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1
Ardika, I. Wayan, I. Ketut Setiawan, I. Wayan Srijaya, and Rochtri Agung Bawono. "Stratifikasi sosial pada masa prasejarah di Bali." Jurnal Kajian Bali (Journal of Bali Studies) 7, no. 1 (May 18, 2017): 33. http://dx.doi.org/10.24843/jkb.2017.v07.i01.p03.
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Mortuary practices might have represented social stratification during the prehistoric period in Bali. Disposal treatment of the decease, burial goods, and containers that were utilized for burials may correspond with social identity and social persona of the deads and their family. This article will explore social stratification on the basis of burial systems and burial goods that were utilized during the prehistoric period in Bali. Field survey and study on documents have also been done for data collection. In addation, Postprocessual theory has been applied in this study. It seems that global contacts and access for exotic goods might have stimulated the ranked or social stratification during prehistoric period in Bali. Metal objects, which raw materials are absence in Bali, including stone and glass beads, gold foil eye covers that were utilized as burial goods might have represent a status symbol during prehstoric period in Bali. Local elits in Bali utilized material objects as well as burial systems as a symbol for social differentiation and hierarchies in the soceity. Ranked society occurred prior to the apperance of Early State in Bali.
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Miniaci, Gianluca. "Multiple Burials in Ancient Societies: Theory and Methods from Egyptian Archaeology." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 29, no. 2 (December 6, 2018): 287–307. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s095977431800046x.
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The paper aims at providing theoretical models and data interpretation applied to multiple burials. Challenging the current fuzzy definition of multiple burials in ancient societies, the paper proposes a more accurate classification of multiple burials, with particular reference to ancient Egypt funerary culture, based on two main parameters, which may have influenced the association of bodies: p1) architecture; p2) time span, and three flexible sub-parameters that may be used to customize different scenarios, on occasion: sp1) number of deceased; sp2) age of deceased; sp3) nature of death/deposition. The body has been often considered the real ontological centre of the burial itself with all of the other countable objects intended as radiating projections supporting the body-nucleus. The practice of multiple burials disrupts such a perception as it juxtaposes horizontal, multidirectional perspectives: the role of a new body entering among older bodies and objects, and of the multiple bodies and objects themselves. The study of multiple burials, if correctly framed, can lead to insights into different religious, social, and economic reasons behind the mortuary programmes within a society. For instance, sequential multiple burials reinforce the transformation of dead bodies into part of the burial equipment itself, reducing the centrality of the body and disrupting the narrative tied to individual biographies, increasing an ‘artefactual’ perception.
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Cannon, Aubrey, and Katherine Cook. "Infant Death and the Archaeology of Grief." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 25, no. 2 (April 23, 2015): 399–416. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0959774315000049.
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To build a theoretical and empirical foundation for interpretation of the absence, segregation or simplicity of infant burials in archaeological contexts, we review social theories of emotion, inter-disciplinary views on the relationship between mortality rates and emotional investment, and archaeological interpretations of infant burial patterns. The results indicate a lack of explicit theory in most archaeological accounts and a general lack of consideration for individual variation and the process of change in mortuary practice. We outline the tenets of Bowlby's attachment theory and Stroebe and Schut's dual process model of bereavement to account theoretically for pattern, variation and change in modes of infant burial. We illustrate the value of this psychology-based perspective in an analysis of Victorian gravestone commemorations of infant burials in 35 villages in rural south Cambridgeshire, England, where individual and class-based variation, relative to falling mortality rates, is best explained as a function of coping strategies and contextually based social constraint on the overt representation of grief and loss.
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Rife, Joseph L. "The burial of Herodes Atticus: élite identity, urban society, and public memory in Roman Greece." Journal of Hellenic Studies 128 (November 2008): 92–127. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0075426900000070.
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AbstractThis paper discusses the burial of Herodes Atticus as a well-attested case of élite identification through mortuary practices. It gives a close reading of Philostratus' account of Herodes' end inc. 179 (VS2.1.15) alongside the evidence of architecture, inscriptions, sculpture, and topography at Marathon, Cephisia and Athens. The intended burial of Herodes and the actual burials of his family on the Attic estates expressed wealth and territorial control, while his preference for Marathon fused personal history with civic history. The Athenian intervention in Herodes' private funeral, which led to his magnificent interment at the Panathenaic Stadium, served as a public reception for a leading citizen and benefactor. Herodes' tomb should be identified with a long foundation on the stadium's east hill that might have formed an eccentric altar-tomb, while an elegantklinêsarcophagus found nearby might have been his coffin. His epitaph was a traditional distich that stressed through language and poetic allusion his deep ties to Marathon and Rhamnous, his euergetism and his celebrity. Also found here was an altar dedicated to Herodes ‘the Marathonian hero’ with archaizing features (IGII26791). The first and last lines of the text were erased in a deliberate effort to remove his name and probably the name of a relative. A cemetery of ordinary graves developed around Herods' burial site, but by the 250s these had been disturbed, along with the altar and the sarcophagus. This new synthesis of textual and material sources for the burial of Herodes contributes to a richer understanding of status and antiquarianism in Greek urban society under the Empire. It also examines how the public memory of élites was composite and mutable, shifting through separate phases of activity — funeral, hero-cult, defacement, biography — to generate different images of the dead.
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Tomášková, Silvia. "Picture me dead. Moral choices reimagined." Archaeological Dialogues 17, no. 1 (May 4, 2010): 92–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1380203810000103.
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Shortly before her death, my grandmother expressed a strongly felt sentiment not to lie in the family tomb next to her sister-in-law. It was not quite clear what was to be done with the bones of the woman who by then had occupied the space next to her brother, my grandfather, for some five years. My mother resolved the issue by depositing the urn with my grandmother's ashes on the other side of my grandfather's coffin, stating matter-of-factly, ‘We are not about to toss the aunt out, and we will certainly not build a new tomb.’ Acting in a relational web of moral obligations and duties as a good daughter, my mother also proceeded as a rational modern individual in the universe of limited choices in Eastern Europe. Cremation replaced interment, therefore ‘lying next to’ was no longer an issue in a literal sense. At the same time, the filial duty of a proper burial in the family tomb was conducted with all the necessary ritual, wide kin in attendance. This incident came to my mind when reading about the archaeological dilemma of mortuary analysis described in Voutsaki's essay: to what extent do burials express the will, agency and station in life of the deceased as opposed to those of the wider kin relations responsible for burying them? Do the actions that archaeologists interpret on the basis of burials derive from choices by individual, cognizant agents, or do they represent a moral world in which adherence to certain practices defines a ‘good person’? I wish to address two issues from this presentation, one more philosophical and the other directly addressing the archaeological record of the Mycenaeans. First, I will consider whether the shift from agency to personhood (and back) proposed in this essay solves interpretive problems created by the recent embrace of agency. Second, I am intrigued by the question that Voutsaki poses about why images appear in this period, as it seems to me that a potential answer may lie in her detailed exposition of moral theory if one looks carefully, or extends it slightly beyond the intended meaning.
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Hausmair, Barbara. "Topographies of the afterlife: Reconsidering infant burials in medieval mortuary space." Journal of Social Archaeology 17, no. 2 (April 24, 2017): 210–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1469605317704347.
