Cilliní—or children's burial grounds—were the designated resting places for unbaptized infants and other members of Irish society who were considered unsuitable by the Roman Catholic Church for ...burial in consecrated ground. The sites appear to have proliferated from the seventeenth century onwards in the wake of the Counter-Reformation. While a number of previous studies have attempted to relate their apparently marginal characteristics to the liminality of Limbo, evidence drawn from the archaeological record and oral history accounts suggests that it was only the Roman Catholic Church that considered cilliní, and those interred within, to be marginal. In contrast, the evidence suggests that the families of the dead regarded the cemeteries as important places of burial and treated them in a similar manner to consecrated burial grounds.
En este trabajo se propone la utilización de herramientas provenientes de la tafonomía y la arqueotanatología para ampliar el conocimiento sobre las costumbres mortuorias y los procesos de formación ...de sitio a partir del análisis de restos óseos humanos. La muestra proviene del sitio Médano Petroquímica, un área de inhumación ubicada al sudoeste de la provincia de La Pampa, Argentina, que habría sido originada por sociedades cazadoras recolectoras de finales del Holoceno Tardío. Los resultados obtenidos del estudio de cuatro entierros, uno primario y tres secundarios (NMI=19), sugieren que las huellas de corte y la permanencia de relaciones articulares son consistentes con prácticas de manipulación del cuerpo en diferentes momentos después de la muerte. Por su parte, la actividad de insectos se registró en mayor frecuencia en el entierro primario. Los fechados, junto con la presencia de insectos, ocre y las características específicas de cada rasgo soportarían mayormente la sincronía en la inhumación de los rasgos del sitio.
This paper proposes the use of analytical tools from taphonomy and archaeothanatology to expand knowledge about mortuary customs and site formation processes from the analysis of human bone remains. The sample comes from the Médano Petroquímica site, an inhumation area located south west of La Pampa province, Argentina, which would have been originated by hunter-gatherer societies from the Late Holocene. The results obtained from the study of four burials, one primary and three secondary (NMI=19), suggest that the cut-marks and the presence of articular relationships are consistent with practices of body manipulation at different times after death. Furthermore, a greater frequency of insects activity was recorded in the primary burial. The radiocarbon dates, along with the presence of insects, ocher, and the specific features of each burial, would largely support the synchrony in the inhumation of the features of the site.
The funerary practices of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic populations of the Southern Caucasus are poorly known. However, in the last few years, research in funerary archaeology intensified in the ...region, using recently developed approaches such as archaeothanatology. Thanks to the excavation of burials according to this method as well as to the reassessment of the published data, it is possible to achieve a state of knowledge on funerary behavior of these populations. Across the whole region, 23 sites with burials have been recorded: Neolithic (2), Chalcolithic (15), Neolithic and Chalcolithic (2) and uncertain chronological attribution (Neolithic and/or Chalcolithic) (4). All data collected revealed a diversification of the practices from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. Neolithic funerary practices are less homogeneous than previously thought and burial sites appear to have been closely related to living places. During the Chalcolithic, a diversification of the ways of burying the dead occurs with the appearance of new types of tombs (burials in ceramic vessels and kurgans) and an evolution of the relations between the place of life and the place of the dead can be seen.
