Mortuary archaeology (Other Keyword)
176-200 (217 Records)
Mortuary variability in European prehistory has long been perceived through the lens of Christian worldview from which the discipline of archaeology originally developed. Expectations rooted in this conceptual perspective inevitably shaped the ways that the archaeological record was approached and interpreted. As a case study we consider the Central European Bronze Age, on which we can deconstruct the traditional ‘textbook’ understanding of ancient funerary traditions. During this period,...
Reconsideration of the Relationship between Complex Societies and Dolmen in Northern Part of Korea and Manchuria (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dolmen is one of the principal mortuary programs in the Korean Bronze Age (ca. between 1000 and 300 B. C.). A number of dolmens have been discovered almost everywhere in the Korean peninsula as well as Manchuria, China. A great amount of research has been conducted by Korean and Japanese archaeologists concerning this style of burial. Some scholars became...
Reconstructing Funerary Practices from a Heavily Looted Tomb: A Case from the Upper Nepeña Drainage, Ancash, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prehispanic open sepulcher collective funerary contexts are ubiquitous in the landscape of the Andean highlands. Their study has mostly focused on their architecture and setting, including their role in ancestor worship. Even though some still contain significant material and human remains, very few of these monuments have been thoroughly excavated, mainly...
Relatedness and Social Organization at the Ray Site (11BR104): Biological Distance Analysis of a Middle Woodland Ridge Top Cemetery (2015)
A considerable number of biodistance studies have been conducted on archaeological populations from the Lower Illinois Valley. Many of these have included groups of remains dating to the Middle Woodland Period (50BCE to 400CE), a period which has in the past gained attention for the elaboration of burial mound complexes, intensification of horticulture, as well as proliferation of "exotic" and intricately crafted artifacts. In the Lower Illinois Valley, this period is also characterized by the...
Remembering Valdivia through a Unique Manteño Burial at Buen Suceso (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Finding Community in the Past and Present through the 2022 PARCC Field School at Buen Suceso, Ecuador" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Burials have long been considered primary sources of information regarding social ranking and inequality, social understandings of ancestors, conceptions of death, diverse representations of identity and agency, and emotional expressions of mourning and loss (see Baitzel 2018; Buikstra...
Review on Archaeological Studies of Sogdian Tombs in China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Populations of Early Medieval China: Developing Anthropological Approaches to Historical Archaeology in China" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation will examine Chinese scholars’ archaeological studies toward sinicized Sogdian tombs and relevant discoveries in China during the past 20 years and try to seek its logic, in the meantime, and also its disadvantage and possible breakthrough in the future.
Ritual Deposits within the Eastern Pyramidal Structure at Group D, Xunantuntich – Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Between the 2012-2016 field seasons, the Mopan Valley Preclassic Project conducted investigations of an eastern pyramidal structure (Str D-6) at Group D, Xunantunich. Group D is a sacbe terminus architectural group which is connected to Xunantunich’s main plaza. The location of the sacbe suggests that Group D was part of an important ritual circuit. Over 5...
Ritual violence or simply ritual? Evaluating the evidence for child sacrifice in Late Formative Period Peru (2017)
Highland mortuary practices during the Andean Late Formative Period (900–500 BC) in Ancash, Peru are poorly understood, in part because burials from this period are rarely encountered. Excavations conducted in 2009 at the archaeological site of Hualcayán uncovered a primary interment of a juvenile aged 5-6 years at time of death, dated in the range 806–540 calBC. The individual was buried with a necklace strung with bone and shell beads and bone spoons. Bioarchaeological analyses indicate the...
The Role of Radiographer as a Member of the Arch Street Project Team (2018)
The value of a radiographic examination of skeletal remains is unquestionable. Over the past several decades, technical innovations have resulted in more compact equipment making it easier to set up radiography in the field. Digital imaging receptors have replaced film and software has enabled post-processing image manipulation, further simplifying the logistics and efficiency of field imaging studies. Radiography systems are designed to minimize radiation dose in living patients leading to a...
Sacrifice and the Skeleton: Mortuary Archaeology at Los Guachimontones (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation examines the mortuary practices in excavated burials at Late Formative and Early Classic (300 BCE–400 CE) Los Guachimontones in Jalisco, Mexico. This site, with features such as shaft tombs and circular public architecture, is exemplary of the unusual regional cultural tradition of ancient West Mexico. An analysis of the mortuary remains...
Saving Sacred Places in Perpetuity: Research Report of Ongoing Archaeological Investigations at Vicksburg National Cemetery, Vicksburg, Mississippi (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our national cemeteries are some of the most significant cultural properties in the United States and either by design or circumstance often exemplify our complex and at times conflicting multicultural heritage. The National Park Service manages 14 national cemeteries that are integral to the historic character, uniqueness, and solemn nature of both the...
The second voyage of Odysseus: Tale of the traveling warrior of Bronze Age Europe (2016)
Elites and the deconstruction of elite-centered perspectives of past societies have long been at the focus of archaeological approaches. In European Bronze Age research there is a revitalized interest in reconnecting diverse regions and understanding them as parts of an abstract pan-European ideological system - the warrior ethos. The primary theoretical vehicle employed in this endeavor, institutional analysis of synchronic societies, draws our attention to social and political structures...
