropology can help identify some else's loved one, your perspective changes about it.
Because these are not any remains, those are *humans* remains. Someone's brother, someone's Mother, someone's sibling's or loved-one's. Someone with a biography, with joys, fears and regrets.
Because I love people. And I deeply hate when people just talk about them as piles of bones and flesh, and rip away their humanity. Finding a person can also mean for a family to have a body to grief and say goodbye to or a way to obtain justice.
My rant, is not directed towards OP (my apologies if I made you felt like it was) but to express my frustration towards the collective poor image people have about what anthropology is and its potentials.
Because people go like 'ooh bones' but is not a matter of the bones themselves. The *anthropo* part in anthropology stands for human being and they do not stop being one after death.
So, in conclusion. I find horrifying when people care more about the ancient dead people more than the people in the present. But when studying the dead, they should never be taken out their humanity and, the living can also and its study could offer peace towards their living peers.
Sorry for doing this so long, for any part that doesn't make sense, or for any grammar o spell mistake (my first lenguaje is spanish as i am mexican and it's late in the night, I wanted to sleep but my adhd braid said: raaaant.)
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