Challenges for funerary taphonomy viewed through prehistoric Cyprus

Abstract

Older archaeological excavations present challenges for exploring current research questions relating to funerary taphonomy, while ongoing excavations offer opportunities for maximizing relevant data through adjustments in the recording and recovery of human remains. This paper explores these issues through specific case studies from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, drawing wider inferences relevant to the region and beyond. The archaeological record of prehistoric Cyprus (from the earliest evidence of human occupation to the Late Bronze Age) includes a rich array of mortuary contexts exemplifying the infinite variations in human treatment of their dead. These include burial contexts containing single inhumations within settlements or cemeteries; burial contexts containing multiple primary inhumations; burial contexts containing both primary and secondary depositions of human remains; burial contexts containing only secondary arrangements of human remains or evidence for complex processing scenarios; human remains in settlement contexts (pits, middens, general settlement deposits); and remains within other anthropogenic features (such as wells). While soil chemistry, diagenesis and looting (both ancient and more recent) complicate the application of some methods with relevance to funerary taphonomy in Cyprus, opportunities for using archaeothanatology, the study of articulation and context, as well as element representation curves and bone representation indices exist. This paper explores the potential of these methods through the presentation of specific case studies of successive investigations spanning several decades at Cypriot prehistoric sites and complexes, including Neolithic Khirokitia, the Chalcolithic Souskiou complex, and the Bronze Age chamber tomb complexes at Psematismenos-Trelloukkas. In doing so, this paper not only draws attention to the wealth of data to be gleaned from specific groups of prehistoric Cypriot burials where detailed recording has been conducted (or the loss of data where such recording methods have not been in place), but also, in a wider perspective, offers suggestions for re-assessing archive records and examining their potential and limitations in relation to questions formulated in current research. As the challenges due to the nature and quality of recording and recovery of archaeological human remains are not unique to Cyprus, but rather, are also found in the surrounding regions of the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as further afield, the paper goes further by suggesting ways to maximize data for funerary taphonomy within ongoing and future excavations.