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Across societies, deaths which take place in early infancy often trigger distinctive responses in burial practices, signifying the ambivalent social status of those who died before they really lived. This paper focuses on burial practices in medieval Central Europe pertaining to children who died before, during or shortly after birth. It discusses the relationship between medieval laity, ecclesiastic power and social space, using three medieval cemeteries in Switzerland and Austria as examples. By integrating considerations of medieval practices of infant baptism, afterlife topography and social theories of space, a methodological and interpretative framework is outlined and employed for approaching burials of early-deceased infants, the social dimension of related local burial practices, and processes of power negotiation between medieval laypeople and church authorities.
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Rhodes, Jill A., Joseph B. Mountjoy, and Fabio G. Cupul-Magaña. "UNDERSTANDING THE WRAPPED BUNDLE BURIALS OF WEST MEXICO: A CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF MIDDLE FORMATIVE MORTUARY PRACTICES." Ancient Mesoamerica 27, no. 2 (2016): 377–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956536116000262.
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AbstractThis article reports on the discovery of an unusual type of secondary burial found at two Middle Formative sites in the Mascota valley of Jalisco, West Mexico. We examine these burials within a Middle and Late Formative period context as well as a broader temporal context of funerary customs and mortuary programs involving secondary-type burials. Tightly wrapped, elaborately processed bundled burials were recovered at the cemeteries of El Embocadero II and Los Tanques. We report on the human remains from both sites and examine burial context and biological identity to seek explanations. The individuals selected for this burial treatment are not associated with any markers of high status. These burials may represent a different ethnic, familial, community or ancestral identity, and we consider the broader secondary burial phenomenon as the possible expression of a ritual of seasonal interment associated with the use of a mortuary hut to curate and process the bodies.
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Frohlich, Bruno, David R. Hunt, and Jonsdottir Birna. "Aleut Mortuary Practices. Re-Interpretation of Established Aleut Burial Customs." Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History 64, no. 2 (2019): 499–524. http://dx.doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu02.2019.207.
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Lieske, Rosemary. "COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF PRECLASSIC AND PROTOCLASSIC BURIAL PRACTICES AT IZAPA AND IN SOUTHEASTERN MESOAMERICA." Ancient Mesoamerica 29, no. 2 (2018): 289–307. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956536118000226.
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AbstractExtensive investigation at the archaeological site of Izapa in southern Chiapas, Mexico, by the New World Archaeological Foundation yielded few burials at the site's core ceremonial precinct. Those found were located on the acropolis that supports Mound 30a and defines the north side of Izapa Group B. The majority of caches found in this zone date to the Protoclassic Hato and Itstapa phases (100 b.c.–a.d. 250). The shift in mortuary practices ca. 100 b.c. was accompanied by several changes to the site's occupation and architectural patterns. Study of these mortuary traditions provides important insights regarding the reconfiguration of Izapa's political organization at the turn of the millennium. Comparisons of mortuary practices at Izapa with those of neighboring civic-ceremonial centers El Ujuxte, Takalik Abaj, and Kaminaljuyu during the Preclassic and Protoclassic transitions contextualizes the practices found at Izapa at a regional level.
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Cullen, Tracey. "Mesolithic mortuary ritual at Franchthi Cave, Greece." Antiquity 69, no. 263 (June 1995): 270–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00064681.
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Mesolithic sites are rare in the Aegean, and Mesolithic burials are uncommon throughout Europe. The Mesolithic human remains from Franchthi Cave, that remarkable, deeply stratified site in southern Greece, offer a rare glimpse into the burial practices of early Holocene hunter-gatherers of the Mediterranean.
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Pollard, Helen Perlstein, and Laura Cahue. "Mortuary Patterns of Regional Elites in the Lake Patzcuaro Basin of Western Mexico." Latin American Antiquity 10, no. 3 (September 1999): 259–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/972030.
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Based primarily upon evidence from the site of Urichu in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin of Michoacán, we propose that changes in the burial practices of local elites document a transformation of these elites from highly ranked local chiefs into a socially stratified elite class associated with the emergence of the Tarascan state. Two distinctive mortuary patterns that represent the Classic-Epiclassic and Late Postclassic periods are presented. These patterns vary in the age and sex composition of differing mortuary facilities, the preparation and treatment of the bodies, the mortuary facilities, the types of burial goods, and the location of the burials within settlements. Comparison to mortuary practices from the sites of Loma Santa María (Morelia), Guadalupe (Zacapu Basin), Tingambato, and Tres Cerritos (Cuitzeo Basin) place these patterns in a regional context. By contrasting the earlier mortuary pattern, which is associated with societies poorly known, with the later mortuary pattern, which is associated with the well documented Tarascan empire, it is possible to propose a model of a transformation in regional political economies associated with the emergence of the Tarascan state in the Postclassic period. This transformation involved a shift in elite identity from one primarily associated with imported finished goods from distant powerful centers and control of prestige goods networks, to an identity primarily associated with locally produced, distinctively Tarascan, goods and control of tributary, military, political, and ideological networks.
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Holl, Augustin F. C. "Megaliths in Tropical Africa: Social Dynamics and Mortuary Practices in Ancient Senegambia (ca. 1350 BCE – 1500 CE)." International Journal of Modern Anthropology 15, no. 2 (May 27, 2021): 363–412. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ijma.v15i2.1.
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When analyzed systematically, Tropical Africa megalithism appears to have emerged in contexts of friction between different lifeways, agriculturalists versus foragers, pastoralists versus hunter-gatherers-fishermen, or agriculturalists versus fishing folks. The monuments built were clearly part of actual territorial strategies. Research conducted by the Sine Ngayene Archaeological Project (2002-2012) frontally addressed the “Why” of the emergence of megalithism in that part of the world, and probes the reasons for the performance of the elaborate burial practices preserved in the archaeological record. This paper emphasizes the diversity and complexity of burial protocols invented by Senegambian “megalith-builders” communities from 1450 BCE to 1500 CE. Senegambian megalithism is shown to have proceeded from territorial marking imperatives, shaping a multi-layered cultural landscape through the implemented mortuary programs anchored on the construction of Ancestorhood.
Keywords: Megaliths; Senegambia; Cultural landscape; Mortuary program; Burial practice; Monolith-circle; Sine-Ngayene;
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Holl, Augustin F. C. "Megaliths in Tropical Africa: Social Dynamics and Mortuary Practices in Ancient Senegambia (ca. 1350 BCE – 1500 CE)." International Journal of Modern Anthropology 2, no. 15 (May 27, 2021): 363–412. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ijma.v2i15.1.
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When analyzed systematically, Tropical Africa megalithism appears to have emerged in contexts of friction between different lifeways, agriculturalists versus foragers, pastoralists versus hunter-gatherers-fishermen, or agriculturalists versus fishing folks. The monuments built were clearly part of actual territorial strategies. Research conducted by the Sine Ngayene Archaeological Project (2002-2012) frontally addressed the “Why” of the emergence of megalithism in that part of the world, and probes the reasons for the performance of the elaborate burial practices preserved in the archaeological record. This paper emphasizes the diversity and complexity of burial protocols invented by Senegambian “megalith-builders” communities from 1450 BCE to 1500 CE. Senegambian megalithism is shown to have proceeded from territorial marking imperatives, shaping a multi-layered cultural landscape through the implemented mortuary programs anchored on the construction of Ancestorhood.
