On the issue of respect for the ancient dead:

My thoughts personally (in both my mundane and magical beliefs) are along the lines of "what is all the fuss about!"

They are just bones - honestly I would have no cares or concerns if people dug me up and made rattles out of me or displayed me (however) cause I am going to be long gone and on to other things. After I am released from this body does anyone really think I am going to come babysit my bones or all the sets of bones I have used before. If someone can learn something from my dead leftovers - have at it.

True show them respect for the knowledge they impart upon us (and that goes for all artifacts and bones) but reburial of 5,000 y.o. bones - why? Does this mean the Africans from where Lucy was found can demand to have them returned for reburial (oh dear wouldn't that cause a stink in the archaeological worlds)? Hmmm and what about the Egyptian bones - are we going to return those - the Egyptians have wanted them returned for years (to do the same with them as we are doing). Who do the bones really belong to? All these questions.

I am sure some people may believe this is necessary, but they are just a few of the hundreds of thousands of pagans. I would love to query how many of them visit their grandparents' graves or their grandparents' grandparents' to pay homage to them - how many of them have even bothered to find where their relatives came from or how they lived (rather not get into it but my mother is really heavily into genealogy; she has books of family trees all the way back to and past the Mayflower era - my father, because Hitler thought he had Jewish blood in him, was traced back to the 1500s, which that psycho did to many Germans to make sure they shouldn't be sent to the concentration camps) . Now I myself have very little interest in genealogy - I am who I am now. No disrespect for my ancestors and many fond thoughts for all who have gone before me, whatever their story. The point I am trying to make with the above thoughts is for these people who are having a fit over their ancestors' bones (magical or real ancestors) 'practice what they preach' - how many show real respect to the more recent ancestors. They are still ancestors and gave us our genetic makeup that we have today (a very important part of who we are).

I genuinely think these people could spend their energies perhaps creating a heritage of their own for future generations. We have no idea what this culture we dug up really practiced, what they wanted. True, our past is what has had a lot to do with how we arrived at today but beyond a certain point (without real records like the Egyptians left), we can only speculate. Even speculating requires items and people to be dug up to speculate on. I would find it more interesting to find a spot where a new stone circle can be constructed and used in ways that fit our new position and developed practices in the time line.

I am still planning to do this for my own use someday. Take a year or two to mark each direction by the rising sun at the solstices etc. Just a small one, with stones I can lift or move myself. Below each stone I will bury items or writings with would be sacred to that direction, that solstice. Who is to say that sometime in the near future or far, these stones might not be disturbed (or destroyed) and my work, my passion revealed or never seen. Whatever happens to it the importance is to me, and I will have enjoyed its place in my world. I would also like to build a cairn of stone, but enough of what I want to do.

I do take offence that any one group can speak for all of a persuasion or belief. Words like all, none, everyone, everything and never shouldn't be used often, if at all, in situations like this (and many other) because there is a 99.9% of a chance there is an exception and just one exception nulls and voids the statement (making it a false statement or lie).

If these people are saying they are speaking for pagans as a whole, they will tarnish us all in the way the non-pagan communities view us, just as most targeted groups get tarnished or praised minimally by the actions of each member. Stereotyping, profiling, association are all human nature (a repeat) and not easily banished from our thoughts.

--  Emma Tenebrae