Mortuary archaeology (Other Keyword)
26-50 (217 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An unusual and highly significant Late Prehistoric mortuary feature in eastern Trans-Pecos Texas was discovered in 1992 by a group of relic collectors who carried out an uncontrolled excavation. The feature, which contained 7-9 human interments and over 500 associated objects, consisted of a circular, 6.0 m diameter stacked rock cairn on the summit of a...
The Blown Glass Beads of Garden Bay, British Columbia (2018)
In May 2015, a disturbed burial was uncovered in Garden Bay, British Columbia, within close proximity to the large shíshálh village site of Sexwamin (DjSa-3). Found in association with the burial were 244 intact smooth, unadorned mold-blown (SUMB) glass beads and 40 SUMB glass bead fragments. Due to their extremely fragile nature, blown glass beads are rare in archaeological contexts and the beads from Garden Bay are from one of only five sites in North America where SUMB glass beads have been...
Bodies, Bowls, and Burial: New Perspectives on the Bab adh-Dhra’ Mortuary Assemblage (2017)
Though death may seem an instantaneous experience, the treatment of death by a mortuary community provides implications for activity and identity that stretch far beyond a stilled heart. Archaeologically, we can use evidence associated with mortuary practices to inform us about lifeways and beliefs of the interred and the community at large. Mortuary contexts from the Early Bronze I (3500 – 3100 BCE) at Bab adh-Dhra’ provide just such an opportunity. The site, situated in the Southern Ghor...
The Body Poetic: Violence, Body Processing, and Identity Formation in the Past (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Debra L. Martin" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Deb Martin’s legacy is one of exposing her students and colleagues to new theoretical models, asking everyone to contextualize bioarchaeological data within robust theoretical frameworks. Through Dr. Martin’s mentorship, I began to think of the body differently. The human body can be viewed as an artifact of cultural...
The Body, the Regalia, the Weapons, and the Mortuary Bundle: Forms, Materials, and Uses of Cordage at the Paracas Site (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Cordage, Yarn, and Associated Paraphernalia" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In study of Andean archaeological textiles, a focus on decorative “high status” objects too often produces a distorted vision of ancient textile traditions, obscuring the textile forms most commonly found in an excavated assemblage. Ethnoarchaeological study by Cases (2020) has begun to address this problem by looking at production contexts in...
Bones and Ritual among the Ancient Maya of Calakmul and Champotón, Campeche: Celebrating the Legacy of Dr. William Folan (1931–2022) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Session in Memory of William J. Folan: Cities, Settlement, and Climate" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Mayanist community recalls a close colleague and tireless promoter of Maya archaeology, Dr. Folan. The Bioarchaeology Laboratory of the Autonomous University of Yucatan remembers him with great affection and a deep appreciation of a remarkable person, scholar, and student mentor. He ably led the archaeological...
The Bones of a Community: Mortuary Contexts over Time at Waywaka (Andahuaylas, Peru) (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bodies formed a significant component of the ritual practice at Waywaka, an early farming village in the Andean highlands (Andahuaylas, Apurímac, Peru) that was occupied from 1600 BC - AD 700. Recent excavations from 2019 show that the village's early inhabitants buried their dead in their domestic areas and used parts of bodies of the dead in various ways...
The Burial Artifacts of Epiclassic Los Mogotes, Basin of Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The hilltop, Epiclassic period (ca. 600-900 CE) site of Los Mogotes (ZU-ET-12) sits on the boundary between the northern Basin of Mexico and the southern Mezquital valley. Hence, it is well-placed to understand local and regional transformations between the fall of Teotihuacan (ca. 650 CE) and the rise of Tula (ca. 900 CE). In this paper, we examine burial...
Burial at the Black Friary in Trim, Ireland: 700 Years of Friary-Town Relations (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The State of the Art in Medieval European Archaeology: New Discoveries, Future Directions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Lord of Trim, Geoffrey de Geneville, established a Dominican friary to the north of the town in AD 1263. Ongoing excavations at the Black Friary since 2010 have documented a sequence of burials that date from the 13th through the early 20th centuries. Despite this continuity in the use of the...
Burial Distribution as a Reflection of Social Organization in Late Postclassic Tlaxcallan (2016)
The Late Postclassic state of Tlaxcallan represents a void in Aztec hegemony that is still poorly understood. Ethnohistoric studies, extensive archaeological survey and limited excavation suggest that the social and political organization of this group diverged from the empire’s policies of rule, allowing for much local authority and cooperative governance. Fargher et al. (2010) argue that a unique form of social organization may have contributed to the state’s ability to remain autonomous from...
Burial Diversity at the Angel Site: How Many People and How Many Ways? (2016)
The Angel site is a Middle Mississippian civic-ceremonial center that sat on the northeastern periphery of the Mississippian world. Excavations at the site, especially during the WPA era and a series of archaeological field schools just after World War II, created a collection representing several hundred human burials. Previous studies of this collection have emphasized relatively intact burials, either primary fleshed inhumations or easily identified secondary burials of single individuals....
Burial Mound as Palimpsest (2015)
Time perspectivism has been defined as "the belief that differing timescales bring into focus different features of behaviour" or "or different sorts of processes." These different behaviors and processes require different concepts and explanatory principles. Criticism of time perspectivism has ranged from seeing it as advocating environmental determinism to it simply being a version of Annales history. Research under the umbrella of time perspectivism has generally focused on processes...
