Papers and Publications
Articles & Repos
2017
Huffer, D. and Graham, S. 2017. The Insta-Dead: the rhetoric of the human remains trade on Instagram, Internet Archaeology 45. DOI: 10.11141/ia.45.5
Huffer, D. and Graham, S. 2017. Insta-dead-article Data Repository DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1040904
2018
Graham, S. 2018. Fleshing out the bones: data and code repository. Open Science Foundation. DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/9CFJA
Graham, S. 2018. Identifying-Similar-Images-with-TensorFlow-notebooks. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1243787 | Launch Binder
Huffer, D. and Graham, S. 2018. Fleshing out the Bones: Studying the Human Remains Trade with Tensorflow and Inception, Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology 1(1). DOI 10.5334/jcaa.8.
2019
Huffer, D., Wood, C. and Graham, S. 2019. What the Machine Saw: some questions on the ethics of computer vision and machine learning to investigate human remains trafficking, Internet Archaeology 52. DOI: 10.11141/ia.52.5
2020
Graham, S., Huffer, D., Blackadar, J. 2020. Towards a Digital Sensorial Archaeology as an Experiment in Distant Viewing of the Trade in Human Remains on Instagram. Heritage 2020, 3, 208-227. DOI: 10.3390/heritage3020013
Graham, S., Lane, A., Huffer, D. and Angourakis, A., 2020. Towards a Method for Discerning Sources of Supply within the Human Remains Trade via Patterns of Visual Dissimilarity and Computer Vision. Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 3(1), pp.253–268. DOI: 10.5334/jcaa.59
Graham, S. and Huffer, D. 2020. Reproducibility, Replicability, and Revisiting the Insta-Dead and the Human Remains Trade, Internet Archaeology 55. DOI: 10.11141/ia.55.11
2021
Huffer, D., Guerreiro, A., and Graham, S. 2021. Osteological assessment of a seized shipment of modified human crania: Implications for Dayak cultural heritage preservation and the global human remains trade. Journal of Borneo-Kalimantan 7 (1), 67-93
Davidson, K., Huffer, D., and Graham, S. 2021. Exploring Taste Formation and Performance in the Illicit Trade of Human Remains on Instagram. In N. Oosterman and D. Yates (eds) Crime and Art: Sociological and Criminological Perspectives of Crimes in the Art World. Springer: Cham. Pp. 29-44.
2022
Huffer, D., Simons, J., Brughmans, T., and Graham, S. 2022. ‘Alleen voor studiedoeleinden’ (For study purposes only): The human remains trade on Marktplaats.nl. Anthropologica et Praehistorica, 131: 179-194. Link.
Graham, S., Damien, H., Simons, J. 2022. When TikTok Discovered the Human Remains Trade: A Case Study. Open Archaeology, 8.1:196-219. DOI: 10.1515/opar-2022-0235
Conference & Workshop Presentations
2018
April 2018: ‘Bioarchaeological Approaches to Investigating Supply, Demand and Authenticity in the Colonial-era Human Remains Trade.’ Society for American Archaeology conference, Washington, D.C.
June 2018. ‘Fleshing out the Bones: understanding the human remains trade with computer vision’ Transatlantic Cultural Property Crime Symposium - the slides are available here
August 2018. ‘Taphonomy, Trafficking, and the Forgery of Ethnographic Human Remains.’ 8th European Meeting for Forensic Archaeology, Queens University, Belfast.
September 2018. ‘Where did you get that?!: A multi-disciplinary investigation of Colonial era and modern Dayak ancestral skull collecting.’ 21st Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, Hue, Vietnam.
2019
February 2019. What Am I Looking At? Computer Vision, Digital Phrenology, and the Trade in Human Remains, Workshop on Quantitative Analysis and the Digital Turn in Historical Studies. Fields Institute, University of Toronto.
April 2019. Teaching Machines to See Like Archaeologists: Neural Networks and the Antiquities Trade. Investigating and Policing Antiquities Trafficking and Forgery in a Digital Age. Stockholm University.
