Dismemberment as Postmortem Disablement: The Disparate Mortuary Sites of the Collected

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Storeroom Taphonomies: Site Formation in the Archaeological Archive" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Acknowledgment of the educational value of pathological conditions in human cadavers prompted scholars of anatomy and anthropology to partition bodily tissues of the dissected among their colleagues. This scientific network of shared body parts, for the purpose of specialized study, segregated the divisible body into multiple sites—separate drawers in a laboratory, heart in a mason jar, kyphotic vertebral column hanging in the corner of an office, display cases in museums. Although bio/archaeologists typically study human remains associated with burial sites, mortuary treatments include those practices in which bodies have been manipulated by scientists. Bio/archaeological research of university laboratories and basements permits interrogation of the socially defined value of particular bodies and the ways in which this facilitated dissection and collection. It is argued that individuals who present with corporeal differences, perceived as pathological or as a defect, were particularly vulnerable to dismemberment and more likely to experience postmortem dis-ablement, defined here by societal prevention of decedent’s full participation in culturally desirable mortuary treatments. Efforts to reconstitute and repatriate skeletonized persons is complicated by the multisite formation that characterizes anatomical collections. A thorough analysis of archival documents, where available, have the potential to trace these dismemberments.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Storeroom Taphonomies: Site Formation in the Archaeological Archive   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39948.0