Mortuary archaeology (Other Keyword)
51-75 (294 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bioarchaeologists routinely generate demographic estimates of past populations from archaeological contexts across time and geography. Despite numerous ways that bioarchaeological data enhance demographic reconstructions of past populations, few contexts allow direct comparison between archaeological and modern demography of the same locale. This project...
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...
Cordage and Binding Practices: From Artifacts to Bodies to Bundles in the Paracas Necropolis Mortuary Tradition (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Ties That Bind: Cordage, Its Sources, and the Artifacts of Its Creation and Use" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Paracas Necropolis mortuary tradition is famous for its embroidered garments and imagery, though the textile bundles built around each individual also have a complex sequence of other artifacts within huge cotton wrapping cloths, stitched and bound in place; other offerings are adjacent. Cordage is...
Cremation during the Early period (1000 BC – 600 AD) in the archaeological site Matecaña (Pereira) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Four funerary urns from the archaeological site Matecaña (Pereira, Risaralda, Colombia) were analyzed to understand the cremation mortuary practice during the Early period (1000 BC–600 AD). This archaeological record does not count with direct descendants and is under the stewardship of the Universidad de Caldas, which follows adequate processes to allow a...
Cremation Mortuary Practices at Phaleron during the Archaic Period (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Bioarchaeology of the Phaleron Cemetery, Archaic Greece: Current Research and Insights" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, we reconstruct cremation mortuary practices from the Archaic site of Phaleron (ca. 750–480 BCE) located in Athens, Greece. We build on performance theory and issues of identities to answer two main research questions: (1) How was the identity(ies) of the cremated individuals at...
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,...
Cycles of Time and Body Partibility at the Ancient Maya Site of Chan Chich, Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Embodied Essence: Anthropological, Historical, and Archaeological Perspectives on the Use of Body Parts and Bodily Substances in Religious Beliefs and Practices" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological record of the ancient Maya reveals many examples of the living returning to human interments to exhume skeletal elements, expose the elements to fire or smoke, or to paint them with red pigment. At the ancient...
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...
“The Dead Do Not Leave”: LH Funerary Behaviors in Pueblo Viejo Pucara (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond the Ancestors: New Approaches to Andean "Open Sepulchers"" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pueblo Viejo-Pucara, main settlement of mitmaqunas, Caringas de Huarochiri, is one of the emblematic cases of funerary behaviors involving the construction and use of open chambers. In most of the cases studied, the two-story structures of 1 m high each story, which fulfill the original function of storage rooms in each...
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...
Death on the Early Formative Oaxaca Coast: The Human Remains of La Consentida (2015)
The initial Early Formative period site of La Consentida was occupied between 1950 and 1550 calBC. This early village community on the western Oaxaca coast has produced evidence of some of Mesoamerica’s oldest known ceramics, mounded earthen architecture, and musical instruments but the site’s human remains have received little attention thus far. The people of La Consentida lived and died during a period of social and economic transformations, including the establishment of sedentary villages,...
Death Undone: The Contextual Importance of Human Skeletal Remains in an Analysis of Diachronic Mortuary Practices at Mesambria Necropolis, Bulgaria (ca. 400 BC–AD 1400) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study addresses the contextual importance of human skeletal remains in identifying diachronic changes and constants in mortuary practices from the Mesambria necropolis, on the banks of the Black Sea in modern Nessebar, Bulgaria. Skeletal remains are the central element of mortuary practices but are often excluded from archaeological interpretation,...
Deconstructing Coffin Production: Cuts, Kerfing, and Closures (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Arch Street Project: Multidisciplinary Research of a Philadelphia Cemetery" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavation of historic burial grounds produce a large number of coffins but they are often overlooked in favor of hardware and grave goods. Yet coffins were often produced by the same craftspersons producing fine furniture and are often infused with evidence of highly skilled carpentry. Here, we present a...
A Diachronic Analysis of Gender Based 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. Burial practices can offer important insights into gender roles within ancient Maya society. We present the results of a diachronic analysis of osteology, grave goods, burial architecture, and contextual data from 108 burials from the Belize River Valley polities of Baking Pot, Blackman Eddy, Cahal Pech, Lower Barton Creek, and Lower Dover. Analyses of grave...
Diet, Identity and Status in Colonial Huamanga (Ayacucho), 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 paper explores ideas of identity and status at the earliest Jesuit church in Ayacucho, Peru (ca. 1605-1767 CE), La Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús de Huamanga (ICJH). Starting with an exploration of indigenous resistance to Spanish colonialism, this case study uses stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen as proxies for diet and burial location as a proxy...
A (Different) Pot for Every Grave: Multiscalar Burial Analysis of a Bronze Age Cemetery in Eastern Kazakhstan (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in Central Asian Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The prehistoric site of Koken, located in the semiarid foothills of eastern Kazakhstan, records a deep history of human occupation spanning the Mesolithic to historical periods. Our research at Koken since 2019 has focused on an integrated habitation, rock art, and cemetery complex dating to the Bronze Age. We will present...
Disturbed Rest: The Destruction and Commemoration of An African-American Cemetery in Haughton, LA—A Collaboration of Archaeology, Ethnology, Law Enforcement, and Community (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2010, reports surfaced of an African-American cemetery in the northwest Louisiana hamlet of Haughton having been destroyed by a white male seeking squatters’ rights on the property. Among the reported rumors were that a church and its cemetery had been bulldozed and that human remains had been dug up. Subsequent investigation of these reports by the...
Dusk and Dawn: Change and Continuity in Funerary Programs in the Maya Lowlands during the Ninth and Tenth centuries CE (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Movement of People and Ideas in Eastern Mesoamerica during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries CE: A Multidisciplinary Approach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During most of the Classic era (250–900 CE), Maya funerary practices were locally defined. Particularly in the Maya Lowlands, burial programs would shift from one capital to the next, while remaining well-codified on a local level. The modes of...
Early Bronze Age Burial Structures of the Eastern Adriatic and Their Possible Connections with the Aegean (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The paper discusses connections between the eastern Adriatic coast and the Aegean during Early Bronze Age. This is the period when Cetina Culture saw its birth in the hinterland of the eastern Adriatic coast (present day Croatia). The pottery typical of the Cetina Culture subsequently spread to the Italian and northern Adriatic coasts, central Balkan...
Early Mortuary Traditions in the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The earliest settled villages in the Borderlands region of the Sonoran Desert are largely associated with the protracted transition from foraging to farming and the foundation of Formative period archaeological cultures in the region. Mortuary practices associated with...
Elites, Craftsmen, or . . . Commoners? Ten Years of Bioarchaeological Research at Castillo de Huarmey (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Decade of Multidisciplinary Research at Castillo de Huarmey, Peru" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the last 10 years, the multidisciplinary Polish-Peruvian archaeological project at Castillo de Huarmey brought to light numerous finds. Some of the most significant research consists of wide-scale bioarchaeological analyses of human and animal remains originating from both undisturbed and looted burials. The most...