"Modern pagans, too, don't seem to appreciate the diversity of ancient religion: their worldview is essentially an inverted Christian universalism projected onto the past."

I'm no fan of stunts like this either, but lets avoid painting all modern Pagans with the same brush of "inverted Christian universalism". As you note at the beginning of your post, "paganism" can imply all sorts of different religions and religious points of view.

There is actually a wide variety of opinions concerning pre-Christian artifacts and remains within modern Paganism, but the press likes to give the "squeaky wheels" the "grease". The squeakier the better.

Hi, I'm a Pagan, and I vehemently disagree with Paul Davies and his pompous twaddle. COBDO, the group he represents, only represents a tiny minority of very small druid groups (the two largest druid orders, OBOD and BDO, left it in 1996).

I personally feel that memory is a far more important way of respecting the ancestors than reburying them and thereby forgetting them again. I am therefore an enthusiast for archaeology. However, there are plenty of archaeologists who regard all Pagans as totally irrational and refuse to even open a dialogue about this issue.

The more academic end of the 'respect' campaign at least acknowledges that there are numerous solutions and compromises to be made, and they are not demanding reburial in all cases, merely asking for more consideration and respect of ancient bones.

My preferred solution is the idea of "keeping places" which has been used in Australia, where both indigenous people and archaeologists have access to the bones. (Of course in England we're all indigenous, so the issue is not complicated by the colonial legacy.)

The issue of continuity is an interesting one. I think it depends what you mean by continuity. OK, there hasn't been an unbroken tradition of Paganism since ancient times, but that is because Christianity was forcibly imposed. The question is, do modern Pagans have anything in common with ancient pagans? (People have written whole books attempting to answer this question, so I won't attempt it here, but there are some commonalities as well as some significant discontinuity.)

You may also be interested in this selection of articles on the subject of human remains, which demonstrates the broad spectrum of views on this among both archaeologists and Pagans.

There is actually a wide variety of opinions concerning pre-Christian artifacts and remains within modern Paganism, but the press likes to give the "squeaky wheels" the "grease". The squeakier the better.

You are quite right -- mea culpa.

It is a pity that the original Guardian article did not do more in this regard. It states that a number of museums have been in conversation with various pagan groups, but does not mention any diversity of opinion regarding restitution of remains among those groups -- let alone discusses whether the activists cited are in any way representative of broader opinion among modern pagans.

I'm no fan of stunts like this either, but lets avoid painting all modern Pagans with the same brush of "inverted Christian universalism".

The issue of capitalization is to differentiate between various textbook definitions of "pagan" (atheists, and anyone who isn't a "people of the book"), and "Pagans" (though some still prefer "Neopaganism") to point to revived and reconstructed (generally European) pre-Christian religion. It is a shorthand, an umbrella term for a wide array of individual faiths (like Wicca, Asatru, Druidry).

I personally prefer the catch-all of "polytheist", but that would exclude monotheistic goddess worshipers, and when talking about modern Paganism as a community we are lumped together more by a shared praxis than a shared theology.

I suppose you do have a point, some of our actions can very well be seen as reactions to Christianity. But then, anyone involved in a religious tradition in the West who isn't a Christian are in a similar position (a quick look at how American Hindus are re-framing their faith is an interesting example). I'm of the growing opinion that there is a human religious impulse towards what we would call "pagan" forms of practice and worship that are independent from the cultural influence of Christianity.

Collectively we are aware of the vast diversity of pre-Christian thought and practice. Our current "unity" (a flimsy thing if looked at carefully) is mostly due to our small numbers. But only sixty years or so after the emergence of revived Pagan and Heathen traditions one can already see groups doing some heavy boundary maintenance in reaction to their being "lumped in" with the other revived Paganisms. No doubt in a few more generations, you may seem something starting to approach the flavor and diversity of ancient paganisms.

Buried with meaning and blessed with love, the human remains of our ancestors help make sacred this earth. Through decay, their bodies become part of this Earth and in return, the Earth gives her spirit to the ancestor. Landscape and ancestor become one.

As pilgrims, we enter into ancestral landscape and through ritual acts call to and honour every sacred being; every stone, every flower, tree, bone, every ancestor. And when our collective brothers and sisters answer, they come as spirit people blessed with the spirit of Earth into which they were placed - the womb of the Great Goddess. It is time to remember who we are - the ancestors reborn /|\ COBDO June 2007