Scientists object to Ministry of Justice rules which force them to rebury bones after just two years

Severe restrictions on scientists' freedom to study bones and skulls from ancient graves are putting archaeological research in Britain at risk, according to experts.

The growing dispute relates to controversial legislation introduced by the Ministry of Justice in 2008, which decreed that all human remains found during digs in Britain must be reburied within two years.

The decision means that scientists have insufficient time to carry out proper studies of any pieces of ancient skeleton they find. Key information about British history will be lost as a result.

"Suppose one of our palaeontologists found the remains of a million-year-old human," said archaeologist Mike Pitts of the Stonehenge Riverside Project.

"It would be a truly wonderful discovery and would transform our knowledge of our predecessors. But, according to the Ministry of Justice ruling, we would have to take that fossil – when we had only just begun to study it – and put it back in the soil. It is utterly absurd."

Scientists are already facing the prospect of having to rebury a horde of human bone fragments, the remains of more than 50 individuals, that were excavated in 2008 at a site known as Aubrey Hole 7, which is part of the Stonehenge Riverside Project.

Team members, including Pitts, had hoped that they could study these

pieces to gain new knowledge about the people who built and used

Stonehenge, with a preliminary study of the 50,000 bone fragments

being expected to run from 2008 until 2015. But, as the current issue

of British Archaeology reveals, they face the prospect of having to

rebury the remains when their research has only just begun.

"We have applied for an extension," added Pitts. "We may get one, but even if we did, it would only be for a couple more years. Then the bones would have be reburied."

The ministry's ruling follows a decision in 2007 to transfer authority for exhumation of human remains from ancient graves from the Home Office to the Ministry of Justice.

Its officials decided that the Burial Act 1857 was the appropriate legislation for controlling archaeological digs at burial grounds. As a result, they dictated that archaeologists could dig up bones and skulls, but insisted that they would have to rebury them within two years "in an accepted place of burial" – a cemetery – while the excavations would have to be screened from the public.

"In fact, that legislation was introduced in the 19th century to deal with the expansion of our cities, which took building development across existing cemeteries," said Pitts.

"Builders were essentially hauling corpses out of the ground in front of living relatives. The Burial Act was introduced to stop that. But it is something completely different from the excavation of prehistoric remains. It is utterly inappropriate to use this law to control archaeology."

In recent years, scientists have developed a number of important tools for interpreting ancient remains.

In one case, a recent project that used high-resolution radiocarbon dating of remains found in the West Kennet barrow – an ancient burial chamber in Wiltshire that was constructed around 3500BC – led to a dramatic re-evaluation of its contents.

"We used to think these ancient barrows were used for many generations to bury their dead," said Dr Duncan Sayer of the University of Central Lancashire. "But these new, highly accurate dating techniques revealed they had been filled up within a single generation."

The discovery is forcing historians to take a completely new look at how humans lived in the period, but it would not have been possible under the Ministry of Justice's rules.

"The bones were dug up at the barrow several decades ago and were kept in museums before researchers redated them," added Sayer.

"But the new rules would have meant that the bones would have had to been reburied long ago and would have been unavailable for research."

The requirement for reburial within two years is not the only issue to vex archaeologists, however. The ministry's requirement that any excavation of human remains must be screened from the public has also caused anger.

"If you dig up old burial grounds and then screen your dig from local people, they become suspicious," added Sayer, who is leading an excavation at a Saxon cemetery at Oakington in Cambridgeshire.

"They think you are doing something sinister. The ironic thing is that the government has insisted on the public being given access to scientific research and for there to be openness between scientists and the public.

"But now they are preventing us from doing that – when we are happy to show people what we are doing and when local folk want to learn about the men and women who used to live in their village or town."

• This article was amended on 12 October 2010 to make clear its source.