Why We Study Violent Behaviors in the Past: Dr. Debra Martin’s Contributions to Research on Systems of Socially Sanctioned Warfare and Systematic Exploitation

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.

Dr. Debra Martin’s work has enhanced our understanding of how different forms of violent interaction are often culturally sanctioned in society. Her work has revealed the physical and social impact on individuals who sustained violence-related trauma. My scholarship continues her work, and explores the ways human skeletal remains can reveal violent interactions, how these types of exchanges affect people’s daily lives and are tied to cultural ideology, and ways the influence of violence transcends multiple generations. Building on the collaborative work we have done together, I illustrate here the biological consequences of persistent threats of violence as a means of social control over individuals. The research I present explores examples of how we can identify and understand conflict in the past, from intergroup hostilities that result in regional warfare, to systems of captivity and exploitation that target women and children and/or nonlocal laborers. Dr. Martin continues to encourage my passion for research on violence. As a collaborator she continues to push me to examine the complex nature of human conflict and how the interaction between individuals between and within groups, both as direct and structural violence, was part of daily practice and ideology in the past.

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)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32117