bioarchaeology (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brittany Jackson. Jacob Bongers. Susanna Seidensticker. Terrah Jones.

This poster presents a bioarchaeological analysis of a cist tomb in the mid-Chincha Valley, Peru dating to the Late Intermediate Period (c. AD 1100-1450). Though the tomb was partially looted prior to excavation, we successfully reconstructed associations between elements from multiple individuals to gain important data regarding health status and the life course during this dynamic period in late prehistory. The analysis revealed the presence of at least 7 individuals buried in the single cist...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Debra Martin. Anna Ostenholtz.

The bioarchaeological record in the ancient Southwest has an abundance of evidence of disarticulated remains to suggest a long history of body (corpse) processing and fragmentation. From AD 800 to the 1500s, various assemblages of processed human remains have been recovered. Published studies of these have argued for a wide range of motivations that could account for such assemblages including anthropophagy/cannibalism, massacres, torture, witch executions, ritualized violence, warfare, raiding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jess Beck.

Post-mortem manipulation of human remains played a critical role in mortuary practices in Copper Age Iberia (c. 3250-2200 BC). During this period in Spain and Portugal, individuals were buried communally in tholos-type tombs, as well as natural or artificial caves and rock shelters. Evidence from across Iberia suggests that mortuary practices included the manipulation and movement of previously interred bodies, either in order to clear space for new individuals, or to facilitate secondary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lori Tremblay Critcher.

In the 19th century, mental institutions were created in the United States to provide care for the mentally ill. These state institutions of care were designed to serve as cultural buffers to protect mentally ill individuals from the harsh conditions that they would have otherwise been exposed to in other state institutions, such prisons or poorhouses. In this paper, I examine whether and to what extent Tilley’s (2012) "Bioarchaeology of Care" methodological approach provides a means to evaluate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Fitzpatrick. Jessica Stone. Justin Tackney. John Krigbaum. Greg Nelson.

Ongoing research at the Chelechol ra Orrak rockshelter in Palau, Micronesia, has revealed the presence of one of the oldest (ca. 3000-1700 BP) and most demographically diverse cemeteries in the Pacific. Archaeological excavation of only a small portion of the site indicates that dozens of individuals were buried here for more than a millennia. Subsequent osteological analysis coupled with recent attempts to extract ancient DNA and stable isotopes (Sr and Pb) have shed new light on genetic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Lee.

At the Mogou site 1000 graves were excavated from 2008-2011. A preliminary bioarchaeological analysis was done on 154 individuals. The male to female sex ratio is the same as other Qijia sites, with more males than females. The sample population was heterogeneous with 8% of the individuals originating from the west (Xinjiang), north (Mongolia), and east (China) of the region. This may be a result of the site being situated on trade routes from the West into China. Analysis was done on trauma...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniela Wolin. Natasha Osing. Jigen Tang. Yuyun Tang. Lingling Deng.

Ongoing archaeological investigations at the Late Shang capital of Yinxu (ca. 1200 – 1050 BCE) in China have resulted in the location and partial excavation of thousands of sacrificial pits with an estimated 10,000 individuals interred within. Evidence of human sacrifice during this period includes contemporaneous oracle bone inscriptions, mortuary contexts, weaponry, and the skeletal remains of these individuals. We are presenting our preliminary interpretation of the osteological analysis of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marta Alfonso-Durruty. Flavia Morello. Miguel Vilar. Nicole Misarti. Headley Dustin.

Human remains are pivotal to our understanding of the past. While much bioarchaeological analysis continues to rely on macroscopic and non-invasive methods, scientific and technological developments in the last 30 years have revolutionized the discipline. Among others, isotope analyses, and the extraction of ancient DNA (aDNA) have further unveiled the richness of information that bones and teeth can provide. In spite of their potential, the application of these methods is limited due to their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Santana Cabrera. Jo Appleby. Krish Seetah.

This contribution presents the preliminary results of an osteobiograhical approach to the life conditions of a slave/ex-slave population from Le Morne cemetery (18-19th centuries, Mautiritius Island). We evaluate the incidence of several stress indicators/pathologies on the human remains that are the result of environmental conditions during life. Dental health, infectious diseases and physical activity markers were analyzed to address the daily life of this population. Our results indicate high...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jane Buikstra. Jason King.

Interred within a deep, mounded and relatively elaborate tomb nearly two millennia ago, our Hopewell man lived approximately as many years as we have studied his remains. While his tissues have remained unchanged since excavation, our analytical gaze has witnessed near tectonic shifts in theoretical perspectives. The first interpretations, those of the senior author in zealous pursuit of her doctoral degree, were decidedly processual and lacked reflexivity. She spoke of status, for example,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kimberly A Morrell. Thomas A Crist. Douglas B. Mooney.

Philadelphia’s Blockley Almshouse served as one of the primary centers of medical education in nineteenth-century America.  Operating between 1835 and 1905, "Old Blockley" was served by some of the era’s most prominent physicians, including the "father of modern medicine" Sir William Osler, and Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States.  Excavation of one of the almshouse’s two cemeteries in 2001 revealed over 400 graves and thousands of anatomical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rodrigo Retamal. Aryel Pacheco. Francisca Santana-Sagredo. Samantha Cox. Jorge Pinares.