Keywords: Megaliths; Senegambia; Cultural landscape; Mortuary program; Burial practice; Monolith-circle; Sine-Ngayene;
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Larsson, Åsa M. "Secondary Burial Practices in the Middle Neolithic: Causes and Consequences." Current Swedish Archaeology 11, no. 1 (June 10, 2021): 153–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.37718/csa.2003.08.
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The article discusses the increasing evidence that burial traditions in the Neol ithic are more varied than is otten acknowledged, and focuses especially on the evidence of cremations as a continuous practice throughout the period. This variation should not be seen primarily as a result of competing cosmologies, but rather as different ways of expressing a main body of thought, depending on the cultural context and the need of the community members. Rituals are seen as events where structure is not only displayed, but also created and negotiated in a dialogue with the participants. Rituals therefore have the potential to both hinder and facil itate the changes that take place internally or externally. Evidence of secondary burial practices is given special attention, in particular regarding the mortuary houses of eastern middle Sweden in the late Middle Neolithic, since rituals linked to this tradition have been shown to involve a wider community and to emphasize on group unity over individualism. They also grant the participants a feeling ofcontrol over death, and through this the structuration of society. By acknowledging mortuary variation, which has often been overlooked as exceptions and curiosities, we are given additional insights into prehistoric strategies and mentaliities.
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Oliveira, Maria Aparecida da Silva. "PRÁTICAS FUNERÁRIAS NA ARQUEOLOGIA: Pluralidades e Patrimônio." CLIO Arqueológica 33, no. 2 (August 15, 2018): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.20891/clio.v33n2p1-43.
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Este artigo apresenta algumas considerações sobre a importância do estudo das práticas funerárias na arqueologia, com ênfase, ao final, na questão do cemitério como patrimônio. Os problemas de pesquisa relacionados com a arqueologia das práticas funerárias se esbarram com a arqueologia social dos remanescentes funerários, a bioarqueologia social, os estudos mortuários e a arqueologia da morte. Muito aquém dessas pesquisas, no Brasil, os sítios de interesse para esta área de pesquisa foram identificados na legislação federal como existentes, carecendo de demandas significativas de atividades científicas relacionadas às áreas e temas dos estudos mortuários. FUNERARY PRACTICES IN ARCHAEOLOGY: Pluralities and Heritage ABSTRACTThis paper presents some considerations on the importance of the study of burial practices in archaeology, with emphasis, in the end, the question of the cemetery as equity. The research problems related to the archaeology of the funerary practices to collide with the social archaeology of funerary remains, social bioarchaeology, the mortuary studies and archaeology of death. Far short of these surveys in Brazil, sites of interest to this area of research were identified in federal law as existing, lacking significant demands of scientific activities related to the areas and issues of mortuary studies.Keywords: Funerary practices; burial terminology; mortuary studies; archaeological heritage
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Standen, Vivien G., Bernardo Arriaza, Calogero M. Santoro, and Mariela Santos. "La Práctica Funeraria En El Sitio Maestranza Chinchorro Y El Poblamiento Costero Durante El Arcaico Medio En El Extremo Norte De Chile." Latin American Antiquity 25, no. 3 (September 2014): 300–321. http://dx.doi.org/10.7183/1045-6635.25.3.300.
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We discuss Chinchorro mortuary practices during the Middle Archaic (7000-5000 B.P.) as demonstrated by 12 funerary contexts excavated at the site of Maestranza Chinchorro, northern Chile. First we describe each of the funerary contexts. Then we discuss the variability of mortuary practices, the configuration of multiple burials, the mortuary treatment of human fetuses, lifestyle, and paleopathology. We conclude that mortuary practices are heterogeneous and that not all subjects received elaborate treatment. Mortuary ritual focused on the seven infants in the group, which included two fetuses of a few months' gestation, something fairly unusual in human prehistory. Treatment consisted in the removal of all soft tissue and the use of sticks to reinforce the skeletons, upon which abundant gray clay was mounted in order to model the human figure. In contrast to the infants, just one young adult woman received complex mortuary treatment. Finally, based on the spatial distribution of contemporary burial sites, we propose that Middle Archaic communities in coastal Arica comprised small groups, including adults and children of different sexes, that settled around key resources like watering holes, rivers, wetlands, and hunting and fishing areas. This resulted in fierce intergroup competition and highly territorial behavior.
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Novotny, Anna C., Jaime J. Awe, Catharina E. Santasilia, and Kelly J. Knudson. "RITUAL EMULATION OF ANCIENT MAYA ELITE MORTUARY TRADITIONS DURING THE CLASSIC PERIOD (AD 250–900) AT CAHAL PECH, BELIZE." Latin American Antiquity 29, no. 4 (October 8, 2018): 641–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/laq.2018.41.
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In this study, we employ multiple lines of evidence to elucidate the use of mortuary ritual by the ruling elite at the ancient Maya site of Cahal Pech, Belize, during the Early Classic and early Late Classic periods (AD 250–630). The interments of multiple individuals in Burial 7 of Structure B1, the central structure of an Eastern Triadic Assemblage or “E-group” style architectural complex, were in a manner not consistent with the greater Belize River Valley, the only multiple individual human burial yet encountered at Cahal Pech. The sequential interments contained a suggestive quantity of high-quality artifacts, further setting them apart from their contemporaries. Among these artifacts were a set of bone rings and a hairpin inscribed with hieroglyphs, some of the few inscriptions ever found at Cahal Pech. We analyzed regional mortuary patterns, radiogenic strontium values, and radiocarbon data to test hypotheses about who these individuals were in life, why they were treated differently in death, and to reconstruct the sequence of events of this complex mortuary deposit. We contend that the mortuary practices in Burial 7 indicate an attempt by the Cahal Pech elite to identify with cities or regions outside the Belize River Valley area.
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Rodeck, Salome. "Dying with ‘Infinity Mushrooms’ – Mortuary Rituals, Mycoremediation and Multispecies Legacies." Kvinder, Køn & Forskning, no. 3-4 (September 30, 2019): 62–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.7146/kkf.v28i2-3.116309.
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In a world conceptualised as Anthropocene, in which human activities are transforming every part of the biosphere, funerals have become political and ethical activities in new and unforeseen ways. The use of formaldehyde in embalming practices and the release of air pollutants during cremation are only two of many points of criticism which have led to the rise of alternative ‘greener’ burial methods. The ‘infinity burial project’ is one such alternative, but it exceeds discourses on sustainable funerals by highlighting the toxicity of human bodies and challenging cultural taboos surrounding corporeal decomposition. Infinity burial employs ‘mycoremediation’, the usage of fungi for decomposing and cleaning up contaminated bodies and landscapes. Departing from Donna Haraway’s call for embracing situated technical projects in order to make ‘oddkin’, this article explores how the infinity burial project engenders queer communities which dismiss taxonomical lines between species as well as ontological claims about life and death. Drawing on new materialisms’ work on the radical openness of bodies, I explore how the infinity burial project sheds light on the material reality of decaying and the implications of dying in a polluted world.
