Practice and Prestige: An Exploration of Neolithic Warfare, Bell Beaker Archery, and Social Stratification from an Anthropological Perspective investigates the appearance of the ‘archer’s package’ in ...select Bell Beaker burials raising questions of daily life, warfare, and social stratification during the Neolithic period. It draws on a recent study by the author that applied an anthropological methodology to assess the bone morphology of these skeletons for signs of specialised archery activity. These analyses revealed results at both a population as well as an individual level. In order to contextualise these osteological findings, the book explores the evidence for warfare and archery throughout the Neolithic period in general and the Bell Beaker period in particular. This perspective considers warfare to be a primary function of archery, thereby associating ‘archer’ burials with concepts of warfare and the warrior. A second perspective delves into prehistoric concepts of specialisation and social hierarchy in order to situate archers, archery, and warfare within potentially stratified populations. These two perspectives allow for the contextualisation of the anthropological results within a broad archaeological framework in which archers and archery were prominent parts of a complex Bell Beaker society.
Animal remains are a common find in prehistoric and protohistoric funerary contexts. While taphonomic and osteological data provide insights about the proximate (depositional) factors responsible for ...these findings, the ultimate cultural causes leading to this observed mortuary behavior are obscured by the opacity of the archaeological record and the lack of written sources. Here, we apply an interdisciplinary suite of analytical approaches (zooarchaeological, anthropological, archaeological, paleogenetic, and isotopic) to explore the funerary deposition of animal remains and the nature of joint human-animal burials at Seminario Vescovile (Verona, Northern Italy 3rd-1st c. BCE). This context, culturally attributed to the Cenomane culture, features 161 inhumations, of which only 16 included animal remains in the form of full skeletons, isolated skeletal parts, or food offerings. Of these, four are of particular interest as they contain either horses (Equus caballus) or dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)-animals that did not play a dietary role. Analyses show no demographic, dietary, funerary similarities, or genetic relatedness between individuals buried with animals. Isotopic data from two analyzed dogs suggest differing management strategies for these animals, possibly linked to economic and/or ritual factors. Overall, our results point to the unsuitability of simple, straightforward explanations for the observed funerary variability. At the same time, they connect the evidence from Seminario Vescovile with documented Transalpine cultural traditions possibly influenced by local and Roman customs.