Presented here is a case of intentional amputation found in a 30-40 year old male (inventoryNº B0796) from the Pica 8 cemetery in Northern Chile who exhibits an antemortem loss of all his left toes. Whilst Munizaga (1974) suggested that this mutilation was caused by frostbite, our CT scan analysis suggests intentional amputation. While this intentional amputation could be the consequence of a surgical procedure, amputation as a form of punishment presents an interesting possibility to explore...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ann Kakaliouras.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, U.S. museums and universities amassed massive stores of the skeletons of Native American people. These collections eventually became the source-base for bioarchaeology, a subfield of both physical anthropology and archaeology that emerged in the 1970’s and continues producing interpretations about past Native American identities from the study of skeletal remains. Over the last few decades, the reburial movement and the passage of NAGPRA has slowed—or...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aja M. Lans.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Deviations: Archaeologies of Sexuality Beyond the Heteronormative", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Broadly, Black feminism is based on the notion that Black women and our knowledge matter. Our positionality, being Black and female within a patriarchal white supremacist society, subjects us to unique experiences that give us insight into the many forms that oppression can take. Sexuality emerges as a core...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Betz. Jessica Pearson.

Two decades of excavation at Çatalhöyük have produced a skeletal assemblage of approximately 555 individuals from primary, secondary, and primary-disturbed Neolithic (7100-6000 cal. BCE) deposition contexts. As personnel and digital technology have changed, integration of the large body of legacy bioarchaeological data with current research has posed many challenges. Often, analyses of osteological data patterns have relied on broad comparisons of temporal and spatial categories drawn from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nina Coonerty. Susan Kuzminsky. Lars Fehren-Schmitz.

Recent studies of South American populations have played an integral role in elucidating the timing, origin and migration routes of the first Americans. Much attention has centered on the cranial shape of these prehistoric populations, which some researchers have described as having two distinct head forms. The cranial shape of early Holocene Paleoamericans has been categorized as dolichocephalic (long-headed), while later populations have been generally described as brachycephalic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Derek T. Anderson. Molly K. Zuckerman. Nicholas P. Herrmann. Felicia Peña. D. Shane Miller.

The Aklis site (12VAm1-42) is a multicomponent prehistoric conch shell midden containing cemetery and habitation components. Large portions of the site are currently subject to damage from rising sea levels and modern disturbances, including looting. Salvage excavations of two sets of human remains in 2012 led to the development of an archaeological field school in 2014, offered by Mississippi State University and in conjunction with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Survey and excavation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kirsten Verostick.

With advancing technologies in recent years, numerous methodologies are used to identify disease and causes of infection in human skeletal remains. Use of ancient DNA (aDNA) and scanning electron microscopy aid in pinpointing diseases. In particular, ancient tuberculosis and treponemal disease are at the forefront of identification with these new techniques. Recent evaluation shows some of these methods still require refinement, such as the recent discovery of aDNA markers used to identified...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Virginia Lucas.

The late prehistory of central Alabama in not yet well understood, particularly when compared to contemporaneous occupations elsewhere in the Southeast. Previous excavations of Durant Bend (1Ds1), a late Mississippian/Proto-historic, single mound site in Dallas County on the Alabama River, resulted in a number of artifacts, including lithics, pottery, faunal remains, and human remains that enhance our understanding of late prehistoric and protohistoric occupations in the Alabama River Valley....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lucero Aristizabal Losada. Melanie Miller.

En esta presentación, queremos enfocarnos en la relación entre alimentación y otras dimensiones sociales de la sociedad Muisca asentada en una aldea del sur de la Sabana de Bogotá del periodo muisca tardío, como es el caso de status y género. Tradicionalmente, se ha asumido la existencia de un grupo de élite que tuvo ciertos privilegios y beneficios por encima del resto de individuos; sin embargo, la información de la dieta a través del análisis isotópico de una muestra de 250 individuos...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aviva Cormier. Francisco Estrada-Belli.

Stable isotope analysis is a productive tool for understanding the migratory histories of past populations in various regions of the world, including the ancient Maya. This paper presents the strontium and oxygen isotopic ratio values of dental enamel samples as compared to the geographical location of burial to address questions of regional identity, population migration, and social complexity of the Maya at the archaeological site of Holmul and the nearby centers of La Suficaya, K’o, Cival,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elissa Bullion. Jason King.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adrianne Offenbecker. Jane H. Kelley. M. Anne Katzenberg.

Casas Grandes, also known as Paquimé, was one of the largest and most complex societies in prehistoric northern Mexico, with established trade networks and social influences from Mesoamerica, the American Southwest, and western Mexico. Analyses of the human skeletal remains from Casas Grandes have found evidence for interpersonal conflict, human sacrifice, and cannibalism during the Medio period (ca. 1200-1450 AD), which coincides with increasing sociopolitical complexity and emerging social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mike Cannon. Lisa Krussow.

Marked variability in subsistence strategies has been noted throughout the Fremont archaeological culture. Previously, we have explored such variability by using data on baseline environmental productivity, zooarchaeological evidence for resource depression, and archaeological measures of the importance of agriculture to test the hypothesis that agricultural investment among the Fremont varied inversely with local environmental productivity. Data from throughout the Fremont region are consistent...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Catherine Smith. Clifford T. Brown.

The Belle Glade prehistoric culture of central peninsular Florida is very poorly known. Through standard osteological analyses of 78 individuals from Belle Glade Mound (8PB41), type site for the culture, estimates for age, sex, and stature were calculated and observations of dental and skeletal pathologies were noted. Sex could be estimated for 26 males and 25 females. Age distributions varied stratigraphically but were dominated by young adults aged 20-35 and middle adults aged 35-50. The age...