Anthro look at death

Schiller

Dayak

Dayak

Dead is buried, tiwah, sandung, prosperous village

Tiwah

Bones are exhumed and cleaned, placed in sandung

Sandung

replication of the house of the living

Metcalf

Berawan (borneo)

Berawan

Physical death and secondary burial rites, storage, cleaing of bones, burial in mausoleum

Taphonomy

Studies how things decay and preserve in the ground

Differential preservation

Some things decay faster

Factors that make preservation better

Decomposition is inhibit

No activity by bacerial, fungi, or scavengers

Very dry, wet, cold

Order of Decay

Head and Jaw

Elbows and Wrist

Hips and lower spine

Burial containers

coffin or wrapped

Grave of Iron Age woman from Denmark

Higher social status, new role and status in afterlife, ritualistic funeral

Ekengren

Graves represent sociopolitical status

Sequence of actions representing ideologies and relationships

Colonialism

Specimens, not ancestors

Racial double standard

Ethics paradox: western burial ethics can become a new form of colonialism

NAGRA

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation act

Descendant Empowerment

Communities lead historical discovery and trauma

African Burial Grounds

400 graves discovered under federal building

Howard University consultant

Cemetary became a place for social memory and grieving

Tulsa Race Massacre

1921

Racist mobs destroyed Greenwood and secretly disposed of the bodies to hide the victims

Death Pits at UR

Early Dynastic III period
Excavated and only 6,000 of 10,000 people were present
Cemetary was restricted by age and social status (no kids)

4 phases at Ur

Pit and chamber setup

Procession and mass sacrifice

Multi-Stage refilling and libations

Surface shrine and temple

Queen Puabi

Cylinder seals around neck, 14lbs of jewlery

buried with food and drink

Sudu

Weapons and provisions to take into afterlife

Hi-li

Looking presentable and decorated

Me

Divine powers represented by your clothes

Ephiphyseal fusion

bones fuse as you get older

growth plates let the main bone grow and then completely fuse

doesnt always provide accurate malnutrition

Dentition

Aging by teeth

Sexting

Pelvic bone

Skull and jaw

Enamel hypoplasia

Teeth are not growing and this is how it is visable

Retzius lines

Microscopic lines in the teeth

Pourous Lesions

on skull and eye socket

associated with anemia and health stress

Porotic Hyperstosis

lesions on the skull

indicate nutrition caused by anemia

Cribia Orbitalia

lesions on the eye socket

Harris Lines

Dense lines in long bones that may reflect interrputed growth during childhood

Need an XRAY to see!!!

Occupational markers

massive muscle attachments that indicate repetitive lifting

Auditory exotoses

excesssive water in the ears

Tibial infections

change to shin bone caused by infection and inflammation

Bones from Conchopata

Violence

foreigner sacrificed

Skul trauma

Women: back of the head

Male; Front of the head (combat)

12c and 13c

Dietary sources based on plant photosynthesis

C3 plants

fruits, nuts, veggies, rice, and wheat

C3 plants relationship to 13c

lower proportions

C4 plants relationship to 13c

higher proportions

Nitrogen isotopes

14n and 15n

identify a person’s position in the food chain by source of dietary protein

marine foods and relationship with15N

higher but it varies

microbiome

communities of microscopic organisms in and on the human body

mouth in particular

Plaque

important microbiome to archeologists

Diseaes with skeletal markings

arthritis chronic infection, dietary deficiancies

Diseases with no skeletal marks

quick killing diseases

modern microbiota

reduced gene pool, less diverse oral ecosystem

molar wear indicates

ground foods (agriculture)

ratio of carbon isotopes in the air

12c-99%

13c-1%

Carnivores

higher 15N than herbivores

incremental detine lines

growth layers within teeth provide high resolultion, time0series profiles of an individual’es life

impact of foraging to farming

health decline