Burial Archaeology Research Articles

Islamic life and death in Australia, after 1890: The archaeology of cameleer burials

Among the best-preserved, prominent, and most diagnostic archaeological artefacts of the camel transport industry from the period after ∼1890 in Australia are the graves of Muslim cameleers that can be found across the continent, from a single grave at the most isolated site to cemeteries in capital cities. They tell a story—directly from the cameleers—that usually cannot be read from other evidence. These graves vary from the simplest tumuli in remote areas that conform with the strictest Islamic ideals to complex graves with a superstructure, headstone and a detailed epitaph. English may be used in epitaphs with or without Arabic or Dari, and less commonly we see Arabic or Dari with no English. This makes it clear that Muslim epitaphs were not solely addressing other Muslims. In many cases, the name, date and origin of the interred individual remains unknown, and this prevents more detailed interpretation. In other cases, graves with greater complexity may include passages from the Quran, and there are even some epitaphs that give great personal details of Muslim life in Australia. Such detail includes divisions between tribes and Islamic sects. Major deviations from correct Islamic grave orientation in two cemeteries cannot be convincingly explained, but these suggest another case of diversity in the tribal and sect affiliation of these individuals. Burials of these Muslims restored in the late twentieth century are no longer solely religious monuments but are also socially motivated in a more diverse and integrated Australia. There are several indicators by which the graves of Muslims can be identified, but they may also overlap with Christian graves in other elements of style. These indicators tie burial practices to Islam in Asia. Finally, orientation relative to the qiblah is not invariably diagnostic.

Ancient Genome of Broomcorn Millet from Northwest China in Seventh Century CE: Shedding New Light to Its Origin and Dispersal Patterns

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) is among the earliest domesticated staple crops in the world’s agricultural history and facilitated the development of several early agrarian cultures, particularly those originating in northern China. However, the propagation route of broomcorn millet in China from the Middle Ages to the present remains unclear. The aim of this study is to explore the genetic affinity between ancient and modern millet samples, trace the genetic origins and diffusion pathways of broomcorn millet, and provide insights into its domestication and spread. To achieve this, we sequence ancient DNA from broomcorn millet remains excavated from the Chashan Village cemetery (AD 691) in Gansu Province, China. Phylogenetic and population genetic analyses, integrating ancient and modern millet genomes, reveal a close genetic relationship between ancient millet and contemporary millet from Ningxia Province (445 km away from Chashan Village), suggesting a potential origin for the Chashan millet. This finding aligns with the tomb’s epitaph, which documents the reburial of the tomb’s owner, who was originally buried in Ningxia, and provides important archaeological evidence for understanding the interaction between geopolitical dynamics and the natural environment in northwest China during the late seventh century. Furthermore, outgroup-f3 and D statistics evidence suggests substantial genetic interactions between ancient millet and modern varieties from the Loess Plateau, Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, and Northeast Plain, indicating the dispersal route of broomcorn millet, along with human migration routes, from the northwest to northern China and ultimately to the northeast region, starting from the Middle Ages onward. This study enhances our understanding of millet’s genetic history, offers a novel perspective on burial archaeology, and provides valuable insights into the origins, domestication, and diffusion of broomcorn millet.

A study of reviewing at the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology: Accepting, declining, fairness, and responsibilities

A study of reviewing at the <i>International Journal of Osteoarchaeology</i>: Accepting, declining, fairness, and responsibilities

Michael Parker Pearson, The Archaeology of Death and Burial

Michael Parker Pearson, The Archaeology of Death and Burial

Voices from the Cemetery: the Social Archaeology of Late-Medieval Burial

THIS ARTICLE CRITICALLY REVIEWS THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY of high- to late-medieval burials (c ad 1000–1550), examining how and why research questions have changed in recent decades. Examples are drawn from Christian mortuary practices principally from Britain, northern and central Europe, to demonstrate increasing emphasis on the social study of emotion, agency and place. The question of social ‘value’ is addressed, exploring how disciplinary research agendas respond to altering academic currents and wider public concerns regarding medieval burials. Four themes are examined that characterise key developments: (1) a shift towards the micro-scale; (2) the exploration of emotion, with particular focus on child and infant burials; (3) a pre-occupation with ‘deviancy’ (non-normative practices); and (4) ethical considerations in the public consumption of medieval burial archaeology. Recommendations for future work include the need for comparative, larger-scale analyses to map diachronic and regional patterns across medieval Europe and to counterbalance recent trends towards the local and the individual.

