Working with human remains?
To biological anthropologists and archaeologists, how did you get over the...awkward uneasy feeling of working with human bones and remains?
I've been working in a zooarchaeology lab sorting bones of various animals and working my way up to large mammals, but recently I sort of got thrown a bombshell with human bones.
Usually I don't have a problem with human bones, I'm fine handling replicas of skulls and seeing the full skeleton laid out during discussions sessions, but alone in a lab handling a box of human bones, I get this uneasy feeling. Then when I open the box and start to sort them, I feel incredibly guilty and want to apologize to them. I know it's a bit silly right?
I don't know if it's because I'm too sensitive or something, I mean I can still work with bones, it's just that I always feel incredibly apologetic and I handle them with a lot more care than I do with animal bones.
So to people with more experience, how did you like "get over" the guilt or awkward feeling or did you never experience it and I'm just too sensitive an the odd one out?
I've been working in a zooarchaeology lab sorting bones of various animals and working my way up to large mammals, but recently I sort of got thrown a bombshell with human bones.
Usually I don't have a problem with human bones, I'm fine handling replicas of skulls and seeing the full skeleton laid out during discussions sessions, but alone in a lab handling a box of human bones, I get this uneasy feeling. Then when I open the box and start to sort them, I feel incredibly guilty and want to apologize to them. I know it's a bit silly right?
I don't know if it's because I'm too sensitive or something, I mean I can still work with bones, it's just that I always feel incredibly apologetic and I handle them with a lot more care than I do with animal bones.
So to people with more experience, how did you like "get over" the guilt or awkward feeling or did you never experience it and I'm just too sensitive an the odd one out?