Nature

, volume 599 , issue 7883 , pages 41-46

Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines

Songül Alpaslan-Roodenberg ^{1, 2}

David Anthony ^{3, 4}

Hiba Babiker ⁵

Eszter Bánffy ⁶

Thomas Booth ⁷

Patricia Capone ⁸

Arati Deshpande Mukherjee ⁹

Stefanie Eisenmann ^{5, 10}

Lars Fehren-Schmitz ^{11, 12}

Michael D. Frachetti ¹³

Ricardo Fujita ¹⁴

Catherine J Frieman ¹⁵

Qiaomei Fu ¹⁶

Victoria E Gibbon ¹⁷

Wolfgang Haak ⁵

Mateja Hajdinjak ⁷

Kerstin P Hofmann ⁶

Brian Holguin ¹⁸

Takeshi Inomata ¹⁹

Hideaki Kanzawa-Kiriyama ²⁰

William Keegan ²¹

Janet Kelso ¹⁰

Johannes Krause ¹⁰

Ganesan Kumaresan ²²

Chapurukha Kusimba ²³

Sibel Kusimba ²³

Carles Lalueza-Fox ²⁴

Bastien Llamas ^{25, 26}

Scott MacEachern ²⁷

Swapan Mallick ^{1, 28, 29}

Hirofumi Matsumura ³⁰

Ana Y Morales Arce ³¹

Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute ³²

Veena Mushrif Tripathy ⁹

Nathan Nakatsuka ¹

Rodrigo NORES ³³

Christine Ogola ³⁴

Mercedes Okumura ³⁵

Nick Patterson ^{4, 29}

Ron Pinhasi ^{2, 36}

Samayamantri P R Prasad ³⁷

Mary B. Prendergast ³⁸

José Luis punzo Díaz ³⁹

David L. Reich ^{1, 4, 28, 29}

Rikai Sawafuji ⁴⁰

Elizabeth Sawchuk ^{41, 42}

Stephan Schiffels ^{5, 10}

Jakob W Sedig ^{1, 4}

Svetlana Shnaider ⁴³

Kendra A Sirak ^{1, 4}

Pontus Skoglund ⁷

Viviane Slon ^{44, 45}

Meradeth Snow ⁴⁶

Marie Soressi ⁴⁷

Matthew Spriggs ^{15, 48}

Philipp W Stockhammer ^{10, 49}

Anna Szécsényi-Nagy ⁵⁰

Kumarasamy Thangaraj ^{37, 51}

V. Tiesler ⁵²

Ray Tobler ^{23, 25}

C. Wang ^{53, 54}

Christina Warinner ^{10, 55}

Surangi Yasawardene ⁵⁶

Muhammad Zahir ^{5, 57}

Hide authors affiliations Show authors affiliations: 57 affiliations

Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA |

Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria |

Department of Anthropology, Hartwick College, Oneonta, USA |

⁴

Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA |

⁵

Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany |

⁶

Romano-Germanic Commission of the German Archaeological Institute, Frankfurt am Main, Germany |

⁷

Francis Crick Institute, London, UK |

⁸

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA |

⁹

Department of Ancient Indian History Culture and Archaeology, Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, Pune, India |

¹⁰

Max Planck Institute For Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany |

¹¹

Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA |

¹²

UCSC Genomics Institute, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA |

¹³

Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, USA |

¹⁴

Centro de Genética y Biología Molecular, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de San Martín de Porres, Lima, Peru |

¹⁵

School of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia |

¹⁶

Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China |

¹⁷

Division of Clinical Anatomy and Biological Anthropology, Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa |

¹⁸

Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |

¹⁹

School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA |

²⁰

National Museum of Nature and Science, Ibaraki, Japan |

²¹

Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville, USA |

²²

Department of Genetics, School of Biological Sciences, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, India |

²³

Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA |

²⁴

Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-UPF), Barcelona, Spain |

²⁵

Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Biological Sciences and The Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia |

²⁶

ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia |

²⁷

Office of the Chancellors, Duke Kunshan University, Jiangsu, China |

²⁸

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston, USA |

²⁹

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, USA |

³⁰

School of Health Science, Sapporo Medical University, Sapporo, Japan |

³¹

Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland |

³²

Lithuanian Institute of History and Department of Archaeology, History Faculty, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania |

