Specific Skeletal Injuries as a Proxy for Domestic Violence

Summary

The prevalence of violence in past societies is generally assessed through observable skeletal trauma. Common contexts of violence vary from culture to culture, and differences in acceptable forms of violence can be evident after documenting the different shapes, locations, and stages of healing of injuries. Contemporary cross-cultural studies show the physical effects of household violence primarily display on the middle third of the face in female victims, can commonly cause concomitant ante-mortem tooth loss, and are often non-lethal. The universality of these visually detectable indicators of household violence allows us to determine the acceptability and prevalence of household violence within prehistoric groups through the assessment of the frequencies and severity of these injuries. Results from recent studies elaborate the differences in contextual trauma from warfare, raiding, and probable domestic violence within pre-Columbian Peruvian sites from Middle Horizon (A.D. 600-1000) and Late Intermediate Period (A.D. 1000-1350) settlements in both the highlands of Andahuaylas and the coastal settlements at Ancon. The injuries from each time period will be presented alongside each other to show how the contexts of violence changed over time.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage