Burning Questions and Smoldering Answers: Cremation Burial Practices in Middle Balsas Region during Postclassic Period

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Michoacán and West Mexico: New Research in Interaction, Exchange, and Mobility" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Death is the terminal stage of human life. When studying this crucial element of life, it is challenging to consider such aspects as interaction or exchange. However, if we interpret the funerary ceremonies as a form of interaction between the living and the dead, a new interpretive lens where mortuary archaeology, bioarchaeology, and the archaeology of religion play crucial roles opens. This is particularly relevant for studying the cremation burial practices, since the transformation that human bodies undergo as a result of burning of remains of deceased significantly limits the ability to reconstruct the biological profile of the deceased in a traditional bioarchaeological approach. On the contrary, all the detectable alterations and agencies, both driven by fire or the participants of the funerary ceremony, provide valuable information about intentional ritual decisions, providing essential data for understanding of the past ideology concerning the appropriate treatment of deceased. This presentation explores recent findings on cremation practices in the Middle Balsas region of Michoacán, with a focus on the Los Tamarindos site. I will discuss how the assemblages of loose cremains reflect both the community's perception of the body of the deceased and their eschatological of local societies in Postclassic period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Michoacán and West Mexico: New Research in Interaction, Exchange, and Mobility   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50502