³³

Departamento de Antropología, Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Instituto de Antropología de Córdoba (IDACOR), CONICET, Córdoba, Argentina |

³⁴

Earth Sciences Department, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya |

³⁵

Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil |

³⁶

Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria |

³⁷

DBT-Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad, India |

³⁸

Department of Anthropology, Rice University, Houston, USA |

³⁹

Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Michoacán, Mexico |

⁴⁰

School of Advanced Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), Kanagawa, Japan |

⁴¹

Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada |

⁴²

Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, USA |

⁴³

ArchaeoZOOlogy in Siberia and Central Asia–ZooSCAn, CNRS–IAET SB RAS International Research Laboratory, Novosibirsk, Russia |

⁴⁴

Department of Anatomy and Anthropology and Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel |

⁴⁵

The Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel |

⁴⁶

Anthropology Department, University of Montana, Missoula, USA |

⁴⁷

Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands |

⁴⁸

Vanuatu Cultural Centre, Port Vila, Vanuatu |

⁴⁹

Institute for Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology and Archaeology of the Roman Provinces, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany |

⁵⁰

Institute of Archaeogenomics, Research Centre for the Humanities, Eötvös Loránd Research Network, Budapest, Hungary |

⁵¹

CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India |

⁵²

School of Anthropological Sciences, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida, Mexico |

⁵³

Department of Anthropology and Ethnology, Institute of Anthropology, School of Sociology and Anthropology, State Key Laboratory of Cellular Stress Biology, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China |

⁵⁴

School of Basic Medical Sciences, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, and Institute of Asian Civilizations, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China |

⁵⁵

Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA |

⁵⁶

Department of Anatomy, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka |

⁵⁷

Department of Archaeology, Hazara University, Mansehra, Pakistan |

Publication type: Journal Article

Publication date: 2021-10-20

Springer Nature

Nature

scimago Q1

wos Q1

SJR: 18.288

CiteScore: 78.1

Impact factor: 48.5

ISSN: 00280836, 14764687

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x

Copy DOI

PubMed ID: 34671160

Multidisciplinary

Abstract

We are a group of archaeologists, anthropologists, curators and geneticists representing diverse global communities and 31 countries. All of us met in a virtual workshop dedicated to ethics in ancient DNA research held in November 2020. There was widespread agreement that globally applicable ethical guidelines are needed, but that recent recommendations grounded in discussion about research on human remains from North America are not always generalizable worldwide. Here we propose the following globally applicable guidelines, taking into consideration diverse contexts. These hold that: (1) researchers must ensure that all regulations were followed in the places where they work and from which the human remains derived; (2) researchers must prepare a detailed plan prior to beginning any study; (3) researchers must minimize damage to human remains; (4) researchers must ensure that data are made available following publication to allow critical re-examination of scientific findings; and (5) researchers must engage with other stakeholders from the beginning of a study and ensure respect and sensitivity to stakeholder perspectives. We commit to adhering to these guidelines and expect they will promote a high ethical standard in DNA research on human remains going forward. In this Perspective, a group representing a range of stakeholders makes the case for a set of five proposed globally applicable ethical guidelines for ancient human DNA research.

Found

1 citation

Alexander Owen

16 publications, 79 citations

h-index: 6

University of Bologna

Sapienza University of Rome

1 citation

Raczky Pál

38 publications, 1 718 citations

h-index: 10

Eötvös Loránd University (University of Budapest)

Research interests

Archaeology

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GOST |

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GOST Copy

Alpaslan-Roodenberg S. et al. Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines // Nature. 2021. Vol. 599. No. 7883. pp. 41-46.

GOST all authors (up to 50) Copy

Alpaslan-Roodenberg S. et al. Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines // Nature. 2021. Vol. 599. No. 7883. pp. 41-46.

RIS |

Cite this

RIS Copy

TY - JOUR

DO - 10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x

UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x

TI - Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines

T2 - Nature

AU - Alpaslan-Roodenberg, Songül

AU - Anthony, David

AU - Babiker, Hiba

AU - Bánffy, Eszter

AU - Booth, Thomas

AU - Capone, Patricia

AU - Deshpande Mukherjee, Arati

AU - Eisenmann, Stefanie

AU - Fehren-Schmitz, Lars

AU - Frachetti, Michael D.

