Collections of old human remains in museums are currently under increased scrutiny and pressure. On the one hand they are problematised from a post-colonial and human rights point of view as the ...material remains of historic and ongoing structural violence connected to scientific knowledge production. On the other, new methods in archaeological science have led to increasing demand for destructive sampling. Without guidance and support by laws and formal standardised professional guidelines, museums may find themselves squeezed from two opposing sides. Based on an analysis of laws and professional guidelines, and a large-scale survey of the practical handling of old human remains in Swedish museums, this article argues that the lack of a shared professional process that recognises the complexity of old human remains as both objects of science and lived lives, risks undermining the role of museums in their relationship to both the public and the research community.
The world is on fire, and European archaeologists are starting to feel the heat. With the war in the Ukraine, the rise of polarizing politics and global authoritarianism, and the climate emergency ...pushing us closer to the tipping point of planetary destruction, we cannot help but to feel deeply affected. In the face of these challenges, we want to act, but what we do as archaeologists can sometimes seem trivial and insignificant. Even worse, a critical examination of our disciplinary history can lead us to conclude that we are complicit in the injustices and even partially responsible for the current situation.
The application of clay to the heads of deceased hunter-gatherers within the Middle Neolithic burials of Finland and Latvia was originally identified by researchers working in these regions during ...the 20th century. This practice stands apart from the deeper-seated traditions of grave adornment which characterise the hunter-gatherer archaeology of the Baltic region during the Middle Holocene. However, the variable extent to which these 'death masks' are preserved and recorded has confounded attempts to discuss their meaning or significance in detail. This paper approaches the problem through a discussion of the materials involved in masking, rather than the forms represented by the masks themselves. Through this discussion, an understanding of the relationship between material ontology and cosmology emerges, which is subsequently situated within a socio-historical context through a review of the available radiocarbon dates and broader patterns of social change in the Middle Neolithic archaeology of the Eastern Baltic.
Recently rediscovered photographs of the remains of thirteen individuals buried in the Sado Valley Mesolithic shell middens of Poças de S. Bento and Arapouco, excavated in 1960 and 1962, show the ...potential of revisiting excavation archives with new methods. The analysis, which applies the principles of archaeothanatology and is enriched by experimental taphonomic research, confirmed details concerning the treatment of the dead body and provided new insights into the use of burial spaces. Some bodies may have been mummified prior to burial, a phenomenon possibly linked to their curation and transport, highlighting the significance of both the body and the burial place in Mesolithic south-western Portugal.
Methodological developments and new paleoanthropological data remain jointly central to clarifying the timing and systemic interrelationships between the Middle-Upper Paleolithic (MP-UP) ...archaeological transition and the broadly contemporaneous anatomically modern human-archaic biological turnover. In the recently discovered cave site of Mughr el-Hamamah, Jordan, in situ flint artifacts comprise a diagnostic early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) assemblage. Unusually well-preserved charcoal from hearths and other anthropogenic features associated with the lithic material were subjected to acid-base-wet oxidation-stepped combustion (ABOx-SC) pretreatment. This article presents the ABOx-SC accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dates on nine charcoal specimens from a single palimpsest occupation layer. Date calibration was carried out using the INTCAL13 radiocarbon calibration dataset. With the bulk of the material dating to 45–39 ka cal BP (thousands of years calibrated before present), the Mughr el-Hamamah lithic artifacts reveal important differences from penecontemporaneous sites in the region, documenting greater technological variability than previously known for this time frame in the Levant. The radiocarbon data from this EUP archaeological context highlight remaining challenges for increasing chronological precision in documenting the MP–UP transition.
The reconstruction of past mortuary rituals and practices increasingly incorporates analysis of the taphonomic history of the grave and buried body, using the framework provided by ...archaeothanatology. Archaeothanatological analysis relies on interpretation of the three-dimensional (3D) relationship of bones within the grave and traditionally depends on elaborate written descriptions and two-dimensional (2D) images of the remains during excavation to capture this spatial information. With the rapid development of inexpensive 3D tools, digital replicas (3D models) are now commonly available to preserve 3D information on human burials during excavation. A procedure developed using a test case to enhance archaeothanatological analysis and improve post-excavation analysis of human burials is described. Beyond preservation of static spatial information, 3D visualization techniques can be used in archaeothanatology to reconstruct the spatial displacement of bones over time, from deposition of the body to excavation of the skeletonized remains. The purpose of the procedure is to produce 3D simulations to visualize and test archaeothanatological hypotheses, thereby augmenting traditional archaeothanatological analysis. We illustrate our approach with the reconstruction of mortuary practices and burial taphonomy of a Bell Beaker burial from the site of Oostwoud-Tuithoorn, West-Frisia, the Netherlands. This case study was selected as the test case because of its relatively complete context information. The test case shows the potential for application of the procedure to older 2D field documentation, even when the amount and detail of documentation is less than ideal.
As a corridor for population movement out of Africa, the southern Levant is a natural laboratory for research exploring the dynamics of the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition. Yet, the number of ...well-preserved sites dating to the initial millennia of the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP; ∼45–30 ka) remains limited, restricting the resolution at which we can study the biocultural and techno-typological changes evidenced across the transition. With EUP deposits dating to 45–39 ka cal BP, Mughr el-Hamamah, Jordan, offers a key opportunity to expand our understanding of EUP lifeways in the southern Levant. Mughr el-Hamamah is particularly noteworthy for its large faunal assemblage, representing the first such assemblage from the Jordan Valley. In this paper, we present results from taxonomic and taphonomic analyses of the EUP fauna from Mughr el-Hamamah. Given broader debates about shifts in human subsistence across the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition, we also assess evidence for subsistence intensification, focusing especially on the exploitation of gazelle and the use of small game. Taphonomic data suggest that the fauna was primarily accumulated by human activity. Ungulates dominate the assemblage; gazelle (Gazella sp.) is the most common taxa, followed by fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica) and goat (Capra sp.). Among the gazelle, juveniles account for roughly one-third of the sample. While the focus on gazelle and the frequency of juveniles are consistent with broader regional trends, evidence for the regular exploitation of marrow from gazelle phalanges suggests that the EUP occupants of Mughr el-Hamamah processed gazelle carcasses quite intensively. Yet, the overall degree of dietary intensification appears low—small game is rare and evidence for human capture of this game is more equivocal. As a whole, our results support a growing body of data showing gradual shifts in animal exploitation strategies across the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition in the southern Levant.
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