Damien Huffer
Osteoarchaeologist & Expert in the Human Remains Trade
Damien is a heritage professional and interdisciplinary illicit trafficking research scholar, with expertise in the human remains trade on and off-line, its Colonial antecedents, and the application of osteology, forensic anthropology and archaeological science method and theory to counter-trafficking efforts. He was most recently a lecturer in criminology in the School of Social Science, University of Queensland, and continues to hold honourary affiliation with both UQ and Carleton University (Ottawa, ON, Canada). Before this, he was a postdoctoral fellow (2017 – 2019) within the Osteoarchaeological Research Laboratory, Department of Archaeology & Classical Studies, Stockholm University. Even earlier, he held the Stable Isotope Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute/Division of Anthropology from 2014-2015. As a co-founder of ACCO, he is passionate about helping to raise public awareness of the existence and complexities of this 'niche' market within the big picture of global online heritage crime.
Much of his current collaborative research uses the digital humanities toolkit to improve what is known about today’s online trafficking of the dead via social media and e-commerce, in collaboration with ACCO co-founder Shawn Graham, as well as diverse colleagues inside and outside of academia. Work of this nature is relevant to forensic anthropologists, law enforcement, museums, and Indigenous descent communities who seek to return taken Ancestors and prevent trafficking in the first place. His research also looks to the Colonial-era past to understand collecting in the present. He has conducted non-invasive osteological research on c. 18th to early 20th century collections of culturally modified human remains to look ‘behind’ the often-sparse historical record and provide additional information in aid of repatriation requests. He has also worked in desktop and field capacities for several cultural heritage/resource management firms in Arizona and Australia, and continues to do so.
Read his published works:
Behind Closed Doors: The Human Remains Trade within Private Facebook Groups
Fleshing Out the Bones: Studying the Human Remains Trade with Tensorflow and Inception
