The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This symposium, "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology," is timed to coincide with the inaugural year of the Bioarchaeology Interest Group in the SAA. Little more than 40 years after the formal birth of the discipline, bioarchaeology is growing rapidly in theoretical foci, methods, and applications. The interest group, and its first sponsored symposium, aim to bring together practitioners for an exploration of contemporary professional and scholarly issues that will pave the way for the discipline’s productive and relevant future. This symposium highlights new developments and recent research in bioarchaeology related to practice (e.g., public outreach and collaborations with stakeholder groups, ethical considerations, international perspectives from the Global North and South), engagement with social theory (e.g., identity, violence, materiality, disease and disability, embodiment, anti-colonialism), and broader applications in archaeology and beyond (e.g., forensic anthropology, mortuary archaeology, cultural resources management).

Other Keywords
Bioarchaeology/Skeletal Analysis • Ethics • Theory • Repatriation • Historic • Mortuary archaeology • Cultural Resource Management • Hohokam • Indigenous • Materiality

Geographic Keywords
United States of America (Country) • North America (Continent) • North America • United Mexican States (Country) • Department of Martinique (Country) • Republic of El Salvador (Country) • Department of Guadeloupe (Country) • Cayman Islands (Country) • Antigua and Barbuda (Country) • Turks and Caicos Islands (Country)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-15 of 15)

  • Documents (15)
Documents
  • Archaeology of Death across the International Border: Research among the Hohokam and Trincheras Archaeological Groups (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Cerezo-Román.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I will explore similarities and differences between mortuary practices and concepts of embodiment of the dead from Hohokam Classic Period (AD 1150 to 1450/1500) sites in the Tucson Basin and from the Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora (ca. AD 1300 to 1450). I will discuss challenges and opportunities for conducting bioarchaeology...

  • The articulation of the dead; understanding expatriation, materiality and voice in the process of repatriation. (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Dorothy Lippert.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bioarchaeologists assert the responsibility to give voice to the dead, but the dead exist in many different definitions. As ancestors, they are part of an existing human community, as objects, they are part of a created community of collections. They can also be sources of data for researchers seeking to expand knowledge about human existence....

  • Bioarchaeology and Bioethos (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Pamela Geller.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The future of bioarchaeology requires a robust sub-disciplinary bioethos. The concept refers to consolidation of a habit that gives rise to moral, normative practices related to exhumation, documentation, analysis, and posthumous treatment of dead bodies. Conversations in bioethics—about consent, anonymity, vulnerable populations, legislation...

  • Bioarchaeology as Archaeology: Past Practices and Future Prospects (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexis Boutin.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper reflects on bioarchaeology as archaeology (after Armelagos 2003) by tracing the discipline’s past and identifying current research trends. Bioarchaeology’s roots run deep into the 20th century, but it was only in the late 1970s that it received its name in the U.S. and began to blossom as a discipline. The first generation of...

  • Bioarchaeology of Madness: A biocultural perspective on transgression, strangeness, folly, and delirium in the past (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Gwen Robbins Schug. Nicola Carrara. Cinzia Scaggion.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The invention of the Ospedale (hospital) in fourteenth-century Italy marked a turning point in human relations. The othering process of medicalization began as an attempt to provide respite for incurable strangeness, delirium, or transgressive and foolish behavior, particularly for those without family to care for them. The disordered mind...

  • Ethical issues of bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sian Halcrow. Kate Domett. Jennifer Newton. Thanik Lertcharnrit. Louise Shewan.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the 1990s, there has been an increase in bioarchaeological research in many parts of Southeast Asia conducted by both locals and non-locals. Southeast Asian countries are characterised by varied social, cultural, and political histories, but there are also some broad similarities in terms of poor economic development that limits much...

  • Ethics, professionalism, and qualifications in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Marin Pilloud. Nicholas Passalacqua.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology both primarily deal with the analysis of human skeletal remains and employ similar methods for osteological analysis. However, over the past several decades, both subfields have become increasingly specialized with unique procedural and analytical goals. This divergence means that training in one...

  • Public Outreach and Community Engagement with the Tombos Archaeological Project in Sudan. (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Michele Buzon. Katie Whitmore. Claire Sigworth. Mohamed Faroug Ali.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Public outreach and community engagement has become a larger focus of efforts in recent years for the Tombos Archaeological Project. Field seasons regularly include public lectures for adults in the community and children at the Tombos elementary school. We produced a pamphlet with information on the Tombos site (English/Arabic). We also...

  • Ruptured: Bodies, Boundaries and Reproductive Loss in Bioarchaeology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Gowland.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The concept of the bounded body is powerfully resonant within the post-industrialised western world; it is performed and reinforced through cultural practices which observe the maintenance of bodily space and the delineation of individual bodies. Recent research on the developmental origins of health and disease hypothesis, epigenetics and...

  • Social Media as a Tool for Research and Outreach in Bioarchaeology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Sheridan.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Social media has provided bioarchaeology a tool for collaboration with colleagues around the globe; interaction with legislators, the press, and the general public; a means to quickly disseminate research; an educational tool for reaching a younger audience; and, a means to employ the latest Web 2.0 technologies. The BioAnthropology News...

  • Theorizing an Anti-Colonial Bioarchaeology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ann Kakaliouras.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the 1970’s bioarchaeology has become both a valid specialization within archaeology as well as a standalone discipline with its own analytical and institutional traditions. Archaeology, though, enjoys a much more robust mosaic of competing theoretical frameworks than does bioarchaeology. From the processual to the postprocessual—to the...

  • Toward a Bioarchaeology of Social Change: Moving Beyond the Myth of Scientific Neutrality (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ventura Pérez.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In his article, Bioarchaeology as Anthropology (2003:27), George Armelagos noted that, "scientists’ perceptions of their discipline clearly influence how they frame their research agenda." This paper will illustrate how all such agendas are politicized. To engage with violence in the past from the safety of your labs and computer screens is...

  • Uniting the archaeological body: the bioarchaeological investigation of human remains and mortuary behaviors (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Perry.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bioarchaeology has the unique power to deeply investigate mortuary space not only to identify lived experiences from human remains but also to illuminate elements of mortuary ritual. However, these two aspects of bioarchaeology still remain conceptually separated: one is biological and the other socio-cultural, one is scientific and the other...

  • What is It? Doing Bioarchaeology with Matter (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Shannon Novak.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To know and to name bodies and their parts, bioarchaeologists rely on intimate encounters with material traces. At times, they closely examine the "same" objects, yet see quite different things. Understanding such difference is usually treated epistemologically. People have alternative vantage points on the same reality, and divergent...

  • Where Do Data Come From? The Legacy and Future of Cultural Resource Management Bioarchaeology (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ann Stodder.

    This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper considers the role of CRM-based bioarchaeologists in bioarchaeology as practice and as a realm of research. Doing bioarchaeology in this context invokes professional challenges and responsibilities that transcend the individual project. Bioarchaeologists on the front lines of engagement with descendant communities, corporate...