bioarchaeology (Other Keyword)
76-100 (301 Records)
Bioarchaeologists draw data from the detailed study of human remains from archaeological contexts. The information embedded in the skeleton provides a powerful window into prehistory; informing us of past lifeways, health/disease, diet, kinship, migration, and conflict. The intimate relationship between the living and the dead is necessarily imbued with respect and an ethical responsibility to properly handle and curate the remains of those that we study. However, the conservation of skeletal...
Curation and Best Practice with Human Remains in Northwest Belize (2016)
As of the summer of 2015, approximately 135 burials have been recovered and investigated through the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project (PfBAP) in Northwest Belize. Within the 270,000 acres of land on which the PfBAP operates, approximately 60 archaeological sites have been recorded and investigated. As the number of burials increases with new site identification and investigation, a need for data consolidation and accessibility has arisen. We aim to make this data more attainable...
Curation in the Digital Age: The Potential for Bioarchaeology (2017)
Digital imaging and curation are increasingly accessible to and implemented by bioarchaeologists working in both academic and CRM positions. In the field, 3D scanning and LiDAR technology record mortuary contexts quickly and in incredible detail. These techniques make poorly preserved remains available for study that may not survive excavation intact. In a lab setting, photogrammetry and construction of 3D models of skeletal elements shows promise for augmenting and preserving teaching...
Curation of Human Skeletal Remains and Bioarchaeological Practice in Greek Context (2017)
Human skeletal remains constitute perhaps the most sensitive archaeological material, both biologically and socioculturally. Their recovery, preservation, curation, storage, and analysis are complex issues that need to be addressed within any given biocultural context. Given the country’s geography and the long history of human occupation, Greek field archaeology is intense and ongoing, as part of either rescue excavations or academic research projects. Graves, cemeteries, and human skeletal...
Dead Bodies & the Politics of Memory: Bioarchaeology at the UWI Mona and the Decolonization of Heritage (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Health and Inequality in the Archaeological Record" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 2016, the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona interned human skeletal material recovered during the construction of its Basic Medical Sciences Complex (BMSC). Fragmented and bereft of context, these remains were initially believed to be of little scientific value, but as James Deetz would concur, greater narratives often...
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 on the Middle Nile: Mortuary Traditions and Identity at the Top of the Great Bend (2015)
Our understanding of ancient Nubian mortuary traditions principally derives from monumental elite cemeteries such as Kerma, El-Kurru, and Meroe and the 1960s salvage excavations in Lower Nubia. More recent work in Upper Nubia, in northern Sudan, however, has revealed substantial regional variation. Assessment of habitation, rock art, and cemetery sites from the Mesolithic through Christian periods in the Bioarchaeology of Nubia Expedition (BONE) project area on the right (north) bank of the Nile...
DECODING THE SWAHILI: ANCIENT DNA STUDIES ON THE KENYAN COAST (2015)
Our project examines the role of migration in the development of the large autonomous Swahili towns and city-states that grew out of small fishing, agrarian, and pastoral settlements on the East African coast in the late first millennium CE. Our sample is comprised of 97 individuals from three sites on the Kenya coast: Mtwapa (N=72; 900-1732 BCE) near Mombasa, and two sites in the Lamu archipelago, Manda (N=16; 800-1400 BCE), and Shanga (N=9; 800-1400 BCE). The teeth were well preserved and...
The Demise of the European Neolithic Mode of Animal Husbandry: A Combined Effect of Milk Consumption, Zoonotic Diseases, and Genetic Changes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A new form of husbandry developed by the Neolithic settlers of Europe provided solid foundations for their unprecedented growth and sustainability. Its constituting elements comprised the secondary product’s mode of exploitation, the effective adaptation of major domesticates to different environmental and ecological zones, and changes in their genomes....