AU - Fujita, Ricardo

AU - Frieman, Catherine J

AU - Fu, Qiaomei

AU - Gibbon, Victoria E

AU - Haak, Wolfgang

AU - Hajdinjak, Mateja

AU - Hofmann, Kerstin P

AU - Holguin, Brian

AU - Inomata, Takeshi

AU - Kanzawa-Kiriyama, Hideaki

AU - Keegan, William

AU - Kelso, Janet

AU - Krause, Johannes

AU - Kumaresan, Ganesan

AU - Kusimba, Chapurukha

AU - Kusimba, Sibel

AU - Lalueza-Fox, Carles

AU - Llamas, Bastien

AU - MacEachern, Scott

AU - Mallick, Swapan

AU - Matsumura, Hirofumi

AU - Morales Arce, Ana Y

AU - Motuzaite Matuzeviciute, Giedre

AU - Mushrif Tripathy, Veena

AU - Nakatsuka, Nathan

AU - NORES, Rodrigo

AU - Ogola, Christine

AU - Okumura, Mercedes

AU - Patterson, Nick

AU - Pinhasi, Ron

AU - Prasad, Samayamantri P R

AU - Prendergast, Mary B.

AU - Díaz, José Luis punzo

AU - Reich, David L.

AU - Sawafuji, Rikai

AU - Sawchuk, Elizabeth

AU - Schiffels, Stephan

AU - Sedig, Jakob W

AU - Shnaider, Svetlana

AU - Sirak, Kendra A

AU - Skoglund, Pontus

AU - Slon, Viviane

AU - Snow, Meradeth

AU - Soressi, Marie

AU - Spriggs, Matthew

AU - Stockhammer, Philipp W

AU - Szécsényi-Nagy, Anna

AU - Thangaraj, Kumarasamy

AU - Tiesler, V.

AU - Tobler, Ray

AU - Wang, C.

AU - Warinner, Christina

AU - Yasawardene, Surangi

AU - Zahir, Muhammad

PY - 2021

DA - 2021/10/20

PB - Springer Nature

SP - 41-46

IS - 7883

VL - 599

PMID - 34671160

SN - 0028-0836

SN - 1476-4687

ER -

BibTex |

Cite this

BibTex (up to 50 authors) Copy

@article{2021_Alpaslan-Roodenberg,

author = {Songül Alpaslan-Roodenberg and David Anthony and Hiba Babiker and Eszter Bánffy and Thomas Booth and Patricia Capone and Arati Deshpande Mukherjee and Stefanie Eisenmann and Lars Fehren-Schmitz and Michael D. Frachetti and Ricardo Fujita and Catherine J Frieman and Qiaomei Fu and Victoria E Gibbon and Wolfgang Haak and Mateja Hajdinjak and Kerstin P Hofmann and Brian Holguin and Takeshi Inomata and Hideaki Kanzawa-Kiriyama and William Keegan and Janet Kelso and Johannes Krause and Ganesan Kumaresan and Chapurukha Kusimba and Sibel Kusimba and Carles Lalueza-Fox and Bastien Llamas and Scott MacEachern and Swapan Mallick and Hirofumi Matsumura and Ana Y Morales Arce and Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute and Veena Mushrif Tripathy and Nathan Nakatsuka and Rodrigo NORES and Christine Ogola and Mercedes Okumura and Nick Patterson and Ron Pinhasi and Samayamantri P R Prasad and Mary B. Prendergast and José Luis punzo Díaz and David L. Reich and Rikai Sawafuji and Elizabeth Sawchuk and Stephan Schiffels and Jakob W Sedig and Svetlana Shnaider and Kendra A Sirak and others},

title = {Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines},

journal = {Nature},

year = {2021},

volume = {599},

publisher = {Springer Nature},

month = {oct},

url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x},

number = {7883},

pages = {41--46},

doi = {10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x}

}

MLA

Cite this

MLA Copy

Alpaslan-Roodenberg, Songül, et al. “Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines.” Nature, vol. 599, no. 7883, Oct. 2021, pp. 41-46. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04008-x.

Publisher

Springer Nature

Journal

Nature

scimago Q1

wos Q1

SJR

18.288

CiteScore

78.1

Impact factor

48.5

ISSN

00280836 (Print)

14764687 (Electronic)