Active Forgetting: Cemetery Abandonment and Mortuary Politics in Bronze Age Transylvania

Author(s): Erica Ivins; Colin Quinn; Horia Ciugudean; Gabriel Balan; Lacey Carpenter

Year: 2021

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The abandonment of mortuary spaces is an intentional social process. As a political act, the choice to abandon a cemetery is a moment in which communities manipulate memory. Most mortuary studies, however, often overlook the social processes that led to cemetery abandonment. This poster presents the results of Bayesian analyses of radiocarbon dates from multiple mortuary sites in southwestern Transylvania during the Early and Middle Bronze Age (2700–1500 BCE), a period of transformation in the degree of socioeconomic inequality. We evaluate the chronological models against theoretical models of the social contexts and consequences of abandonment. Our results demonstrate how analyzing the materialization of memory in mortuary spaces allows archaeologists to interpret sociopolitical organization.

Cite this Record

Active Forgetting: Cemetery Abandonment and Mortuary Politics in Bronze Age Transylvania. Erica Ivins, Colin Quinn, Horia Ciugudean, Gabriel Balan, Lacey Carpenter. Presented at The 86th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2021 ( tDAR id: 467612)

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Keywords

General
Bronze Age • Mortuary Analysis • Social and Political Organization

Geographic Keywords
Europe: Eastern Europe

Spatial Coverage

min long: 19.336; min lat: 41.509 ; max long: 53.086; max lat: 70.259 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33033