Caches, Burials, and Vases, Oh My: Ritual Deposits in an Elite Courtyard at the Ancient Maya Site of Pacbitun, Belize (2018)
Recent investigations in a large, enclosed courtyard on the southwest corner of the ancient Maya site of Pacbitun, Belize, revealed evidence of successive emplacements of ritually important deposits. Initial analysis of the ceramic material suggests that the entire courtyard plaza has only one or two floors, with construction and use only during the Late to Terminal Classic period (600 – 900 CE). Five caches and two cyst graves were related directly to the plaza floor. The caches consisted...
The Can: Clandestine Infant Burials in Plain Sight (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. Mortuary treatment in a capitalist society can be cost-prohibitive and a source of shame or guilt for those unable to pay for a proper burial. Coroner reports from Milwaukee County describe the recovery of miscarried, stillborn, or infant remains from outdoor locations, often concealed...
Children of the Gilded Age: Juvenile Age Estimation and Fertility Approximation for the Bethel Cemetery (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Bethel Cemetery Relocation Project: Historical, Osteological, and Material Culture Analyses of a Nineteenth-Century Indiana Cemetery" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bioarchaeological analyses of the Bethel Cemetery have provided a unique opportunity to understand population dynamics in central Indiana during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With over 40% of exhumed individuals classified as juveniles,...
Chincha-Inka Mortuary Traditions at Jahuay, Quebrada de Topará (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Jahuay, located 20 km north of the Chincha Valley, was first occupied during the Early Horizon as a commoner fishing community. In later eras, it was reoccupied by the Chincha and Inka, possibly as a tambo. During the 2017 and 2018 field seasons, the Proyecto de...
A Comparative Bioarchaeology of Health and Status in Pre-Classical K’axob and Cuello (2018)
This paper explores whether there is a statistical difference in rates of non-specific infection between two Maya pre-classic villages, K’axob and Cuello, and whether these findings can be correlated to social status within and between the two villages. Using representative skeletal samples from these populations, an osteological analysis is performed to determine the presence of non-specific infection markers in the form of periosteal reactions. Any signs of reaction are scored by level of...
A Computational Approach to Bone Histology Analysis in Archaeology (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Early Bronze Age in Transylvania exhibits two different mortuary traditions, one associated with the Yamnaya migration in the lowlands and the other associated with the local Transylvanian groups in the highlands. A key question for archaeologists has been how these traditions differ in respect to primary and secondary inhumation. The tempo of funerary...
Connecting Dead, Living, and Supernatural through Plants: Botanical Mortuary Offerings at Monte Albán (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Checking the Pulse: Current Research in Oaxaca Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines the plants used as mortuary offerings at the Zapotec city of Monte Albán (500 BCE–900 CE). After their passing, the deceased became Ancestors able to offer protection to their descendants. I explore the possibility that food (specifically plants) might have helped to provide and strengthen a bridge between the...
Cremation Mortuary Practices during the Archaic Period in Ancient Athens and Attica (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, we provide preliminary results for reconstructing cremation mortuary practices from the Archaic site of Phaleron (ca. 750–480 BCE), located in Athens, Greece. We build on performance theory and embodiment ideas to answer two main research questions: (1) Who were the cremated individuals? and (2) How were cremation mortuary rituals performed?...
Cultivation and Herding Practices, Fiber Colors and Textile Styles in the Paracas-Nasca Transition (2018)
Improving documentation of artifact assemblages in the funerary contexts of the Necropolis of Wari Kayan (Paracas site, south coast of the Central Andes) leads to identification of multiple contemporary textile styles as well as their transformation over the period of cemetery use (c. 250 BCE to 250 CE). While artifact variability in the region has largely been organized in hypothetical phases, expanded data on garment design and production details, as well as imagery, is most usefully organized...
Cut Marks and Decaying Bodies: An Experimental Study (2018)
It has been suggested that cutting into decaying bodies occurred in the past, for instance during the cleaning or dismemberment of corpses during protracted funerary rituals. However it can be difficult to confirm the timings of such interactions, particularly for secondarily deposited bones. An experimental study was therefore conceived to test whether the frequency, location and micro-morphometric characteristics of cut marks might differ on fresh compared to decaying bodies. In order words,...
Daily Lives in Early Medieval Bavaria: Degenerative Joint Disease in the Carolingian Altenerding, Germany (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The State of the Art in Medieval European Archaeology: New Discoveries, Future Directions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This project investigates lived experience in early medieval Germany by examining degenerative joint disease (DJD) in human skeletal remains from Altenerding, Germany. A 2008 excavation at the Petersbergl site unearthed 128 burials from a 9th century cemetery associated with the Carolingian court...
Death after Inka Expansion: Analyses of a Secondary Communal Burial at Las Huacas, Chincha Valley (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Developments through Time on the South Coast of Peru: In Memory of Patrick Carmichael" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mortuary Practices are political acts that are deeply embedded in political and social interactions. Complex N1 at the site of Las Huacas was the location of various burials during the Late Horizon (AD 1470–1532) and, possibly, early colonial period (AD 1532–1570). One such burial, was a large communal...
Death at Birth: Changing Mortuary Practices from the Late Ptolemaic to the Romano-Christian Period in Egypt (2015)
Human burials and mortuary practices are the result of cultural attitudes and ideological beliefs that have been selected and shaped by the living for the dead. These beliefs and concomitant mortuary practices have changed through time, thus the treatment, space, and place for the dead varies, particularly in the context of the very young. While it is likely that adults were given the opportunity to make decisions about their own place of burial, treatment of the body, or grave assemblage, in...