ABSTRACT
Ancestors are a central and recurring theme in scholarship on mortuary practices in the pre‐Hispanic Andes. Archaeological and ethnohistoric data indicate that in many times and places the ...dead were critical social actors. Physical interaction with the bodies and spaces of ancestors was important in legitimizing claims to heritage, land, resources, and status. Yet, relatively neglected in the literature on Andean attitudes to the dead is how people dealt with other people's ancestors. To address this, I examine how a Late Intermediate Period community, who circa AD 1250 occupied an earlier terminal Middle Horizon village in southern Peru, managed interactions with their predecessors’ dead. Excavations at the site reveal considerable evidence for active avoidance of cemeteries associated with the older village, which contrasts with the re‐utilization of earlier domestic space. Moreover, aversion to the ancestors of others was practiced alongside active engagement with the new community's “own” dead. Drawing on Lau's recent (2013) discussion of alterity in the ancient Andes, I propose that just as interacting with one's own ancestors is frequently interpreted as a way of reifying belonging, steering clear of the dead can be equally powerful in community building and identity negotiation during major sociopolitical upheaval. alterity, funerary practice, Andean South America
RESUMEN
Los ancestros son un tema central y recurrente en la investigación sobre las prácticas mortuorias en los Andes prehispánicos. Los datos arqueológicos y etnohistóricos indican que en muchas ocasiones y lugares los muertos fueron actores sociales críticos. La interacción física con los cuerpos y los espacios de los ancestros fue importante en la legitimización de reclamaciones sobre patrimonio, tierra, recursos y estatus. Sin embargo, relativamente descuidada en la literatura sobre las actitudes andinas hacia los muertos es la manera como las personas se enfrentan a los ancestros de las otras personas. Para abordar esto, examino cómo una comunidad en el período Intermedio Tardío, que alrededor del año 1250 DC ocupó el poblado Horizonte Medio previamente un terminal en el sur del Perú, manejaba las interacciones con los muertos de sus predecesores. Las excavaciones en el sitio revelan evidencia considerable de una evitación activa de los cementerios asociados con el pueblo más antiguo, lo cual contrasta con la reutilización de espacios domésticos anteriores. Adicionalmente, la aversión a los ancestros de otros fue practicada junto a un compromiso activo con los muertos “propios” de la nueva comunidad. Basada en la discusión reciente de Lau (2013) sobre alteridad en los Andes antiguos, propongo que, así como el interactuar con los propios ancestros de uno es frecuentemente interpretado como una manera de reificar el sentido de pertenencia, el alejarse de los muertos puede ser igualmente poderoso en la construcción de la comunidad y la negociación de identidad, durante una gran revuelta sociopolítica. alteridad, práctica funeraria, América del Sur andina
ABSTRACT
This article seeks to expose the “fallacies of synchrony” that often accompany the analysis of human remains. In approaching a cemetery, for example, we all too easily think of the bodies ...there as a “community,” even when they belong to different generations or geographic contexts. This simple point has major implications, especially for the bioarchaeology of urban landscapes. Here, chronologically disparate elements accumulate in vast mélanges, offering innumerable examples of the “non‐contemporaneity of the contemporaneous,” an idea developed by Karl Mannheim (1928 1952) and Alfred Schutz (1967), and now extended to archaeology by Gavin Lucas (2015). To escape the fallacies of synchrony and explore the shifting rhythms of city life, I turn to the case of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. When the church burial vaults (ca. 1820–1850) were unexpectedly unearthed in 2006, they seemed to represent a ready‐made “congregation.” Yet Spring Street was actually a “catchment zone” of mingled and mangled temporalities. Though placed together in death, the bodies there had only occasionally crossed paths in life. By following some of their traces to and from the site, we may come to understand what it means to gather, work, and worship together in a society of strangers.
RESUMEN
Este artículo busca exponer las “falacias de la sincronía” que a menudo acompañan el análisis de los restos humanos. Cuando nos acercamos a un cementerio, por ejemplo, todos fácilmente pensamos de los cuerpos allí como una “comunidad,” aun cuando pertenecen a diferentes generaciones o contextos geográficos. Este simple punto tiene mayores implicaciones, especialmente para la bioarqueología de los paisajes urbanos. Aquí, elementos cronológicamente dispares se acumulan en vastas mezclas, ofreciendo innumerables ejemplos de la “no‐contemporaneidad de lo contemporáneo”, una idea desarrollada por Karl Mannheim (1928 1952) y Alfred Schutz (1967), y ahora extendida a la arqueología por Gavin Lucas (2015). Para escapar de las falacias de la sincronía y explorar los ritmos cambiantes de la vida de la ciudad, vuelvo al caso de la Iglesia Presbiteriana de Spring Street en Manhattan. Cuando las bóvedas de entierro de la iglesia (ca. 1820–1850) fueron desenterradas inesperadamente en 2006, parecieron representar una “congregación” previamente formada. Todavía Spring Street era en realidad una “zona de captación” de temporalidades mezcladas y mutiladas. Aunque colocados juntos en muerte, los cuerpos allí sólo ocasionalmente habían cruzado caminos en vida. Siguiendo algunas de sus huellas desde y hacia el sitio, podemos llegar a entender qué significa reunir, trabajar, y rezar juntos en una sociedad de extraños. cementerio, generación, curso de vida, temporalidad, barrio de Manhattan
This article examines the vexed archaeological question of the mummy of the so-called boy from KV 35 considering potential news studies on it, trying to present the most likely identifications based ...on anthropological and Egyptological information. The mummy could be related to Amenhotep II, but it could also represent a secondary burial.
