Papers by Damien Huffer
There is a thriving trade, and collector community, around human remains that is facilitated by p... more There is a thriving trade, and collector community, around human remains that is facilitated by posts on new social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Etsy, and, until recently, eBay. In this article, we examine several thousand Instagram posts and perform some initial text analysis on the language and rhetoric of these posts to understand something about the function of this community, what they value and how they trade, buy, and sell, human remains. Our results indicate a well-connected network of collectors and dealers both specialist and generalist, with a surprisingly wide-reaching impact on the 'enthusiasts' who, through their rhetoric, support the activities of this collecting community, in the face of legal and ethical issues generated by its existence.
This study investigates whether or not local communities on Bahrain saw changes to social organiz... more This study investigates whether or not local communities on Bahrain saw changes to social organization as they participated in two distinct long-distance trade networks. We present new isotopic and demographic data from three human skeletal assemblages, Middle Islamic Period (c. 14th-16th centuries AD) Qal’at al-Bahrain (n=245) and Early Dilmun City IIa-c Period Saar (n=14) and Hamad Town North and South (n=24)(c. 4,300-3,750 BP). We examine carbon, oxygen, and strontium isotope variability within and between the Early Dilmun assemblages to elucidate diversification of diet and childhood residence within small-scale populations centrally placed within the Dilmun polity. Diachronically, we hypothesize that increasing variation in isotope values may indicate a more heterogeneous population on Bahrain similar to elsewhere in the Islamic World. We provide a demographic reassessment of each population, assess normality, and then compare strontium and oxygen results from human enamel samples are compared to a new faunal dataset (n=6; cattle and sheep). Faunal δ18Omw values range from -0.8 to +8.0‰ with a mean of +3.2 ± 3.1‰, while mean strontium is 0.708343 ± 0.000087. Human strontium, oxygen and carbon values are generally narrow, but distinct outliers are seen in both assemblages. δ13Ccollagen and δ15N was also obtained for two-thirds (n=21) of the Qal’at-al Bahrain bone samples initially assessed. The collagen and carbonate data together continue to suggest that mixed C3/C4 omnivorous diets persisted in Bahrain regardless of time period or cultural context. These results suggest that, during the Middle Islamic Period diet did not substantially alter, or become sex segregated, even as local trading communities integrated into ever-larger interaction spheres and adopted foreign born individuals for at least a portion of their lives. The data overall suggests a consistent pattern of sporadic long-distance migration, with migrant numbers and origins increasing and diversifying over time.
My review of Dr. August Costa's dissertation, Indiana University, 2012.
J. Indo-Pacific Archaeology
Journal of Public Archaeology
This article describes the development, implementation, assessment, outcomes, and potential utili... more This article describes the development, implementation, assessment, outcomes, and potential utility of a University-level, student driven educational gaming project. This project constituted a major assessment item in a course entitled Ancient Medicine, a class and project first coordinated and delivered by the authors in 2010. Discussion of various aspects of the project is explored in the context of educational gaming theory and practice. We demonstrate that educational board games not only represent an effective method for students to retain and convey information even when the games are focused on untraditional topics such as the history and archaeology of medicine. Furthermore, we argue that they can present a cheap, fun and less time/resource intensive alternative to electronic or web-based projects, while still being an attractive addition to traditional classroom teaching methods, especially within lower socio-economic status environments.
Crime, Law and Social Change (DOI #10.1007/s10611-014-9528-4)
SAA Archaeological Record, May 2009
Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, 2009
Anthropological …, Jan 1, 2008
Book Chapters by Damien Huffer
to be included in the forthcoming "Art Crime Handbook."
The poorly regulated international marketplace for human remains is the subject of recent researc... more The poorly regulated international marketplace for human remains is the subject of recent research to document the non-academic trade of former teaching specimens and recently “surfaced” specimens of archaeological, ethnographic or medico-legal import. Expanding the research of Huffer and Chappell (2014), this chapter focuses on Instagram, a platform with a recent history of facilitating other “grey” and “black” market activities, but otherwise unexplored with regard to cultural property crime. Manual search methods were used to track relevant hashtags over three two-month periods in late 2015-early 2016 in order to gather data on the size, geographic scope and diversity of categories of human remains as well as connections among various collecting communities. We conclude by discussing current legislation and future research directions.
to be included in forthcoming "The Oxford Handbook of Southeast Asian Archaeology (Nam, K. and Higham, C., eds)."
Man Bac: The Excavation of a Neolithic Site in Northern Vietnam. Volume II: The Biology, 2011
Chappell D and Hufnagel S (eds) Contemporary Perspectives on the Detection, Investigation and Prosecution of Art Crime, Oct 2014
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Papers by Damien Huffer
Book Chapters by Damien Huffer