Week 2 Info Flashcards
3 misconceptions when encountering death
- not all deaths involve graves
- graves are found in a tomb/ chamber (like Indiana jones)
- dead are always lifelike bodies with tissue and hair
archaeology before 1800s
tombs target of looting (pieces in tact, jewelry, gold, weapons)
archaeology 1800s-1900s
tombs target for museum pieces (intact)
looting and museum have in common (3)
- little interest in human remains
- treating graves as sources for objects
- not using graves to answer antrho questions
encountering death: where? (4)
- cemeteries
- near/ under houses
- mortuary monuments (burial mounds)
- middens (refuse heaps - garbage deposits)
why graves are special (4)
- material deliberately placed in ground
- very direct link to belief systems (religion, worldview) (product of ritual behavior)
- bodies provide info on bio aspects of population (health, life history)
- contain individuals (study on persona)
deathways
refers to all funerary practices (funeral, order things placed in grave, how dead is dressed)
deathways structured by (2)
- social dimensions (who they were in society
- symbolic (religious) dimensions
goal of archaeology
use graves as clues to reconstruct deathways –> insights to organizations and beliefs
looting, 19th cenutry archaelogy
object oriented
modern archaeology
graves as clues, deathways
contemporary archaeology questions (4)
- what order stuff put into grave
- by who? social groups, labor involved
- how treatment of dead express symbolic, social aspects (why certain grave goods over others?)
- what role did burial rites play in society?
excavation
systematic, record all spatial positions, expose/ record things “in situ” (as followed)
excavation goal
extract as much info as possible
bioarchaeologists
study soil types (able to tell season, weather, unpreserved grave goods)
arch-entomology
looking at insect activity associated with dead (season, length of funeral –> how long body lasted until exposed to soil)
gut contents
take soil samples from where gut was to see last meal
preservation correlates with
rainfall
preservation improved by factors that
inhibit decomposition, discourage bacterial, microbial, fungal activity
factors that inhibit decomposition (5)
- very dry (desert)
- dry caves
- very wet (water logged)
- abaeribis (low oxygen) (peat bog –> bog bodies)
- very cold
really good preservation (4)
1.bone
2.tissue
3.soft organic (organs)
4.clothing
bad preservation (2)
- no bone
- bone meal
differential preservation
some things preserve better than others (wool and leather preserve, not linen)
anthropologie de terrain (achaeothanatology)
reconstructing burial activites by understanding how things decompose in grave
taphonomy
study of how things decay/ preserve in the ground (can find sequence of how body decays)
sequence of joint decay
soonest: fingers, toes, cerival vertebrae (neck)
intermediate: elbow, thoracic vertebrae (midback)
last: hip, lumbar vertebrae (lower back)
if bones appear packed and balanced
corpse must have been in coffin or shroud (wall effect)
if bones spread out
bones disarticulated and move outside of original space of body, body decayed in empty space not surrounded by soil
ban lum khao site
wrapped (83% male) or buried in coffins (55% female)
decay analysis can provide info on (6)
1.spatial relations
2.season of burial
3.clothing
4.timing of burial sequence (layering)
5.sequence objects put in grave
6.whether grave reopened
interrogate grave to examine (4)
1.ritual sequences
2.intentionality
3.body aesthetics
4.spatial relationships