May 2019. What the Machine Saw: Studying the Trade in Human Remains in an Era of Big Data. Public Lecture, Department of Archaeology, York University UK.
June 2019. Trafficking the Dead in and from Southeast Asia: Recent Case Studies and Legal Context. 3rd SEAEO SPAFA International Conference on Southeast Asian Archaeology. Bangkok.
November 2019. Digital Phrenology? An Experimental Digital Archaeology. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning in Archaeology. The British School at Rome and the European Space Agency. Rome.
2020
January 2020. Investigating the Bone Trade’s Murky Origins and Unknown Dimensions. Illicit Antiquities Trade on Social Media, University of Edinburgh.
April 2020. Tracking the digital dead: Using transfer learning, image analysis, and forensic anthropology to classify human remains sold on social media. Computer Applications in Archaeology UK. Oxford. Cancelled due to COVID-19.
July 2020. Getting A Head At Any Cost?: Ethical Issues Raised by the Human Remains Trade and the Alleged Involvement of the Archaeological Community. World Archaeological Congress. Prague. Cancelled due to COVID-19.
July 2020. Tracking the digital dead: A progress report in the use of transfer learning, image analysis, and forensic anthropology to classify human remains sold on social media. Poster Session. Digital Humanities 2020. Ottawa. Cancelled due to COVID-19.
Our Work in the Popular Press
Interview, Evan Solomon Show, Bell Media http://www.iheartradio.ca/580-cfra/shows/evan-solomon-1.1892475 July 7 2014 concerning PC political candidate who purchased a skull for her partner.
Dirt Podcast, Episode 79 Not All Heroes Wear Capes: Countering Human Remains Trafficking https://thedirtpod.com/episodes//episode-79-not-all-heroes-wear-capes-countering-human-remains-trafficking
Hignett, Katherine. 2019. Political Candidate Blasted for Giving Boyrfiend Human Skull as Birthday Gift. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/skull-canada-election-politics-archaeology-indigenous-rights-repatriation-human-remains-1447772/
Killgrove, K. 2016. This Archaeologist Uses Instagram To Track the Human Skeleton Trade. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2016/07/06/this-archaeologist-uses-instagram-to-track-the-human-skeleton-trade/#7c8d81356598
Laucius, Joanne. 2019. Carleton prof harnesses machine learning to explore the bone trade netherworld. Ottawa Citizen. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/carleton-prof-harnesses-machine-learning-to-explore-the-bone-trade-netherworld/
Schwartz, O. Instagram’s grisly human skull trade is booming. Wired UK https://www.wired.co.uk/article/instagram-skull-trade
Troian, Martha. 2019. Federal Conservative Candidate Gives Boyfriend Human Skull for Birthday. _APTN News _https://aptnnews.ca/2019/07/03/federal-conservative-candidate-gives-boyfriend-human-skull-for-birthday/
Troian, Martha. 2019.Human skull purchased from oddity shop by Conservative candidate, likely an orphaned skull says owner. APTN News https://aptnnews.ca/2019/07/08/human-skull-purchased-from-oddity-shop-by-conservative-candidate-likely-an-orphan-skull-says-owner/
Related Work
Huffer, D. 2018. The Living and the Dead Entwined in Virtual Space: #Bioarchaeology and Being a Bioarchaeologist on Instagram. Adv. Archaeol. Pract. 6, 267–273.
Huffer, D.; Chappell, D.; Charlton, N.; Spatola, B.F. 2019. Bones of Contention: The Online Trade in Archaeological, Ethnographic and Anatomical Human Remains on Social Media Platforms. In The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime; Hufnagel, S., Chappell, D., Eds.; Palgrave Macmillan UK: London, UK; pp. 527–556.
Huffer, D. Charlton, N. 2019. Serious Enquiries Only, Please: Ethical Issues Raised by the Online Human Remains Trade. In Ethical Approaches to Human Remains: A Global Challenge in Bioarchaeology and Forensic Anthropology; Squires, K., Errickson, D., Márquez-Grant, M., Eds.; Springer: Cham, Switzerland; pp. 96-126.