Related Papers
Advances in Archaeological Practice
Advances in Documentation of Commingled and Fragmentary Remains
2019 •
Anna Osterholtz
Commingled and fragmentary remains are found in numerous contexts worldwide. These assemblages typically require large scale, long term study to fully extract and contextualize meaningful data. However, when uncovered in CRM and foreign settings where remains cannot leave their country of origin, there is a need for quick, reliable data collection. Presented here is a recording system for use in field- and research-based laboratory settings. Utilizing visual forms and a minimal set of observations for skeletal elements from the cranium to the foot, the database facilitates data collection of fragment identification, age at death and sex estimation, dental observations, trauma recording, and taphonomic observations. A data dictionary is also provided, with definitions and value lists used in the database itself. The database has been used in field labs throughout the old world and by numerous researchers who have modified it to meet their own research needs. By presenting a minimal standard of data in a highly adaptable database, the recording system described here provides consistent baseline data in a user-friendly, quick-access format
Kiva
Interpreting and Reinterpreting Sacred Ridge: Placing Extreme Processing in a Larger Context
2018 •
Anna Osterholtz
Assemblages consisting of fragmented, cut, and burned human bone in the prehistoric Southwest have a long history of both analysis and controversy. How do we interpret violence and destruction of the body that occurred hundreds to thousands of years ago? Two basic models have emerged with regard to these assemblages: cannibalism (as primarily codified by the work of Turner) and extreme processing (as developed by Kuckelman and colleagues). These two models are discussed in this article, as is their development and interpretive power. Through the lens of Sacred Ridge, a large Pueblo I assemblage dating to approximately A.D. 810 in southwestern Colorado, the different interpretations of violence in the Southwest are interrogated. This study highlights the importance of placing assemblages that are heavily fragmented with high degrees of perimortem violence, tool marks, and burning into larger regional and temporal contexts.
BURIAL AND MORTUARY PRACTICES IN LATE PERIOD AND GRAECO-ROMAN EGYPT
“From Chaos to coherence”: Anthropological analysis of commingled human remains from Tomb Saff-1 at El-Khoha Hill in Qurna
2017 •
orsolya laszlo
Anthropological investigations of the human bone material from the excavation of the Hungarian Archaeological Mission at the southern slope of el-Khoha Hill started in 2011 and continued in 2014. The analysis was completed on the commingled anthropological material of presumably secondary burials found without clear archaeological context but accompanied by scattered Third Intermediate Period and Late Period finds in the Tomb Saff-1. The human remains were sorted using morphological techniques, including the assessment of the minimum number of individuals (MNI), as well as standard techniques to estimate age, sex and stature. During the excavation, the finds of certain parts were separated according to the characteristically different architectural units and the anthropological analysis started following these smaller areas. The results show whether the separation is relevant in the case of the human remains, or the material is more mingled than expected, and if it is, in which areas. For the whole material, the estimated MNI was 72. The assemblage was not only analysed regarding the demographic profile but also the spatial distribution of skeletal and mummified remains were interpreted. These data combined with the analysis of fragmentation of skull elements, long bones and mummified remains helped to investigate the degree of damage due to looting and repeated use of the tomb. With this research it was intended to locate areas in the grave where the human remains are less affected by these factors providing insight into the formation processes of the assemblage.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
Funerary taphonomy: An overview of goals and methods
2016 •
Christopher Knüsel
Bodies in Motion: A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Migration and Identity in Bronze Age Cyprus (2400-1100 BC)
Anna Osterholtz
The analysis of human remains from the Bronze Age on Cyprus offers insights into underlying issues of social change and identity formation. Data collected from human remains from six sites throughout the southern half of Cyprus dating to the PreBA through the ProBA (2400—1100 BC) provide insight into social cohesion and group identity during this time of constant social change. Human remains were used to provide demographic data (such as number of individuals interred together, age at death and sex), health profiles (such as incidence of childhood stress, pathologies, and trauma), and robusiticty. Specifically, these data were gathered to provide an additional line of evidence regarding social identity on Cyprus during the Bronze Age and to address the issues of identity formation and change through time. Biocultural bioarchaeology is poised to address such issues through the combined examination of skeletal data in conjunction with archaeological data (such as tomb type, location, settlement pattern, iv subsistence pattern). In using a biocultural model, bioarchaeological data can help to examine social interaction and cultural buffering mechanisms. An additional goal of this research was the examination of bioarchaeological data to provide an additional line of evidence for issues of migration versus colonization and integration of external peoples at two pivotal times in the Bronze Age (the PreBA 1 and the ProBA 1 periods). These two time periods have been seen as moments in time where population influx occurred, usually explained by colonization or migration. This work supports the migration and hybridization model by showing a consistent lack of indicators expected to be present during times of social upheaval.
Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences
Commingled Human Remains
2018 •
Anna Osterholtz
Bioarchaeology in the ancient Near East: Challenges and future directions for the southern Levant
Susan Guise Sheridan
The synthesis of biological anthropology, archaeology, and social theory provides a bioarchaeological model to reconstruct nuanced aspects of demography, diet, disease, death, daily activities, and bio-distance, even in the absence of discrete burials. Numerous skeletal assemblages in the southern Levant are composed of mixed and fragmented bones resulting from generational use of cemeteries, mass burial, and additional communal burial practices. Others become commingled due to tapho-nomic processes such as flooding, geological events, or human mediated mechanisms like looting, improper excavation, and poor curation. Such collections require one to ask broader questions of human adaptability, exercise a holistic approach, use broad demographic categories, and remain cog-nizant of the limitations posed by fragmentation. Expanded research questions and ethical considerations, the use of centralized databases and understudied collections, as well as the application of social media, citizen science, and crowd sourcing provide new tools for bioarchaeological analyses of the many commingled ancient Near Eastern collections in the southern Levant.
A tale of two platforms: Commingled remains and the life-course of houses at Neolithic Çatalhöyük
2015 •
Christopher Knüsel, Scott D. Haddow, Rémi Hadad
The majority of burials at Neolithic Çatalhöyük (7400-6000 calBC) consist of intramural subfloor primary interments, most often underneath the northern and eastern platforms of the central room. Loose, disarticulated skeletal remains such as crania and other elements are often recovered from the grave fills of these burials, but it is often difficult to determine whether they represent an intentional secondary redeposition or an unintended consequence of disturbances of earlier primary burials by later ones. As a result, the commingling of skeletal remains at Çatalhöyük is extremely common. In this paper, we seek to build upon previous discussions of the formation of commingled deposits of human skeletal remains at the site by focusing on two very different assemblages recovered from adjacent platforms in Building 52, a house currently under excavation in the North Area of the site. These two skeletal assemblages exhibit various degrees of commingling and represent the outcome of divergent mortuary practices: one characterized by successive inhumations carried out over time and the other by an unusual single interment episode consisting of multiple individuals in various states of articulation. Our aim is to demonstrate the relationship between these two assemblages and the occupational history of Building 52. We argue that the life-course of houses and the individuals associated with them were deeply entangled. This shared biography was achieved through the periodic and episodic incorporation of bodies – whole or in part - within the fabric of the house.
TAPHONOMIC ANALYSIS OF HUMAN SKELETAL MATERIAL FROM AZTALAN: CANNIBALISM, HOSTILITY AND MORTUARY VARIABILITY
Katie Zejdlik
Aztalan is a Late Woodland/ Mississippian (A.D. 1000-1200) archaeological site located on the west bank of the Crawfish River in Jefferson County, Wisconsin. At its occupational height, a palisade with square bastions enclosed and subdivided nine hectares of the mound-village complex. This included three flat-topped pyramidal mounds at the northwest, northeast and southwest corners, a natural gravel knoll on the southeast corner, a central plaza and domestic structures including houses, hearths, storage pits and midden deposits. Human remains at Aztalan have been found in primarily four known contexts: 1) primary, in-flesh inhumations, 2) secondary bundle burials 3) charnel structure cremations and 4) scattered, isolated and processed remains in refuse pits, fire pits, along the inner and outer palisade and strewn across the habitation area. Scattered, isolated and processed human remains at Aztalan have been interpreted as the result of cannibalism or secondary processing in mortuary ritual. Intergroup hostility has also been suggested but never formally investigated. This research uses taphonomic methods to examine perimortem and postmortem modification to the Aztalan human remains as a means to identify what processes have affected the remains and also to characterize the Aztalan skeletal assemblage. Results of the analysis suggest that when the formal and informal burials at Aztalan are compared to each other and interpreted through the cultural and political milieu present at Aztalan during that time, an interpretation of intergroup hostility is supported.
Book review: Osterholtz et al. 2014. Commingled and Disarticulated Human Remains: Working Toward Improved Theory, Method, and Data.
Vera Tiesler