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Gamble, Lynn H., Phillip L. Walker, and Glenn S. Russell. "An Integrative Approach to Mortuary Analysis: Social and Symbolic Dimensions of Chumash Burial Practices." American Antiquity 66, no. 2 (April 2001): 185–212. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2694605.
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Although most archaeologists recognize that valuable information about the social lives of ancient people can be obtained through the study of burial practices, it is clear that the symbolic nature of burial rituals makes interpreting their social significance a hazardous enterprise. These analytical difficulties can be greatly reduced using a research strategy that draws upon the strengths of a broad range of conceptually and methodologically independent data sources. We illustrate this approach by using archaeological data from cemeteries at Malibu, California, to explore an issue over which researchers are sharply divided: when did the simple chiefdoms of the Chumash Indians first appear in the Santa Barbara Channel area? First we establish the social correlates of Chumash burial practices through the comparison of historic-period cemetery data, ethnohistoric records, and ethnographic accounts. The resulting understanding of mortuary symbolism is then used to generate hypotheses about the social significance of prehistoric-period Malibu burial patterns. Finally, bioarchaeological data on genetic relationships, health status, and activity are used to independently test artifact-based hypotheses about prehistoric Chumash social organization. Together, these independent data sources constitute strong evidence for the existence of a ranked society with a hereditary elite during the late Middle period in the Santa Barbara Channel area.
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Jaffe, Yitzchak, and Bin Cao. "Communities of Mortuary Practice: A Renewed Study of the Tianma-Qucun Western Zhou Cemetery." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 28, no. 1 (July 31, 2017): 23–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0959774317000439.
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Western Zhou archaeology (1046–771 bc) is dominated by cemetery- and mortuary-related data. To date most studies have relied on later historical narratives and focused on the investigation of elites and their mortuary practices. This paper sets out to provide a renewed approach to the study of Western Zhou cemeteries by looking at the graveyard as a whole and with it the relationship between the commoners and nobles who were buried in them. Its case study is the important site of Tianma-Qucun, located in modern-day Shanxi province, the residential site and burial ground of the Jin state during the Western Zhou period. We provide a community-focused study of mortuary practices aimed at uncovering local-specific shared ways of doings things. This approach not only affords a refined vision of Western Zhou mortuary ritual and practice, but also one where local variation and appropriations can be appreciated as well. Thus, while common Zhou mortuary traditions should be understood to have been of greater import to Zhou elites, their impact on the lower echelons of society remains less clear. By examining the mortuary practices of individual communities, we aim to uncover these site-specific manifestations in their larger contexts.
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Meitei, Akoijam Milan, and Queenbala Marak. "A STUDY OF TRADITIONAL MORTUARY PRACTICES OF THE JAINTIAS OF MEGHALAYA, INDIA." Journal of Indo-Pacific Archaeology 39 (September 7, 2016): 74. http://dx.doi.org/10.7152/jipa.v39i0.14715.
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<p><em>The uses of megaliths have been mentioned as many since the Neolithic period. Some of its uses are still in practice in some living communities today. The use of such stones in burial practices is one of its most identifiable continual traits. This paper discusses the traditional mortuary practices of the tribal Jaintias of Meghalaya, India. It compares the mortuary practices prevalent among the Jaintias living in two different geographical locations within the Jaintia Hills District, but at a distance of 36 kms from each other.</em></p><p><em>Jaintias are one of the tribes of northeast India who practice the megalithic traditions in various ways like commemorative, burial, ceremonial etc. Stones like menhir, dolmen, cist, capstones etc. are found in different locations in Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya, India. Among these stones, deposition of the deceased’s bones in cist burials is one of the main practices which continue till today. In this paper we will discuss the different practices connected to these cist burials, the reasons thereof, and the changes that have taken place. While comparing the practices prevalent in two locations (inhabited by the same people) we conclude that spatial distance within the same group also aids in an intra-group difference. </em></p><strong><em>Keywords</em></strong><em>: megalith, mortuary practices, Jaintias, Niamtre, Christianity.</em>
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KOTULA, ANDREAS, HENNY PIEZONKA, and THOMAS TERBERGER. "THE MESOLITHIC CEMETERY OF GROß FREDENWALDE (NORTH-EASTERN GERMANY) AND ITS CULTURAL AFFILIATIONS." Lietuvos archeologija Lietuvos archeologija T. 46 (December 18, 2020): 65–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.33918/25386514-046002.
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The site of Groß Fredenwalde was discovered in 1962 and has been known as a Mesolithic multiple burial since 14C-dates verified an early Atlantic age in the early 1990s. New research since 2012 reconstructed the situation of the poorly documented rescue excavation in 1962 and identified six individuals from at least two separate burials. The new excavations uncovered more burials and Groß Fredenwalde stands out as the largest Mesolithic cemetery in North Central Europe and the oldest cemetery in Germany. In this paper the known burial evidence from this site is presented and the location of the cemetery, mortuary practices, and grave goods are discussed in a broader European context. Northern and Eastern connections appear especially tangible in Groß Fredenwalde and it is suggested that the community associated with the Groß Fredenwalde Mesolithic cemetery was integrated into wider cultural networks connected to the North and East. Keywords: Mesolithic burials, Mesolithic networks, East-West contacts, mortuary practices, grave goods.
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Blin, Arnaud. "Mortuary Practices as Evidence of Social Organization in the Neolithic Hypogea of the Paris Basin." European Journal of Archaeology 18, no. 4 (2015): 580–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1461957115y.0000000005.
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One hundred and sixty hypogea have been discovered in the Paris Basin, concentrated in the south-west part of the Marne department. Radiocarbon dates and archaeological artefacts indicate their construction and use were a phenomenon limited to the Late Neolithic 2, currently estimated as 3350–3000 cal BC. Re-examination of the human skeletal remains, notably those from Les Mournouards II, enables us to improve our understanding of the practices involved in these collective burials, particularly aspects of individual selection and distribution. Age, sex, and social status determined the burial location between and within the artificial caves. Burial positions characterized two groups of hypogea. However, in both groups, most female individuals were buried along the left wall of the monuments, on the same side as the collective grave goods and carved female figures sometimes discovered in the anterooms. The nature and distribution of personal material reflect the existence of particular statuses for some individuals. The burial principles reveal a relative conservatism guaranteeing distinction between individuals of different lifetime statuses. Several competing strategies sought to preserve, in death, this social order. The mortuary practices, then, reflect a codified social organization for a Paris Basin group of the later fourth millennium BC and a burial practice that was less ‘collective’ than might have been imagined.
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Appleby, Jo. "Temporality and the Transition to Cremation in the Late Third Millennium to Mid Second Millennium bc in Britain." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 23, no. 1 (February 2013): 83–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0959774313000061.
