Session: #791

Theme & Session Format

Theme:
The archaeology of material culture, bodies and landscapes
Session format:
Session, made up of a combination of papers, max. 15 minutes each

Title & Content

Title:
Funerary ritual along Holocene period
Content:
The study of manipulation and marks in human remains can contribute to understand past societies: funerary rituals but also episodes of violence. The researchers need new methodologies and answers to resolve some questions:
How to distinguish marks of violence from fleshing?
How to interpret if the marks are due to a mere funeral ritual or a practice of anthropophagy? Are the same rituals along prehistory to recent periods?
Are homogenous practices throughout Europe simultaneously?
Why appear in caves only any parts of skeletons?
These are some of the questions that the researchers often ask themselves when they analyze the bones and observe marks. A researchers meeting in this area can give a collective response on some aspects.
So, this session is a compilation of different cases of some practices along Holocene related to funerary archaeology. Issues to be discussed will include genealogy, body manipulation, body fragmentation, ritual practices, gendered burial practices, secondary burial practices, differences in burial rites related to the status of the deceased, normative treatment and abnormal practices, grave goods, cremation vs. inhumation practices, evidence of violent death, including mass murder events, burial structures. Authors may include in their discussion osteological analysis and palaeopathological examinations. They can also refer to other analytical tools such as ancient DNA (aDNA) tests. Examples will be drawn from a wide period covering from prehistory in all its different epochs to Roman times, to early medieval and medieval to the modern era and will answer ours questions.
Keywords:
funerary ritual, manipulation, secondary burial
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no

Organisers

Main organiser:
M. Eulàlia Subirà (Spain) 1
Co-organisers:
Ian Gonzalez (France) 2
Affiliations:
1. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
2. Université Paul Valery, Montpeller,