yo man
This is going to be kind of an editorial observation/comment.
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Someone who's been dead almost 150 years had their skull placed in a wall of a home in Illinois somehow. In 1978 it was given to the museum to hold it until an investigation could be done properly. The museum forgot about it. Then recently they found it, some 40+ years later, and a forensic investigation began. They determined who it was and have since buried the remains. Their only guess is probably originally a victim of grave robbing.
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Other than the whole "oh, gosh, us museum people forgot about it" there's another little known problem that exists in America: possession of human remains. Back in the summer I went to an antique mall and saw a real human skull for sale. I did some research and found that in, if I remember, about 48 states allow human bones to be possessed, bought, sold, traded on the open market without any permit or paperwork.
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Now, how can that be? Because, real skeletal remains were once used by family doctor and dentist offices for reference and schools and labs used them for reference, study, education, and testing. I've handled several full and partial human skeletons in my forensic anthropology class many years ago. When Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride first opened, for decades real human skeletons were used because they looked better than the fake imitations at the time. Over the years, when doctors retired, sold or closed their practices they disposed of the bones through sales. These bones wound up in the hands of private citizen collectors who then resell them from time to time.
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I looked into the laws of a few states, but the general consensus is no paperwork, no verification, no certificates, and permits are required to buy/sell/trade/possess/display these "donated" bones. The person donated their body science and apparently the law sees it as anything goes. But the problem then comes in the case of grave robbing or homicide victims or other accidental deaths that might be covered up. If you're possessing the bones of a person the victim of crime, how does the law know? The bones I handled in the bio-lab were not permanently labeled and I don't remember them being preserved. The full skeleton wired together on the rolling stand had a protective wax or had been bleached very well.
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A forensic anthropologist should be able to quickly discern if a human bone has undergone postmortem processing for scientific preservation. But like I said, some bones did not get the "bleaching" or other treatment because they were used for natural decay studies and are left in their natural state. I cannot remember for sure, but I do remember my professor being called out to rural area to examine skeletal remains, as police usually called on him when they had such findings, and for one case in particular he determined that the bones were not from foul play but rather placed there probably as a prank and were sourced from medical supply, probably old stock.
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All this brings up moral and ethical questions. If a person donates their body to "science" does that mean when the science is done using them the remains can then be used for entertainment? for fun? for horror? And since the law does not require documentation that can also cause problems. Even if the bones are sourced from science, most police cannot make that determination and if foul play is suspected that means confiscating the bones and spending money on an anthropologist to determine if these were from a donated source or from a grave or from a discarded and forgotten body.
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Look into your local laws and be wary of such things if you come across them in antique stores and flea markets or other places. Now, if you buy your skeletons from Walmart, well that's just a dead Walmart employee that Walmart is trying to get their money back.
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https://nypost.com/2024/10/25/us-news/dna-tests-identify-19th-century-teenagers-skull-found-in-illinois-homes-wall/
I been seeing a lot of comments lately all over social media that say something like "We're watching you [in the US] from the UK and we're very concerned/worried and you need to vote a certain way" and I'm like, see the following meme I made...
