Body (Other Keyword)
1-6 (6 Records)
This is an abstract from the "From Individual Bodies to Bodies of Social Theory: Exploring Ontologies of the Americas" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Any attempt to understand indigenous anatomy and perceptions of the body from an emic perspective in the Andes is a challenging endeavor, beginning with basic definitions that differ substantially from Western traditions. Furthermore, definitions changed across space and time throughout Andean...
Archival Shapeshifting: On the Muddy Paths of Transcendence between Nation-States (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper Bodies: Excavating Archival Tissues and Traces", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 1923, on a sugar plantation in British Guiana, 23-year-old overseer Leslie H.C. Phillips witnessed an elaborate ritual performed by hundreds of indentured laborers from southern India. The event propitiated the goddess Kali in variable shapes and forms. If the “Kali-Mai Puja” was mysterious and in need of interpretation,...
Indigenous Anatomies (2016)
Bioarchaeological research in the Andes has shed important light on Andean lifestyles in the past. From identifying diseases such as tuberculosis and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, to analyzing migrations, dietary patterns and interpersonal violence, bioarchaeology has demonstrated a unique capacity to evaluate certain categories of human behavior not accessible through other forms of analysis. For the purposes of interpreting the past, bioarchaeologists broadly view the body as a complex...
Osteobiography: A Conceptual Framework (2017)
Osteobiography provides a rich conceptual basis for understanding the past, but its conceptual basis has never been systematically outlined. It both stands in conceptual opposition to a traditional statistical approach to bioarchaeology modelled upon clinical studies in biomedicine, and is interdependent with it. As such, its position mirrors those of clinical case histories as opposed to statistical studies, participant-observation ethnography as opposed to quantitative sociology, and...
The Question of Permanence: Understanding Head Shaping as a Process (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Marking and Making of Social Persons: Embodied Understandings in the Archaeologies of Childhood and Adolescence" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent conversations about body modification demonstrate that alterations to human form are experiential and are not solely oriented towards a final product. In thinking of prehistoric head shaping practices—practices engaged in with the bodies of infants—archaeological...
Small Finds, Big Stories (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Small Finds, Big Stories" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Buttons, marbles, doll parts, beads: all are rare archaeological finds that capture our attention. Small and infrequently recovered artifacts are the focus of this three-minute forum. While small in size, such artifacts have the potential to open the world of daily life in the past: bodily care, sewing and mending, personal appearance, play, etc. Presenters in...