Burial, Space, and Memory of Unusual Death

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Burial, Space, and Memory of Unusual Death," at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Not always have the deceased received the treatment and burial according the traditions that were common in their community. Either traditions or norms, circumstances of the death, their living environment, or the deceased themselves, could cause the community to bury the deceased in deviant ways. "Unusual death" or burial custom could be caused by various reasons, such as epidemics, wars, premature birth, different social status or disablement for instance.

What in the burial customs indicates unusual death or unusual ways of remembering and what does it mean? What makes a burial to be understood as unusual by archaeologists? What kind of ethical questions are related to the handling of unusual deceased or researching them? What kind of history and contexts related to unusual death we want to remember? What unwanted and unpleasant aspects have been related to death during different times?