Mortuary archaeology (Other Keyword)
76-100 (217 Records)
This paper explores some of the forms, occasions, and meanings of human fire exposure among the Northern Lowland Maya during the Classic period. Conceptual points of departure are native concepts of heat, smoke and fire, together with their transformative powers in human beings, ritual enactment, and physicality. These notions provide blueprints for the spectrum of treatments documented in the area’s mortuary record, spanning veneration, profanation and/or sacrifice. Combining forensic...
Fragmented Bodies: Early Bronze Age Cremation Burials in Kilmagadwood, Scotland (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There is a clear dichotomy between the practice of inhumation and the rite of cremation. From an anthropological perspective, a community’s preference for one or another reflects changes in its beliefs system. Conceivably, this occurred during the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age when cremation became dominant. The symbolism that accompanies the...
From Individual to Collective Burial in the Mesolithic of Iberia (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Research on the Paleolithic in the Mediterranean Region" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The transition from individual to collective burial underscores implicit, but poorly understood, changes in social organization within the Mesolithic and between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic. Mosaic in character, this transition is well marked in Cantabria and Portugal, less so in other regions of Iberia. Mortuary...
From Mounds and Museums: Building a Bioarchaeology of the Early Bronze Age in the Apuseni Region of Transylvania (2018)
The Apuseni Mountains of southwest Transylvania, Romania, are amongst the richest gold and copper procurement zones in the world. Metals from this region helped fuel the rise of inequality across Europe during Late Prehistory, and the area is also home to a rich mortuary record, with archaeological survey identifying over one hundred mounded tomb cemeteries belonging to Bronze Age communities. However, none of these cemeteries have been fully excavated and only a small sample of skeletons has...
From Villanovan to Etruscan Mortuary Goods: The Ceramic Assemblages of Four Seventh-Century BCE Pit Graves from the Site of San Giuliano (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Etruscan Centralization to Medieval Marginalization: Shifts in Settlement and Mortuary Traditions at San Giuliano, Italy" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The San Giuliano necropolis, located within the Marturanum Regional Park in northern Lazio, Italy, is well-known for its hundreds of Villanovan and Etruscan graves. As part of our mission to understand the patterns of human habitation at the site from the ninth...
Gender Differentiation in Jewish Memorials: An Ethnoarchaeological Examination of the Headstones in the B'nai Israel Cemetery (2015)
An ethnoarchaeological approach to the study of historic cemeteries and associated gravemarkers offers a tested and non-invasive methodology which can garner insight into the collective and personal identity of individuals within and between specific cultural groups. For the investigation of the Jewish diaspora, such enthoarchaeological studies have proven to be one of the richest sources of data on religious and cultural practices related to death and burial. Past studies have examined...
Genomic Data from Paquimé: Understanding the Cultural and Genetic Ties of the Site (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paquimé, located in the Casas Grandes region of Northern Mexico, presents a rich cultural tradition with ties to populations to the South and North. Ancient mitochondrial DNA from Paquime’s occupants has not provided evidence of large-scale in-migration that led to the fluorescence of the site, as some scholars have hypothesized. This paper focuses on...
GIS in Vertical Spaces: An Examination of Location and Clustering of Mortuary Contexts at the Cliff Site of La Petaca, Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geographic Information Systems are often applied to archaeological contexts to analyze spatial patterns within a site and ascertain social structure and identity. Vertical sites, however, pose a problem for GIS since most analyses must occur on the horizontal plane. This is particularly troublesome for studying the Chachapoya, a Late Intermediate Period group...
Gone and All but Forgotten: An Overview of St Henry’s Cemetery (11S1742), East St. Louis, IL, 1866–1908 (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. St. Henry’s Catholic Cemetery (11S1742) in East St. Louis, IL, was interring largely German and Irish individuals from 1866 to 1908. As part of growing urbanization and societal sanitation concerns, the cemetery was closed and buried individuals were supposedly relocated by 1926. By 1951, the Illinois National Guard Armory was constructed on the site and...
Harappan Necropolis of Rakhigarhi, India: Archaeology and Bioanthropology (2018)
The number of Harappan cemeteries so far systematically surveyed is far less than that of contemporary settlements. Necropolis site at Rakhigarhi (India) was reported earlier but in small scale investigation. Our investigation for the last three seasons (2013 to 2016) was thus designed for improving this lacuna. We first classified each burial and analyzed statistically. The Harappan people practiced rather humble burial custom, but few were found differently and these burials look more...
Health and Mortuary Treatment in Early Bronze Age Transylvania (2018)
Copper and gold resources from Southwestern Transylvania played a critical role in the emergence of inequality in European Late Prehistory. Communities in this metal-rich landscape, however, remain poorly understood. Though the highly visible tombs in the Apuseni Mountains where these communities buried some of their dead have been known to local archaeologists for decades, very little is known about the backdrop of health and disease in the region. Here, we present one of the first...
Health, Mobility, and Burial Practices: Lifeways and Deathways at Aventura, Belize (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Households at Aventura: Life and Community Longevity at an Ancient Maya City" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Human remains are found in a variety of contexts at Aventura: as primary burials below the floors of houses, as secondary burials or caches also below the floors, and even in middens. The preservation of the bone is very poor and therefore the recovery of individuals is often less than 25%. This sometimes makes...
Historical and Bioarchaeological Investigation of the Evansville State Hospital Cemetery (12VG598), Vanderburgh County, Indiana (2018)
In 2014, Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc., conducted the archaeological relocation of graves from the Evansville State Hospital Cemetery. At the request of Beam, Longest, and Neff, LLC, on behalf of the City of Evansville and the Indiana Department of Transportation, the graves of 31 individuals who were patients at the reform-era hospital between circa 1890 and 1928 were relocated in advance of construction of a pedestrian bridge. The population consisted primarily of young to middle adults,...