Bulk stable carbon (<513C) and nitrogen isotope (<515N) analysis of human skeletal remains from Tamula and a spatio-temporally close multiple burial at Veibri (5th millennium cal BC) demonstrate a ...significant consumption of freshwater resources. Regarding these values not merely as a reflection of peoples' dietary preferences, but also as a reflection of their primary identities and an indication of local ecologies, we argue tliat the stable isotope data together with the fact tliat the late foragers were sedentary provides additional insights into the discussion on the structure of buried populations. The motivations (why?) behind the clustering of forager burials are thought to be related to increased sedentism and revolve around two focal ideas: i) tight economic and demographic conditions that are manifested through ancestral claims to one's territory (Clark & Neeley 1987; Zvelebil & Dolukhanov 1991; Larsson 1993; Rowley-Conwy 1998; Halinen 1999; Kriiska 2003; Zvelebil 2003; 2010; Grünberg 2016), and ii) the general understanding of forager worldview, where different worlds are materially enacted in the cultural landscape and burial sites are regarded as liminal places (Nilsson Stutz 2006; Jonuks 2009; Zvelebil 2010; ConneIler 2013). Irrespective ofthe motivations, researchers distinguish between i) proper cemeteries designated for a single community (e.g., Grünberg 2016, 13), ii) meeting places of several hunter-gatherer groups to perform different kinds of rituals, incl. burials (e.g., Jonuks 2009; Schulting et al. 2022), and/or iii) settlement sites where amongst daily activities death was also handled (e.g., Brück 1999; Nilsson Stutz 2014; Gummesson & Molin 2016; Tõrv 2018). ...all the answers about the function and meaning of hunter-gatherer burials sites are in one way or another related to the people buried in a designated burial area, i.e., the burial community.
While abortion foes in the United States rhetorically promote “life,” discursive invocations of death are foundational to antiabortion advocacy. Pro‐life strategists have made gains mandating the ...mourning of aborted fetuses through fetal burial bills, which require abortion providers to cremate or bury fetal tissue from abortion procedures. Fetal burial bills are inextricably tied to biopolitical regimes that make and manage grievable life. Drawing on cultural anthropology, feminist social science, critical race theory, and long‐term research on white evangelicalism, this article examines government documents (e.g., Indiana statutes, court rulings, health reports, legislative activity, and state prosecutions) to provide a discursive critique of Indiana's fetal burial law. Constructions of aborted fetuses as grievable human life and the formations of personhood they promote undergird what anthropologist Leith Mullings called the necropolitics of reproduction—a framework explaining how reproduction is constitutive of political regimes that use systemic violence to determine who (or what) lives and dies. Legal conceptions of fetal personhood that hyper‐value fetal subjects entwine with systemic racism, Christian ideology, and anti‐environmentalism to diminish the Black and Brown bodies and environments on which their futures depend. This case is a bellwether for broader dynamics in anti‐abortion policy and activism in the post‐Roe era.
We have recently studied northern Finnish archaeological textiles extensively using computed tomography (CT) imaging. These textiles have been found in inhumation burials from the Late Medieval ...church of Valmarinniemi in Keminmaa and the Postmedieval church of Haukipudas. In this article we discuss the advantages and limitations of CT imaging based on three case studies. Based on the research objectives and the size of studied items, we utilised three different CT scanners: clinical systems and micro- and nano-scale X-ray microscopes. We were able to visualise a child’s coffin and a doll inside, which is a larger scale sample. We were also able to study and reconstruct the complicated structure of a tablet-woven band, as well as identifying individual fibres when examining smaller textile samples with submicron resolution. Even though we observed some limitations in the image quality, we conclude that computed tomography has great potential in the research of archaeological textiles in both 3D and cross-sections and is often easier and more informative than conventional microscopic or other archaeological methodologies.
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