Virtual Archaeology of Death and Burial: A Procedure for Integrating 3D Visualization and Analysis in Archaeothanatology

Abstract 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.

Building Bridges Between Burial Archaeology and the Archaeology of Death – Where Is the Archaeological Study of the Dead Going

Building Bridges Between Burial Archaeology and the Archaeology of Death : Where is the Archaeological Study of the Dead Going?

Re-approaching Celts: Origins, Society, and Social Change

This work re-approaches the origins of “the Celts” by detailing the character of their society and the nature of social change in Europe across 700–300 BC. A new approach integrates regional burial archaeology with contemporary classical texts to further refine our social understanding of the European Iron Age. Those known to us as “Celts” were matrifocal Early Iron Age groups in central Gaul who engaged in social traditions out of the central European salt trade and became heavily involved in Mediterranean politics. The paper focuses on evidence from the Hallstatt–La Tène transition to solve a 150-year-old problem: how the Early Iron Age “Celts” became the early La Tène “Galatai,” who engaged in the Celtic migrations and the sacking of Rome at 387 BC.

Book Review of From Invisible to Visible: New Methods and Data for the Archaeology of Infant and Child Burials in Pre-Roman Italy and Beyond, edited by Jacopo Tabolli

Book Review of From Invisible to Visible: New Methods and Data for the Archaeology of Infant and Child Burials in Pre-Roman Italy and Beyond, edited by Jacopo Tabolli

The pyre and the grave: early medieval cremation burials in the Netherlands, the German Rhineland and Belgium

ABSTRACT This paper problematizes grand-narrative thinking in continental, north western European early medieval (450–800 CE) burial archaeology. Using the existing research history and current debate on early medieval cremation burials, I demonstrate that European early medieval burial archaeology has focused on explaining the development of the furnished inhumation burial since the discipline’s conception. This has led to a misrepresentation of the diversity of early medieval burial practices and reinforced broad, unsatisfactory explanatory models. By including other burial types, like cremation burials, the overall model is changed in terms of what early medieval burial practices comprised, enabling a better understanding of the development of early medieval society.

The Vitae Prophetarum and the Archaeology of Jewish Burials: Exploring Class Distinctions in Early Roman Palestine

The Vitae Prophetarum and the Archaeology of Jewish Burials: Exploring Class Distinctions in Early Roman Palestine

The Vitae Prophetarum and the Archaeology of Jewish Burials: Exploring Class Distinctions in Early Roman Palestine

Modern commentators on the Vitae Prophetarum have tended to assume that every prophet’s bur-ial in this text was considered monumental in scale. A close examination of the language used to describe each burial yields a different, more nuanced picture. Vitae Prophetarum features prophets being buried in one of three ways: in a more-or-less monumental rock-cut tomb just outside Jerusalem, in a rock-cut tomb on the prophet’s own property, or in an indistinct field grave. This typology agrees with the emerging archaeological record of socioeconomic distinctions in burial practices. Whereas Jewish elites were buried in rock-cut tombs around Jerusalem or, more modestly, on their own estates, non-elites were interred in simple trench graves. This study demonstrates that the Vitae Prophetarum corroborates this relationship between burial types and socioeconomic distinctions, placing priestly elites and landowners in rock-cut tombs but the humbler prophets in trench graves.

