Don't Steal Bones: A Rant

Good afternoon, Nooklings.

Have you heard of Roopkund Lake? It's a fascinating archaeological site that continues to be studied today. I'll save the details about why it is s interesting for another post, because as you have guessed from the title, this post is going to be a bit of a rant.

I sat down to watch Miniminuteman's video on Roopkund Lake (which I will link below), hoping to learn something newa bout an archaeological mystery. Towards the end of the video, Milo explains how the study of this area is time-sensitive. Not because of any geological or biological force, but because of tourists.

Tourists have gone to Roopkund Lake because it's an interesting site. I'd have thought that purely for that reason, they would have had some respect for the site. Perhaps to see it for themselves, or to honour the bodies that have been found there, or even just to say they have been to that famous, mysterious place. I was sadly mistaken. They are removing the bones from where they have been deposited and arranging them in piles for whatever reason. Doing so means that what we can learn from those remains has been drastically reduced. But even worse than that, they are desecrating a burial. Completely void of empathy for the fact that these are human remains, these were people. If these were locals who were giving their ancestors an appropriate burial, that would be one thing. Yes, the loss of any further research would be a shame, but again, these are human remains and deserve to be treated with respect.

It gets worse. Apparently, and I say apparently because I have no evidence (but let's be honest, we all know it is probably happening), tourists are stealing bones from the site. What the actual [insert expletive here]. I should not need to say that, but taking human remains from their resting place, even for research purposes, is ethically dubious, but doing so for no reason other than "Hey, I got a bone!" is... I can not put into words how gross that is. When museums are being called - and rightfully so - to start repatriating human remains. When we're looking at antiquarians who would buy mummified people at auction in the 1800s as unethical, there are still people like this who think it's cool to steal human remains from their place of rest.

Don't steal bones in general, but for the love of any deity you believe in, don't steal human remains. Just because they're ancient, or are not in a traditional style of burial, or don't belong to the same culture as you, does not mean you get to disrespect them.

I apologise if this wasn't the most well-written blog post of all time, I am just so angry.

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Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqzbkc-03Tg What Happened at Roopkund Lake? - Miniminuteman (Viewed 20th June 2026)