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Time and temporality have been at the centre of a number of accounts of burial practices in the Bronze Age of Britain in the last twenty years. Up to now, however, the temporality of practice has been taken as an indication of past understandings of time and/or the ancestors. In this article I wish to argue that the temporality of mortuary practices was not merely reflective of understandings of time, but in fact was constitutive of them, and that through the changing temporality of mortuary practices, people's engagement with monuments themselves was changed. These changing temporalities were driven by the transition from inhumation to cremation as the dominant mode of disposal of the dead. By invoking chaînes opératoires for each mode, I will demonstrate the underlying similarities and differences of the two rites, showing how cremation led to a fundamental change in the temporality of mortuary behaviour, and as such created new understandings of funerary monuments and place.
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Cerezo-Román, Jessica I. "A Comparison of Mortuary Practices among the Tucson Basin Hohokam and Trincheras Traditions." American Antiquity 86, no. 2 (February 15, 2021): 327–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/aaq.2020.108.
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Mortuary rituals are compared and contrasted in order to better understand social interaction between the Tucson Basin Hohokam of southern Arizona and the Trincheras tradition populations of northern Sonora. This interaction is explored through the examination of ideas about personhood and embodiment, and their relationship to the biological profiles and posthumous treatments of individuals during the Hohokam Classic period (AD 1150–1450) and the occupation of Cerro de Trincheras (AD 1300–1450). In both areas, cremation was the main burial custom, and both groups had complex, multistage cremation rituals, in which burning of the body played only a small part. Examination of rich archaeological data and well-excavated contexts at these sites revealed remarkable similarities and differences in body treatment during the mortuary ritual. Tucson Basin Hohokam mortuary practices suggest a stronger connection to, and remembrance of, the deceased within smaller social groups. In contrast, mortuary practices at Cerro de Trincheras emphasize similarities among the various cremated individuals, with rituals directed more toward the broader social group. Results suggest that the two groups were fundamentally similar in how they treated the bodies of the dead during the cremation process, but different in how the dead were remembered and commemorated.
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Beckett, Jessica F. "Interactions with the Dead: A Taphonomic Analysis of Burial Practices in Three Megalithic Tombs in County Clare, Ireland." European Journal of Archaeology 14, no. 3 (2011): 394–418. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/146195711798356719.
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Burial is a highly symbolic activity through which concepts of the world are reflected in the representation and treatment of human remains. While mortuary studies in archaeology and anthropology have had a long history, our understanding of Neolithic societies through such analyses is lacking. This article has attempted to broaden our understandings of one such society, focusing upon the megalithic tomb tradition in Ireland, through an integrated study of the burial practices taking place at several sites located on the Burren, County Clare. The Parknabinnia chambered tomb, Poulnabrone portal tomb, and Poulawack Linkardstown-type cairn are located within three kilometres of each other and date to contemporary periods. Several questions are explored through the use of archaeological evidence, osteological analysis, and taphonomy to allow for a broader appreciation of social practices in the past – most notably burial practices. What types of burial practices were taking place; how do the sites compare to each other; and how do they fit within the overall scheme of Neolithic practices we have come to understand?
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Isbell, William H. "Mortuary Preferences: A Wari Culture Case Study from Middle Horizon Peru." Latin American Antiquity 15, no. 1 (March 2004): 3–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/4141562.
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AbstractMortuary practices reveal a great deal about the social organization of prehistoric cultures and their landscape of places. However, tombs are favored targets for looters, making it difficult to determine original burial practices. Very little was known about Wari burial during the Middle Horizon (A.D. 500–1000), even though Wari was an imperial, early Bronze Age culture with a spectacular urban capital in highland Peru. Excavations at the secondary Wari city of Conchopata produced remains of more than 200 individuals, from disturbed and undisturbed contexts. These burials as well as information from other sites permit an initial description of ideal patterns of Wari mortuary behavior. The forms abstracted reveal graves ranging from poor and ordinary citizens to royal potentates, supporting inferences of hierarchical political organization. It is also clear that the living accessed graves of important people frequently, implying some form of ancestor worship. However, unlike the later Inkas, Wari ancestors were venerated in their tombs, located deep within residential compounds and palaces.
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Pereira, Grégory. "ASH, DIRT, AND ROCK: BURIAL PRACTICES AT RÍO BEC." Ancient Mesoamerica 24, no. 2 (2013): 449–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956536113000266.
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AbstractRecent research at Río Bec has revealed that interments in residential structures were limited to a very small portion of the population. Although these burials are relatively modest compared to those found in many other Classic period Maya sites, the funerary procedure suggests that they were important individuals in the household. Grave wealth and the size/elaboration of the burial structure do not correlate with the striking socioeconomic differences expressed in residential architecture. In fact, it seems that Río Bec funerary ritual was a private affair focused within the domestic unit, rather than a public display. A study of the variation found among these residential burials reveals two important patterns of mortuary ritual that seem more reflective of ancestor veneration than of social hierarchy: (1) “transition burials” (stressing centrality,verticality,the link to earth, and the transformations of the dwelling) and (2) “occupation burials” (stressing laterality,horizontality,a link to fire and the domestic hearth, and the permanence of the domestic space).
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Preston, Laura. "Mortuary practices and the negotiation of social identities at LM II Knossos." Annual of the British School at Athens 94 (November 1999): 131–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s006824540000054x.
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This article explores expressions of cultural identity in the LM II mortuary data from the Knossos valley, in the context of the issue of a ‘Mycenaean’ presence there. It proposes that the burial record is less useful for trying to establish a mainland origin for the people interred in the tombs, than for exploring how people chose to represent themselves and each other in death. In this light, the cultural influences in the tomb architecture and assemblages of the Isopata and Kephala tombs in particular are examined. The experimentation apparent in such tombs suggests that the mortuary sphere was employed as a forum for status display in the context of a social transition at Knossos, with mainland traits being one element in a range of options that were selectively taken up and adapted.
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Beekman, Christopher S. "THE CHRONOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF THE CENTRAL JALISCO SHAFT TOMBS." Ancient Mesoamerica 17, no. 2 (July 2006): 239–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956536106060111.
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The shaft tomb mortuary tradition is an archaeological construct that encompasses a diverse array of burial practices, many of which now seem to reflect local variations in specific treatments of the dead. Distinctive characteristics of shaft tombs in the Tequila valleys of central Jalisco include the high degree of labor invested in tomb construction, the wealth of offerings found within the tombs, and the occasional association of the tombs with the circular public architecture known as the Teuchitlan tradition. These characteristics have led some researchers to see the Tequila valleys as the “core” of the shaft tomb tradition, in which mortuary practices were most dramatically employed to demonstrate social distinctions. Weigand's survey beginning at the end of the 1960s was designed to understand the settlement system associated with the burial tradition. Various constraints led to the use of surface materials and materials found in looters' pits to associate ceramics with tombs and public architecture. This article discusses ongoing research on the ceramic chronology of the eastern Tequila valleys and specifically those phases that span the use of shaft tombs as a high-ranking form of burial. We can discern three phases across the period of the Late Formative through the Middle Classic.
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Bacvarov, Krum. "Early Neolithic jar burials in southeast Europe: a comparative approach." Documenta Praehistorica 33 (December 31, 2006): 101–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.4312/dp.33.11.
