Linking Life and Death at the Early–Mid-Holocene Hunter-Gatherer Cemetery of Zvejnieki, Lativa, Northern Europe

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Northeast Asian Prehistoric Hunter-Gather Lifeways: Multidisciplinary, Individual Life History Approach" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The nature of the relationship between the living and the dead as seen through funerary rites is central to many aspects of archaeological interpretation. Indeed, this was the focus of early processual/postprocessual debates, with the former seeing a “real,” if distorted, connection between the two, while the latter questioned this relationship. Human skeletal remains present the opportunity to explore the association between lived experience and treatment at death. While such connections have been identified for more sociopolitically complex societies, they have rarely been found in hunter-gatherers. Here, we present a case study from a large Early–Mid-Holocene cemetery in Latvia, northern Europe. Previous research has found that stable nitrogen isotope values are significantly lower for those individuals interred with animal tooth pendants, compared to those lacking pendants, though other grave offerings are present. We interpret this as a community division between families placing slightly greater emphasis on hunting or fishing, respectively. Whether this reflects horizontal or vertical status differentiation is a challenging question. That those lacking grave goods entirely cluster with the “fishers” suggest that this may have been perceived as a lower status occupation, though this is complicated by the presence of some rich amber graves in this group.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Northeast Asian Prehistoric Hunter-Gather Lifeways: Multidisciplinary, Individual Life History Approach   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36571.0