A Four-Field View in an Increasingly Myopic World

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Debra L. Martin" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Our scientific perspectives of the world are bound to moments of clarity. Clarity comes from the realization that the questions worth asking are the ones that illuminate the human experience while understanding positionality and privilege in the exploration of those questions. As an MA student, Dr. Martin encouraged me to develop a methodology that combines microscopy of cutmarks with detailed taphonomic reconstruction of each category of bone damage. She pushed me into asking questions that moved me far beyond the “checklist” osteology of trauma pattern recognition. I developed a methodology that allowed me to contribute to our understanding of the human arrival and occupation of Madagascar while at the same time exploring the concept of “evil” as an ideological construction of a moral imperative as it relates to violence. This paper surveys human bone assemblages around the world and throughout time to analyze the complexity, variability, and ambiguities surrounding the processing of human remains. The emphasis is on problematizing and challenging prominent discourses on violence by using a trans-temporal analysis of performative violence. It also explores consequences of the discourses in which we, as anthropologists, engage in both academia and media as we celebrate Dr. Martin’s mentorship.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Debra L. Martin   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33299