Demographic Analysis of a Looted Late Intermediate Period Tomb, Chincha Valley, Peru (2015)
Ethnohistorical and archaeological sources establish that the Chincha Valley on Peru’s south coast hosted a populous and economically complex polity during the Late Intermediate Period (1200-1470 CE). A 2013 survey of the middle valley revealed more than 40 cemeteries containing over five hundred highly visible, above-ground collective tombs resembling highland chullpas. To establish a baseline demographic profile for this mortuary tradition, we conducted an osteological analysis of one looted...
Demographic and cultural dynamics of the Portuguese Estremadura in the 4th-3rd millennia BC: A multi-proxy approach (2016)
The cultural dynamics of the Late Neolithic-Copper Age of the Portuguese Estremadura have traditionally been viewed in purely socio-economic terms, involving an increase in social differentiation and economic intensification. In this study, by using analyses of dental morphology and stable and radiogenic isotopes from collective burial populations in the region, we contribute additional lines of evidence to this historical trajectory. In particular we use this biological evidence to elucidate...
Dentistry as Social Discourse: Aspects of Oral Health and Consumer Choice using a Bioarchaeological Perspective (2016)
This study examines the presence (or absence) of professional dental restorative work in the form of fillings, crowns, bridges, or even full sets of dentures, using an integrative biocultural approach. The dataset is derived from an intensive survey of historic cemeteries subjected to bioarchaeological analyses, and include differences in geography (urban versus rural), gender, race/ethnicity, age, and commensurate socioeconomic levels. Since restorative dental work was both expensive and...
Depopulation and Massacres: Bioarchaeological Evidence of Violence within the Ancestral Pueblo of the Southwest Region of North America (2015)
This paper investigates forensic data within the Southwest region of the United States for indicators of violence, conflict, and warfare related events. The main focus is the Mesa Verde region of the Southwest and other sites inhabited by the Ancestral Pueblo. In this area, I examine forensic evidence supportive of trophy-killing and cannibalism; both have documented evidence at other sites in the Southwest area. Different types of trauma, such as, cut marks and blunt force trauma are also...
A Descriptive Analysis of Animal Paleopathology from the Archaeological Site of Salmon Ruins (2016)
This thesis research is a small part of the greater potential study of the interactions between people in prehistory and the animals they relied upon for food and ritual items. Analysis will compare the prevalence of osteological changes and abnormalities in the remains of wild animals and domestic turkeys at Salmon Ruin, New Mexico. Domestic turkeys, being influenced by the hand of humans, are unique cases of paleopathology that could potentially provide insight into the domestication and care...
Developmental stress and disease susceptibility: the association between skeletal indicators of leprosy and other physiological stressors (2015)
Leprosy has long interested bioarchaeologists because of its antiquity and because it can cause skeletal lesions. These lesions are primarily associated with lepromatous leprosy resulting from a minimal cellular immune response. This study tests the hypothesis that early-life developmental stress increases the risk of developing lepromatous leprosy by examining the association between skeletal signs of leprosy and other skeletal stress markers. A combined sample of 126 adults from two Danish...
Did Potters Urn? Potential Skeletal Evidence of Ceramic Production from the Ch’iji Jawira Site in Tiwanaku, Bolivia. (2016)
The city of Tiwanaku (AD 500-1100) in the Bolivian altiplano was comprised of multiethnic neighborhoods, with some of these barrios being home to "guild-like" specialists laboring at differing jobs. Ch’iji Jawira, one site within this community, is often described in the archaeological record as containing both a manufacturing center for pottery and a residential area home to these ceramic manufacturers. Prior bioarchaeological research has also shown that the people who were buried at the...
Dietary Adaptation in Coastal Virginia and North Carolina during the Late Woodland Period (2016)
According to early historic accounts that depict coastal Virginia and North Carolina, maize was a component of Native American diet by the late 16th and early 17th centuries. There remain questions, however, regarding the introduction of maize into the region and how it was incorporated into local subsistence regimes, especially within a coastal setting. Previous stable isotope studies have focused upon the presence or absence of maize as a component of diet at the population level. This...