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A typical product of early farming symbolism, jar burial, appeared in the beginning of southeast European Neolithization. Early jar burial development in south-east Europe displays two distinct chronological levels: an early Neolithic core area in the Struma and Vardar valleys and the western Rhodope, and later, late/final Neolithic and/or early Chalcolithic – depending on local terminology – manifestations ‘scattered’ in various places in the study area. It is the early chronological level of jar burial distribution that will be considered here in relation to the first expressions of these mortuary practices in Central Anatolia, in order to throw some light on the specifics of their origins and variability.
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Arrington, Nathan T. "TALISMANIC PRACTICE AT LEFKANDI: TRINKETS, BURIALS AND BELIEF IN THE EARLY IRON AGE." Cambridge Classical Journal 62 (December 18, 2015): 1–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s175027051500010x.
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Excavations at Lefkandi have dispelled much of the gloom enshrouding the Early Iron Age, revealing a community with significant disposable wealth and with connections throughout the Mediterranean. The eastern imports in particular have drawn scholarly attention, with discussion moving from questions of production and transportation to issues surrounding consumption. This article draws attention to some limitations in prevalent socio-political explanations of consumption at Lefkandi, arguing that models relying on gift-exchange, prestige-goods and elite display cannot adequately account for the distribution, chronology, find context and function of imports at Lefkandi. A study of trinkets – small but manifestly foreign imports of cheap material – offers a new perspective. An analysis of their form, context, use and meaning demonstrates that trinkets were meaningfully and deliberately deposited with children as talismans or amulets. Talismanic practice had Late Bronze Age precedents, and in the Early Iron Age was stimulated from personal contact with the Near East or Cyprus and nurtured by the unique mortuary landscape at Lefkandi. This article demonstrates the need for archaeologists to treat mortuary beliefs as a meaningful explanatory variable. Moreover, the ability of non-elite objects to convey powerful ideas has important implications for the nature and dynamics of artistic and cultural exchanges between Greece and the East in the Iron Age.
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Adinkrah, Mensah. "Suicide and Mortuary Beliefs and Practices of the Akan of Ghana." OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying 74, no. 2 (August 3, 2016): 138–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0030222815598427.
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Akan society has traditionally held a negative and condemnatory view of suicide. Evidence of this is reflected in the lack of public mourning, brevity of the grieving period, and denial of proper burial rites and funeral obsequies for the suicide. Furthermore, because suicide is regarded as an abomination against the living, the departed ancestors, as well as the gods of the land, the political authorities of the land must be notified immediately of suicide deaths so that proper placatory and propitiation rituals can be undertaken to forestall any catastrophic diseases, accidents, and natural disasters. Given the current paucity of scholarship on the issue, it is the purpose of this article to explore in depth traditional Akan mortuary beliefs and practices governing suicidal death.
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Elson, Christina M., and Kenneth Mowbray. "BURIAL PRACTICES AT TEOTIHUACAN IN THE EARLY POSTCLASSIC PERIOD: The Vaillant and Linné Excavations (1931–1932)." Ancient Mesoamerica 16, no. 2 (July 2005): 195–211. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956536105050224.
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In 1931 and 1932, George Vaillant and Sigvald Linné excavated 34 burials and 17 offerings dating to the Early Postclassic period (a.d.900–1150). The features were located on the ruins of the Classic-period site of Teotihuacan and within the boundaries of a roughly 25–50 ha zone identified by the Teotihuacan Mapping Project as having a dense Early Postclassic-period occupation. The results of Vaillant's excavations have not been published. An examination of the Vaillant–Linné data sheds new light on Early Postclassic-period mortuary ritual and social organization. The identification of several types of burials shows that local people conducted primary and secondary mortuary rituals and indicates the presence of at least two social strata at the site. The content of the burials and offerings supports a division of the Early Postclassic period into two local phases, Mazapan (ca.a.d.900–1000) and Atlatongo (ca.a.d.1000–1100/1150), with these features dating to the earlier phase.
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Li, Liu. "Mortuary Ritual and Social Hierarchy in the Longshan Culture." Early China 21 (1996): 1–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0362502800003394.
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The mortuary data from the Longshan culture provide crucial information for understanding the process of socio-political change from non-stratified to stratified societies in late Neolithic China. This article identifies the variables in Longshan burials that can be correlated with social rank, and then studies four Longshan burial sites (Taosi, Chengzi, Yinjiacheng, and Zhufeng) in two steps. The first step is to classify the evidence for determining burial rank; the second step is to analyze intra-cemetery spatial patterns through time, including the location of graves within a site, the distribution of differently ranked graves and spatial relationships between graves and associated features (houses and pits), the diachronic changes observed in a site, and the depositional practices relating to ritual activities. The results of these analyses suggest that kinship-based Longshan communities were internally and externally stratified in their social structure; that this social stratification was ideologically legitimized by ritual activities that emphasized ancestor worship; and that their society was politically reinforced by an elite exchange network of high status goods at both regional and interregional levels. These social, political, and religious relationships formed the foundation for the development of civilization in prehistoric North China.
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Harris, N. J., and N. Tayles. "Burial containers – A hidden aspect of mortuary practices: Archaeothanatology at Ban Non Wat, Thailand." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31, no. 2 (June 2012): 227–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2012.01.001.
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Whitley, James. "Social Diversity in Dark Age Greece." Annual of the British School at Athens 86 (November 1991): 341–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0068245400014994.
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This paper attempts to provide new insights into the nature of Greek society in the Dark Ages (1100–700 B.C.). It re-examines the relationship between the archaeological evidence and the institutions and practices described in the Homeric poems. The archaeological evidence indicates that there were marked regional differences in settlement pattern, burial customs and pottery traditions. This must, it is argued, reflect profound regional differences in social organisation. Ethnographic analogies are used to make sense of some of these regional patterns. Two of the larger and more stable communities in Dark Age Greece, Athens and Knossos, are subjected to detailed scrutiny. A close contextual analysis of the relationship between pot style and mortuary representations in these two sites reveal two patterns which are divergent rather than convergent. In Athens burial customs and later pot style appear to be part of an age and sex linked symbolic system. In Knossos however, there is no clear patterning, either in pot style or mortuary representations. Instead there is a continuum of variation. Such fundamental differences cannot be accomodated within the concept of a uniform ‘Homeric Society’. It is suggested here that the institutions and practices described in Homer only operated at an inter-regional level.
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Barton, Nick, Abdeljalil Bouzouggar, Louise Humphrey, Peter Berridge, Simon Collcutt, Rowena Gale, Simon Parfitt, Adrian Parker, Edward Rhodes, and Jean-Luc Schwenninger. "Human Burial Evidence from Hattab II Cave and the Question of Continuity in Late Pleistocene–Holocene Mortuary Practices in Northwest Africa." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18, no. 2 (May 19, 2008): 195–214. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0959774308000255.
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Archaeological excavations in 2002–3 at Hattab II Cave in northwestern Morocco revealed an undisturbed Late Palaeolithic Iberomaurusian human burial. This is the first Iberomaurusian inhumation discovered in the region. The skeleton is probably that of a male aged between 25 and 30 years. The individual shows a characteristic absence of the central upper incisors reported in other Iberomaurusian burials. Accompanying the burial are a stone core and a number of grave goods including bone points, a marine gastropod and a gazelle horn core. Thermoluminescence dating of a burnt stone artefact in association with the burial has provided an age of 8900?1100 bp. This is one of the youngest ages reported for the Iberomaurusian and raises questions about persistence of hunter-gatherer societies in the Maghreb and the potential for continuity in burial practices with the earliest Neolithic.