Historical Craniotomy and Autopsy Practices at the Milwaukee County Institutional Grounds Poor Farm Cemetery (2015)
The Milwaukee County Institutional Grounds Poor Farm Cemetery (MCIG) served as the burial ground for county institutions, including the coroner’s office and the Milwaukee County Hospital. This paper describes craniotomy practices in particular, and autopsy practices more generally, evidenced by the population from the MCIG Cemetery. In addition, this research attempts to distinguish between craniotomies and autopsies carried out by the coroner’s office versus the Milwaukee County Hospital to...
Hoxie Farm: Bioarchaeology of a Late Prehistoric Community in Northeastern Illinois (2018)
The Upper Mississippian (A.D. 1400-1500) Hoxie Farm site is one of the best documented late prehistoric sites in Cook County, Illinois. In 1953, Elaine Bluhm and David Wenner from the Field Museum of Natural History organized a volunteer crew of professional and avocational archaeologists to salvage portions of the site in advance of construction of the first interstate highway (I-80) in Illinois. In 2000-2003, the Illinois State Archaeological Survey (ISAS) conducted additional excavations at...
Identification of Bilateral Congenital Radioulnar Synostosis in an Early Horizon Burial from the Site of Atalla, Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bioarchaeological research can help trace the development and distribution of rare pathologies across space and time, aiding in our understanding of how past peoples experienced and made sense of a variety of conditions and diseases. Congenital radioulnar synostosis (CRUS), a developmental condition resulting in fusion of the proximal radius and ulna, is one...
Identifying Patterned Variability in Preclassic-Postclassic Maya Mortuary Practices in the Belize River Valley (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Classic period (AD 300-900) Belize River Valley was a complex political landscape of numerous semi-autonomous Maya polities. Many began their emergence at the end of the Early Preclassic period (1200-900 BC), consolidated their political power in the Late Preclassic, and subsequently underwent collapse in the Terminal Classic period (AD 750-900/1000). The...
If the Dead Could Return: The Politics of World War II Era Human Remains in Eastern Europe (2017)
Although World War II (WWII) hostilities ended in 1945, still today the graves and remains of both combatants and civilians continue to be unearthed, especially in Eastern Europe. These discoveries of graves become entwined with the dynamic physical and geopolitical landscapes, whereby the post-human remains take on new, contested identities. Their unique identifications to name or nationality are sublimated, as their collective national or ethnic identities become prioritized. Combatants...
In Awe Of Death: A Comparative Analysis Of Glass Viewing Windows In American Caskets and Coffins (2017)
A comparative analysis of glass viewing windows present within interments during the Victorian Era and into the early twentieth century provides a unique perspective on the socioeconomic status of black and white communities throughout this time period, as well as an interpretation of assumptions made as to which individuals purchased these adornments for their dearly departed. This study examines Freedman’s Cemetery in Dallas, Texas, as well as seventy-nine other historic black and white...
In the Heart of the Inca: An Osteobiography at Huanacauri (Cusco, Peru) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study takes an osteobiographical approach to describe the archaeological significance and life history of the only known individual buried within Huanacauri (Cusco, Peru), one of the most sacred sites in the Inca Empire (ca. 1400-1533 CE). Given the significant location of the burial—in the center of the place the Incas perceived as the foundation of...
An In-Depth Study of the Arma Veirana Pierced Shells and Pendants used as Grave Goods (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in the Prehistory of Liguria and Neighboring Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the 2017 excavation season at Arma Veirana, a cave site located in the Italian pre-Alps, a Final Epigravettian burial was discovered. Careful excavation of the feature has uncovered an important number of grave goods comprised of over 80 perforated marine shells. The majority of these ornaments were made from...
Inferences about Class Structure from Burial Form and Mitochondrial DNA Relationships at Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad, Syria (2018)
The Roman/Parthian period (200 BCE - 300 CE) at the site of Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad, Syria existed during a period in the region characterized by political instability and military movement. This "borderland," existing at the extremities of both empires, created a unique sphere of potential interactions both on the individual level and broader scale. A cemetery from this period shows four distinct burial forms (mud-brick graves, earthen graves, amphora graves and clay sarcophagi). In an effort to better...
An Investigation into Topographic Distribution Patterns Associated with Wetlands Surrounding Bog Body Burial Sites (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. History is imprinted in our landscapes, and the creation of bog deathscapes indicates the agency of wetland environments to the mortuary customs of European Iron Age and North American Archaic Age communities. The functionality and ideological value of bog landscapes vary spatially and temporally, yet there is a unilateral use of bogs as unique burial...
Key Factors Impacting the Efficacy of Canine Resources on Archaeological Surveys (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Canine Resources for the Archaeologist" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Canine resources, used alone or as part of a multidisciplinary approach, are proven to be effective at assisting archaeologists in locating human remains. Just as geophysical instruments and analysts have limitations and factors that impact their success on surveys, so do canine teams. This paper will examine the key factors that determine...
The Labor of Building a Community: Collective Organization and Mortuary Practices in Copper Age Iberia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Cooperative Bodies: Bioarchaeology and Non-ranked Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Iberian Copper Age (c.3200-2250 BC) witnesses a suite of interrelated changes, including expansion of exchange networks, intensification of agriculture, increases in population density, and greater investment in site infrastructure. Accordingly, it is noteworthy that third millennium collective mortuary practices hark back...