A Different Kind of Poor: A Multi-Method Demographic Analysis of the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Historic Cemetery (2017)
From 2012-2014 excavations at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC) Historic cemetery (circa 1875-1935) resulted in the exhumation of 1,004 individuals. The cemetery, which served as one of several county burial grounds for the indigent and unknown individuals of the area, provides a glimpse into the growth and development of Santa Clara County, California. To date no cemetery records have been located, leaving the identity of these individuals a mystery. To better understand this...
Differentiating Commingled Human Remains through EDXRF (Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence) (2017)
The ability to differentiate commingled skeletal remains is critical in the analysis of mass burials, archaeological sites and mass fatality events in forensic cases. The potential application of EDXRF (Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence) to aid in differentiating commingled remains is being explored at the MAX Lab (McMaster Archaeological XRF Lab), expanding the lab’s research focus from solely obsidian sourcing to include bio-archaeological applications. There are numerous factors affecting...
Discerning Patterns of Intentional and Unintentional Movement of Human Bones in Maya Caves (2016)
The caves of Central Belize were used extensively by the Maya, primarily during the Late Preclassic and Classic periods (approx. 300 BC to AD 900). Archaeological investigations of human bone deposits in these caves typically seek to identify specific mortuary rituals, often based on analogy with ethnohistoric, epigraphic, and artistic sources, and to interpret these behaviors within broader sociopolitical and environmental contexts. However, because of the long history of cave use in the area...
Documenting the Forced Migration of Enslaved Peoples at the Grassmere Plantation, Nashville, Tennessee Using Strontium and Lead Isotope Analyses (2017)
The Grassmere Plantation in Nashville, Tennessee was established in 1810, and documents show that unnamed, enslaved peoples labored there throughout the decades until emancipation. Our research investigates whether enslaved laborers were born and raised on the plantation or were forcibly moved there later in their lives. To address that question, we analyzed strontium and lead isotope ratios from tooth enamel. Twenty burials were recovered from Grassmere, and we obtained strontium and lead...
The Earliest Bioarchaeological Evidence of the African Diaspora in Renaissance Romania (2017)
Little documentary or archaeological information currently exists regarding the presence of people of African descent in Eastern Europe during the historical period. Known to have arrived in Europe with the Romans, free and enslaved Africans were common members of European society by the advent of the Renaissance, especially in the Moorish territories and the Ottoman Empire. At the cemetery site of Suceava, located in northeastern Romania, archaeologists in the 1950s excavated two sets of...
The Earliest Dated Skeletal Remains from the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua (2015)
A recent discovery of a female skeleton from Monkey Point – a shell matrix site on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua – represents the earliest confirmed evidence of the occupation of the region. In 2014, the skeleton eroded from the profile (left unprotected after the excavations in the 1970s) prompting rescue excavations. The skeleton was not disturbed, and the excavations could follow proper archaeological procedures, allowing us to reconstruct the burial position and to attempt chronometric 14C...
Early 19th Century Anatomical Instruction at Harvard Medical School: A Bioarchaeological Study of Human Remains from Holden Chapel, Harvard University (2016)
This paper reports recent study of anatomized human remains and artifacts from a trash feature beneath Holden Chapel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, once home to Harvard University’s medical school. The building housed medical instruction from 1801 until 1825 and was used for periodic anatomical lectures until the 1860s. During a 1999 renovation, archaeologists recovered more than 2700 objects, including scientific equipment, domestic artifacts, and faunal remains, from a defunct dry well in...
Early Medieval Deviant Burials in the Czech Republic (2013)
This paper will examine how 22 burials, labeled "deviant" due to their unusual burial positions, fit into the social context of early medieval Bohemia. Libice nad Cidlinou is a large fortified settlement site in what is now the Czech Republic. Multiple excavations have uncovered a cemetery dating from the late 9th through early 10th centuries and consisting of 212 graves. Of these, 22 deviate from the normal extended burial position. The unusual burials have been analyzed using a...