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Danforth, Marie Elaine, Della Collins Cook, and Stanley G. Knick. "The Human Remains from Carter Ranch Pueblo, Arizona: Health in Isolation." American Antiquity 59, no. 1 (January 1994): 88–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3085504.
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Health patterns in the Pueblo III (A.D. 1100-1225) population from Carter Ranch Pueblo were investigated in skeletal remains from 34 individuals. Childhood health disruptions were assessed using stature, linear enamel hypoplasias, and Harris lines. Periostitis, arthritis, anemia, trauma, and dental pathology were also observed. Although the low juvenile representation is probably an effect of age-biased mortuary practices, results suggest a healthy population compared to larger southwestern sites. Trauma levels at the site are quite high, possibly indicating burial practices differentiated on the ability to work or other health criteria. Additionally, a number of genetic anomalies are present, suggesting an isolated population.
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Jindra, Michael. "Christianity and the Proliferation of Ancestors: Changes in Hierarchy and Mortuary Ritual in the Cameroon Grassfields." Africa 75, no. 3 (August 2005): 356–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/afr.2005.75.3.356.
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AbstractDuring the twentieth century, the ‘death celebration’ became arguably the most important cultural event throughout much of the Western Grassfields of Cameroon. The growth of this ritual festival occurred in the context of major political, economic and religious changes in the Grassfields. This article will focus on how religious changes, particularly the growth of Christianity, contributed to the rise of this event and how it has prompted significant changes in notions and practices concerning the pollution of death, personhood, burial rites and the ancestors. In the traditional hierarchical structure of Grassfields society, only certain titled individuals and chiefs were believed to live on after death and become ancestors. This was reflected in burial rituals. Individuals who became ancestors were buried in family compounds while ‘unimportant’ people were frequently disposed of in the ‘bush’, streams or hurriedly given unmarked burials. Christianity, because of its stress on individual personhood and its message of an afterlife for everyone, became an attractive alternative to established beliefs and practices, especially for young adults, women and those without titles, who were the most disenfranchised in the traditional system. With Christianity, burial rites became standardized and were extended to virtually everyone. Christianity also caused declines in notions of death ‘pollution’ and in beliefs about ‘bad deaths’. Because of continued beliefs in the power of ancestors, the egalitarian notions of personhood stimulated by Christianity have ironically created a ‘proliferation’ of ancestors for whom delayed mortuary rites such as ‘death celebrations’ are owed.
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Gaither, Catherine, Jonathan Kent, Víctor Vásquez Sánchez, and Teresa Rosales Tham. "Mortuary Practices and Human Sacrifice in the Middle Chao Valley of Peru: Their Interpretation in the Context of Andean Mortuary Patterning." Latin American Antiquity 19, no. 2 (June 2008): 107–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1045663500007744.
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Investigations at several northern Peruvian coastal archaeological sites by archaeologists and physical anthropologists are beginning to provide details on long-term patterning of mortuary behavior. Some of these patterns include retainer sacrifice, child sacrifice, and the metaphorical principle we refer to as “like with like.” In this paper, we discuss the data relating to these mortuary patterns discovered at the site of Santa Rita B in the middle Chao Valley. Examples of each of the patterns presented are evident at the site. These include at least three child sacrifices and one adult sacrifice. The sacrifices appear to be retainer sacrifices, defined as sacrifices intended to accompany a deceased principal personage in the afterlife. The inclusion of the child sacrifices with a subadult principal burial is part of the “like with like” pattern seen here and at other Andean sites. Dating to the start of the Late Intermediate period (ca. A.D. 1100–1300), these finds are compared to other north coastal sites, both earlier and later, and the extent of temporal continuity in these patterns is discussed.
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Maldonado, Adrián. "What does early Christianity look like? Mortuary archaeology and conversion in Late Iron Age Scotland." Scottish Archaeological Journal 33, no. 1-2 (October 2011): 39–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/saj.2011.0023.
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The study of the inhumation cemeteries of Late Iron Age Scotland tends to revolve around the vexed question of whether or not they provide evidence for Christianity. As a result, our approach has been to look for ‘Christian’ practices (lack of grave goods, west-east orientation) that are expectations based on analogy with the more standardised Christianity of the later medieval period. As these burial practices originate in a Late Iron Age context, recent theoretical approaches from the study of late prehistory also need to be applied. It is the emergence of cemeteries that is new in the mid-first millennium AD, and this distinction is still under-theorised. Recent theoretical models seek to understand the significance of place, and how these cemeteries are actively involved in creating that place rather than using a predefined ‘sacred’ place. By tracing their role in shaping and being shaped by their landscapes, before, during and after their use for burial, we can begin to speak more clearly about how we can use mortuary archaeology to study the changes of c. AD 400–600. It is argued that the ambiguity of these sites lies not with the burials themselves, but in our expectations of Christianity and paganism in the Late Iron Age.
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Mickleburgh, Hayley L., Liv Nilsson Stutz, and Harry Fokkens. "Virtual Archaeology of Death and Burial: A Procedure for Integrating 3D Visualization and Analysis in Archaeothanatology." Open Archaeology 7, no. 1 (January 1, 2021): 540–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/opar-2020-0152.
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Abstract The reconstruction of past mortuary rituals and practices increasingly incorporates analysis of the taphonomic history of the grave and buried body, using the framework provided by archaeothanatology. Archaeothanatological analysis relies on interpretation of the three-dimensional (3D) relationship of bones within the grave and traditionally depends on elaborate written descriptions and two-dimensional (2D) images of the remains during excavation to capture this spatial information. With the rapid development of inexpensive 3D tools, digital replicas (3D models) are now commonly available to preserve 3D information on human burials during excavation. A procedure developed using a test case to enhance archaeothanatological analysis and improve post-excavation analysis of human burials is described. Beyond preservation of static spatial information, 3D visualization techniques can be used in archaeothanatology to reconstruct the spatial displacement of bones over time, from deposition of the body to excavation of the skeletonized remains. The purpose of the procedure is to produce 3D simulations to visualize and test archaeothanatological hypotheses, thereby augmenting traditional archaeothanatological analysis. We illustrate our approach with the reconstruction of mortuary practices and burial taphonomy of a Bell Beaker burial from the site of Oostwoud-Tuithoorn, West-Frisia, the Netherlands. This case study was selected as the test case because of its relatively complete context information. The test case shows the potential for application of the procedure to older 2D field documentation, even when the amount and detail of documentation is less than ideal.
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Charalambidou, Xenia. "IRON AGE MORTUARY PRACTICES AND MATERIAL CULTURE AT THE INLAND CEMETERY OF TSIKALARIO ON NAXOS: DIFFERENTIATION AND CONNECTIVITY." Annual of the British School at Athens 113 (November 2018): 143–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0068245418000102.
