The Odd, the Unusual, and the Strange (eBook)

Bioarchaeological Explorations of Atypical Burials

Tracy K. Betsinger, Amy B. Scott, Anastasia Tsaliki (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: PDF

2019
448 Seiten
University of Florida Press (Verlag)
978-1-68340-140-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Abnormal burial practices have long been a source of fascination and debate within the fields of mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology. The Odd, the Unusual, and the Strange investigates an unparalleled geographic and temporal range of burials that differ from the usual customs of their broader societies, emphasizing the importance of a holistic, context-driven approach to these intriguing cases.



From an Andean burial dating to 3500 BC to mummified bodies interred in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Sicily, during the twentieth century, the studies in this volume cross the globe and span millennia. The unusual cases explored here include Native American cemeteries in Illinois, “vampire” burials in medieval Poland, and a mass grave of decapitated soldiers in ancient China. Moving away from the simplistic assumption that these burials represent people who were considered deviant in society, contributors demonstrate the importance of an integrated biocultural approach in determining why an individual was buried in an unusual way.



Drawing on historical, sociocultural, archaeological, and biological data, this volume critically evaluates the binary of “typical” versus “atypical” burials. It expands our understanding of the continuum of variation within mortuary practices, helping researchers better interpret burial evidence to learn about the people and cultures of the past.







A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen

Autor

Tracy K. Betsinger is associate professor of anthropology at SUNY Oneonta. Amy B. Scott is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of New Brunswick. Betsinger and Scott are coeditors of The Anthropology of the Fetus: Biology, Culture, and Society. Anastasia Tsaliki is a forensic and cultural consultant based in London with an expertise in unusual body disposals and social exclusion.

Inhalt

List of Illustrations

Foreword

Eileen Murphy

Deconstructing “Deviant”: An Introduction to the History of Atypical Burials and the Importance of Context in the Bioarchaeological Record

Amy B. Scott, Tracy K. Betsinger, Anastasia Tsaliki

1. Bodies Among Fragments: Non-Normative Inhumations among the Preclassic and Classic Period Hohokam in the Tucson Basin

Jessica I. Cerezo-Román

2. Interpreting a Multiple Burial in an Early Ancestral Pueblo Village

Ann L.W. Stodder

3. A Young Man Twice Burned: A Deviant Burial from West-Central Illinois

Della Collins Cook, Laura Gano, Kristin M. Hedman, Susan Spencer Helfrich, Andrew R. Thompson

4. The Odd Man Out in a Pioneer Cemetery at Seccombe Lake Park, San Bernadino, California

Patricia M. Lambert

5. Defining Non-Normative Practices in a Diverse Funerary Record: Insights from the Caribbean

Hayley L. Mickleburgh, Menno L.P. Hoogland, Jason E. Laffoon, Darlene A. Weston, Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, Anne van Duijvenbode, Angus A.A. Mol

6. Good, Bad, or Indifferent? A Unique “Deviant” Burial from the Formative Site of Aranjuez-Santa Lucía, South Central Andes

Olga U. Gabelmann, Lawrence S. Owens

7. The Hunchback, the Contortionist, the Man with the Stolen Identity, and the One Who Will be Born in the Afterlife: Pre-Hispanic Deviant Burials from Huarmey Valley, Peru

Wiesław Więckowski, Miłosz Giersz, Roberto Pimentel Nita

8. Friend or Foe? Investigating a Mass Burial at the Templo de la Piedra Segrada at Túcume, Peru

Barbara R. Hewitt

9. What’s the Norm? “Irregular” and “Regular” Burial Practices of the Early Iron Age in Central Europe

Nils Müller-Scheessel, Carola Benszin, Gisela Grupe, Annette Schwentke, Anja Staskiewicz, Thomas Tütken, Joachim Wahl

10. Burial in a Kiln: Transgression and Punishment in Late Antiquity

Anastasia Tsaliki

11. Variation Beyond the Grave: Contextualizing Unusual Burials in Early Medieval Bohemia

Lauren Hosek

12. Good and Bad Death in Early Medieval Times? Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Non-Normative Burials in Finland in the Eleventh-Thirteenth Centuries AD

Ulla Moilanen

13. Atypical Burials in Early Medieval Poland: A Critical Overview

Leszek Gardeła

14. Does Health Define Deviancy? Non-Normative Burials in Post-Medieval Poland

Tracy K. Betsinger, Amy B. Scott

15. The “Vampires” of Lesvos: Detecting and Interpreting Anti-Revenant Ritual in Greece

Sandra Garvie-Lok, Anastasia Tsaliki

16. Natural Mummification as a Non-Normative Mortuary Custom of Modern Period Sicily (1600-1800)

Dario Piombino-Mascali, Kenneth C. Nystrom

Betsinger, et al.

17. Out of Range? Non-normative Funerary Practices from the Neolithic to the early Twentieth Century at Çatalhöyük, Turkey

Scott D. Haddow, Josh W. Sadvari, Christopher J. Knüsel, Sophie V. Moore, Clark S. Larsen, Selin E. Nugent

18. Deviant Treatment of the Body as a Mortuary Ritual: A Case from the Middle Jomon Period in Eastern Japan

Takeshi Ishikawa

19. Ancestors, Conflict, and Criminality in Ancient China and

Mongolia

Christine Lee

20. Dependent Deviance: Castration and Deviant Burial

Kathryn Reusch

Afterword

Andrew Reynolds

Contributors

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 3.12.2019
• Reihe/Serie: Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives
• Zusatzinfo: 84 b/w illus, 11 tables
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Archäologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Schlagworte: Andean • burial • Caribbean • Central Europe • cremation • Death • decapitation • dismemberment • excavations • Folklore • History • Late Antiquity • Medieval • mississippian • mortuary patterns • mortuary practices • Mortuary variation • rememberance • Social aspects • Social Bioarchaeology • Tucson Basin • vampires
• ISBN-10: 1-68340-140-9 / 1683401409
• ISBN-13: 978-1-68340-140-7 / 9781683401407