Serving Alcoholic Beverages to the Ancestors in Neolithic China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Drinking Beer in a Blissful Mood: A Global Archaeology of Beer" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. China has a long history of alcoholic production and consumption, and the earliest evidence of fermented beverages has been recovered from pottery vessels about 9,000 years ago. Many drinking vessels have been found in mortuary contexts, suggesting that alcohol was closely related to ancestral worship ritual. In this talk I...
Shells at Death – The Use of Shells in Neolithic Mortuary Contexts (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Culturing the Body: Prehistoric Perspectives on Identity and Sociality" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Shells constituted a cultural resource for human groups throughout history. As such, they were used and incorporated in different aspects of life – and death. In this study we examine the use of shells in mortuary contexts, focusing on the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) cultic/mortuary site of Kfar HaHoresh....
The "Sistema 7 Venado", a Little-known Ceremonial Center at Monte Albán, Oaxaca: A Study of Its Architectural and Ritual Implications (2018)
For the past eight years, the French team from the CeRAP (Paris-Sorbonne University and the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris) has carried out research at the Mesoamerican site of 7 Venado, which extends over 4 ha lying 400 m south of the South Platform of Monte Albán. Directed by Christian Duverger and Aliénor Letouzé, with the support of the INAH, the project has been able to date the site, whose chronology spans 800 BC to AD 300, and has also studied its spatial...
Sourcing of Grave Stones in the Late Jomon of Central Hokkaido (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The goal of this paper is to determine the source of grave stones for exploring the political economy among regional groups on the Ishikari Plain in the Late Jomon of central Hokkaido who created shuteibo (a type of communal cemetery characterized by a circular embankment). Our previous petrological analyses based on polarizing microscopical observation of...
The Spatial Distribution of Late Eighteenth Dynasty Tombs in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Valley of the Kings was the royal necropolis of the New Kingdom in ancient Egypt. The types of tombs found in the Valley include the larger royal tombs, small-chambered tombs, and pit tombs. It is suggested that the location of the small-chambered tombs in the Valley followed the tradition set forth during the Old and Middle Kingdoms when smaller tombs...
Spoiler Alert: Bioarchaeological Study of Cremation Funerary Urns with an Application of Computer Tomography (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Tzintzuntzan, Capital of the Tarascan Empire: New Perspectives" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Nine urns from the early Postclassic cemetery in Los Tamarindos (Tierra Caliente, Michoacán, Mexico) containing human cremains have been excavated with the support of a CT scan. Selected examples from this sample will be presented to demonstrate the analytical potential of the methodology that merges bioarchaeological...
Surrounded by the Dead: A Spatial Analysis of Kuelap’s Mortuary Practices, Chachapoyas, Peru (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Kuelap is a monumental archaeological complex in the northeastern Andes that was occupied by the Chachapoya (ca. 500 – 1470 CE) and Inca (1470 – 1535 CE). Previous GIS research in the region has involved architecture and viewshed analysis of funerary features across the Utcubamba valley. This study uses GIS mapping to investigate the within site spatial...
The Suture: Medical Entanglements at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "In Small Things Remembered II: An Archaeology of Affective Objects and Other Narratives", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Amid the incidental objects that shape everyday life, medical devices and implants stand out as artifacts that are so integral as to be subsumed within the body entirely yet reach beyond the individual to the world at large. These sweeping entanglements span both space and time, extending...
"They were dying in such great quantity": An archaeology of human burials at Gloucester Point (2018)
Human burials have been a consistent problem for archaeologists excavating in advance of development at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at Gloucester Point. Georeferencing the location of previously identified burials served as a pilot project for a more extensive archaeological GIS. The re-examination of burial features not only reveals their approximate locations on the contemporary landscape, but also illustrates the complex history of human occupation at Gloucester Point, including...
The Thousand-Year Shrine: Ancient Roots of a Modern Holy Place in Afghanistan’s Desert (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ziyarat-i Amiran is a contemporary shrine dedicated to one of the founders of Islam in Afghanistan. Located in the barren Sistan desert of southwest Afghanistan and supported by food, water, and fuel brought in by pilgrims and truck drivers, it seems an unlikely place to support an ongoing religious institution. Documented by the Helmand Sistan Project in...
Three-Dimensional Musculoskeletal Modeling in Commingled Analysis: A Preliminary Study at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (2018)
The analysis and disentanglement of human skeletal elements from commingled burial contexts is an essential step in creating individual identifications. This commingled analysis often includes a reliance on joint articulations to determine holistic element reassociations. Manual methods currently exist to test joint articulations for potential reassociation, but most appendicular joint articulations fall within the low reliability category for this method (Adams and Byrd 2014). Many cases of...
To Burn like the Sun: Rituals of Fire and Death among the Classic Maya (2015)
The dichotomies of hot and cold, light and darkness were essential to Classic Maya cosmology. The celestial and underworld journey of solar deities offered a fundamental mythic charter, and fire was the ultimate transformative force, providing a bridge between earthly and otherworldly realms. Such ideology is especially patent in rites of death, sacrifice, and veneration. Monuments from western kingdoms describe censing rituals performed months, years, and even decades after the death of...
Tomography and Photography Studies of Funerary Urns from South Central Michoacán México (2018)
This poster presents the results of the application of computational methods to classified archaeological deposits contained within cinerary urns. The method uses morphological properties and textural parameters to create quantitative descriptors that can be related to archaeological interpretations of the objects. The Pre-Columbian cinerary urns were discovered in the municipality of Huetamo, Michoacan, Mexico. The method uses information obtained from a Computed Tomography scan of each urn...