Who/What Is In That Vial?

Summary

Archaeologists typically conceptualize the "material" in an integrated analysis of material culture and biological data as artifacts/objects/things recovered through excavation from an historic mortuary setting. However, further explorations of meaning are possible when the definition of material encompasses both what is recovered and produced by archaeologists. Destructive testing, as a component of bioarchaeological analysis, creates additional materialized relationships between the living and the dead. An examination of a strontium research project on anatomized human remains from the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery through the lens of materiality reveals entanglements between contemporary practice and historic patterns (Hodder 2012). In this light, vials and microcentrifuge tubes have a plurality of significance, collapsing boundaries between people, materials, power, and institutional facts (Searle 1997; Clark 2004; Meskell 2005; Miller 2005). 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018   •
• The Red Shoes: Toward a Materialized Relationship Between the Living and the Dead

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 331