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Naxos, the largest of the Cycladic islands, offers a nuanced insight into Iron Age funerary behaviour in the Cyclades and relations between social groups as reflected in the archaeological record. The focus of this paper is the cemetery of Tsikalario in the hinterland of the island, with emphasis on two burial contexts which exhibit a range of activities related to funerary ceremonies and the consumption of grave-offerings. The grave-tumuli found in the Tsikalario cemetery comprise a mortuary ‘phenomenon’ not found otherwise on Naxos during the Early Iron Age. Such a differentiation in mortuary practice can be interpreted as a strategy used by the people of inland Naxos to distinguish their funerary habits from the more typical Naxian practices of, for example, the inhabitants of the coastal Naxos harbour town. This distinctive funerary practice can speak in favour of an attempt by the kinship group(s) that buried their deceased in the cemetery of Tsikalario to articulate status and identity. Beyond these tumuli, evidence from a different type of grave context at Tsikalario – Cist Grave 11 and its vicinity (Burial Context 11) – offers an additional example of a well-thought-out staging of funerary beliefs in the inland region of Naxos. Not only does it illustrate the coexistence of other types of burials in the cemetery, but, alongside the tumuli and their finds, it also demonstrates, through the symbolic package of the grave-offerings and the multifaceted network of interactions they reveal, that inland Naxos participated in the intra- and supra-island circulation of wares and ideas.
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Matsumoto, Naoko. "Changing relationship between the dead and the living in Japanese prehistory." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 373, no. 1754 (July 16, 2018): 20170272. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0272.
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The aim of this paper is to propose a new insight on the changing burial practice by regarding it as a part of the cognitive system for maintaining complex social relationships. Development of concentrated burials and their transformation in Japanese prehistory are examined to present a specific case of the changing relationship between the dead and the living to highlight the significance of the dead in sociocultural evolution. The essential feature of the burial practices observed at Jomon sites is the centrality of the dead and their continuous presence in the kinship system. The mortuary practices discussed in this paper represent a close relationship between the dead and the living in the non-hierarchical complex society, in which the dead were not detached from the society, but kept at its core, as a materialized reference of kin networks. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolutionary thanatology: impacts of the dead on the living in humans and other animals’.
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MacDonald, Douglas H. "Grief and Burial in the American Southwest: The Role of Evolutionary Theory in the Interpretation of Mortuary Remains." American Antiquity 66, no. 4 (October 2001): 704–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2694183.
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Evolutionary theory, in consort with Marxism and processualism, provides new insights into the interpretation of grave-good variation. Processual interpretations of burial sites in the American Southwest cite age, sex, or social rank as the main determinants of burial-good variation. Marxist theorists suggest that mortuary ritual mediates social tension between an egalitarian mindset and an existing social inequality. Evolutionary theory provides a supplementary explanatory framework. Recent studies guided by kin-selection theory suggest that humans grieve more for individuals of high reproductive value and genetic relatedness. Ethnographic examples also show that individuals mourn more intensively and, thus, place more social emphasis on burials of individuals of highest reproductive value (young adults). Analysis of grave goods from La Ciudad, a Hohokam site in the American Southwest, supports the hypothesis that labor value, reproductive value, and grief contributed to grave-good differentiation. At La Ciudad, individuals between the ages of 10 and 20 possessed more and higher-quality grave goods on average than any other age group. Grief at the loss of a young adult of high reproductive and labor value may facilitate explanation of mortuary variation at La Ciudad, as well as other sites in the greater Southwest and beyond.
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Soós, Bence. "The Late Hallstatt Age Burials of Southern Transdanubia and A Missing Link." Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 71, no. 2 (November 30, 2020): 409–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1556/072.2020.00011.
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For almost four decades our knowledge about the Late Hallstatt Age in southern Transdanubia has been fundamentally shaped by two significant sites: the burial ground near Beremend and Szentlőrinc. New discoveries in today’s Tolna County, however, lead us to revise some of conclusions drawn based on these sites as well as to realise the complex ways how the burial grounds and the communities using them were integrated into different cultural and social relationships of various scales. One of the main questions is how to interpret the differences and similarities between the two sites. In my view, the recently discovered sites near Alsónyék, Paks and Tolna-Mözs provide new insight how to evaluate the above question and what the mortuary practices of the Middle Iron Age population of southern Transdanubia can tell us about the cultural relations of the region’s communities.
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Mayo Torné, Julia, Carlos Mayo Torné, Mercedes Guinea Bueno, Miguel Ángel Hervás Herrera, and Jesus Herrerín López. "Approach to the Study of the Phenomenon of Multiple Burials at El Caño, Panama." Latin American Antiquity 31, no. 1 (February 12, 2020): 20–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/laq.2019.99.
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In this article we present a study that seeks to explain the nature of, and the mortuary practices behind, the burials containing multiple individuals at the site of El Caño, Panama (part of the “Gran Coclé” archaeological tradition, ca. AD 700–1000). We set out to test our first impression of these burials as products of sumptuous funerals held upon the death of the rulers that included, among other practices, human sacrifice. With this in mind, our research aims to elucidate the status relationships between individuals, the circumstances of their deaths, and the religious and symbolic significance of their burials. The results reveal the presence of an individual of higher status within every tomb, the existence of a pattern with respect to the status of those who accompany that individual, the practice of mortuary treatments typical of sacrificial contexts, toxic substances, an iconography referring to human sacrifice, and the clear intention of using a burial as a representation of social order. Considering all this, we conclude that multiple burials at this site should be interpreted as high status. Our study highlights the practice of human sacrifice in funerary rituals linked to that status.
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Ivison, Eric A. "Funerary monuments of the Gattelusi at Mytilene." Annual of the British School at Athens 87 (November 1992): 423–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0068245400015240.
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Five fragments from the tombs of the Gattelusi dynasty of Lesbos are presented, which were originally published by F.W. Hasluck in BSA 15 (1908–9). The monuments are published in detail for the first time, and are placed in the context of contemporary Byzantine and Genoese funerary monuments at Constantinople and in the Aegean. The identification of a church, recently excavated within the Kastro, with the Gattelusi burial church is also discussed, with remarks touching upon the mortuary practices of Latin rulers in the Levant. A final section attempts to attribute the tombs to members of the dynasty, using Gattelusi heraldry and iconography.
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Sørensen, Marie Louise Stig. "Thoughts on death and gender." Archaeological Dialogues 1, no. 2 (August 1994): 121–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1380203800000180.
Full textAbstract:
Lohof's paper provides a good opportunity for reflecting upon current theoretical approaches to burial rituals and death in the archaeological past. The paper contains many constructive ideas, and its general social perspective means that the interpretations are of relevance for many regions of north-western Europe. It is particularly noteworthy how this kind of approach can bring out details rather than merging them into general trends. Through such attention the mortuary practices of the period appear as far more fluctuating and varied than usually appreciated; a characteristic that lends support to the idea of mortuary contexts constituting a discursive practice rather than a simple reflection of society. It makes one wonder about the potential variability behind the uniform ‘stories’ created for so many areas for this period. As an example, the ‘coming and going’ of cremation during this time is an important observation, that should be emphasised and more fully integrated in our explanations of the use of cremation in the Late Bronze Age.