Archaeology and the built environment of early medieval England

The bulk of people we can now be assured, were content with something that hardly deserves a better title than that of a hovel […] in such cabins, with bare head room, amid a filthy litter of broken bones, of food and shattered pottery […] lived the Anglo-Saxons (Leeds 1936: 25–26). This quote from E.T. Leeds, a pioneer of Anglo-Saxon archaeology during the first half of the twentieth century, was inspired by his excavation of settlement remains at Sutton Courtenay, then in Berkshire. Leeds's excavations were actually a breakthrough moment, resulting in the first identification of early medieval settlement structures other than those associated with ecclesiastical sites. In spite of this, the frustration and disappointment with the character and quality of the Sutton Courtenay site are all too apparent in Leeds's assessment. As an expert in Anglo-Saxon artwork, how could he reconcile the skill and craft of fine metalwork, with the ephemeral and impoverished settlement with which he was now dealing? Likewise, where were the great charismatic halls of monumental construction that populated such literary sources as Beowulf? The excavation of the graves of Sutton Hoo, two years after investigations at Sutton Courtney came to a close, served only to amplify the disparity between settlement and burial archaeology—put simply, burials were viewed as richer, grander and far more interesting.

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial

The archaeology of post-medieval death and burial

SUMMARY: The richness of post-medieval mortuary archaeology is explored through a broad number of cases, also identifying trends in research agendas and theoretical approaches, through time. This article considers the archaeology of burial and mourning; the osteological study of demography and health; the reconstruction of the individual biographies of the dead and hitherto marginalized histories, with a focus on the archaeology of the United Kingdom, but with reference to work which has taken place elsewhere, including Europe and North America, reflecting the past emphasis of Post-Medieval Archaeology. The growth of forensic archaeology is discussed, as well as technological developments in the study of the dead. Work on the ontological and ethical status of the dead in archaeology is explored. In conclusion, some of the major challenges to the field, including those of cross-disciplinary work and public engagement, are highlighted.

Book Review of The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial, by Sarah Tarlow and Liv Nilsson Stutz

Book Review of The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial, by Sarah Tarlow and Liv Nilsson Stutz

Tomb treasures in the late Middle Kingdom: the archaeology of female burials

Tomb treasures in the late Middle Kingdom: the archaeology of female burials

The Oxford handbook of the archaeology of death and burial

The Oxford handbook of the archaeology of death and burial

Grave goods in early medieval burials: messages and meanings

Objects in graves have been a traditional focus of burial archaeology. Conventional interpretations of their meanings revolved around religion (equipment for the hereafter, Charon’s Penny), legal concepts (inalienable possessions) and social structure (status display, ostentatious destruction of wealth). An interdisciplinary perspective drawing on archaeological literature, anthropological evidence and sociological theory widens the range of possible interpretations. Textual sources of the Roman and early medieval periods highlight the importance of gift-giving to the deceased, but also to deities. Anthropology shows the importance of the disposal of polluted items in the grave, and of protecting the living. Ethnographic cases also underpin theoretical considerations concerning the role of biographical representations (metaphors) during the funeral, as well as emphasising the desire and the need to forget the dead. Textual and archaeological evidence from the Early Middle Ages suggest that these motives were not sharply separated, but that many of them played a role during any one funeral. In addition, motives changed over time, and the associations of particular grave goods (such as coins or weapons) varied across time and geographical regions. Above all, multiplicity of messages and variability of meanings characterised the deposition of objects in early medieval graves.

Saxon Obsequies: the Early Medieval Archaeology of Richard Cornwallis Neville

This paper investigates the origins of British Anglo-Saxon archaeology by focusing on the work of one early Victorian archaeologist: Richard Cornwallis Neville. The seemingly descriptive and parochial nature of Neville’s archaeological pursuits, together with the attention he afforded to Romano-British remains, has impeded due recognition, and critical scrutiny, of his contributions to the development of early Medieval burial archaeology. Using his archaeological publications as source material, I will show how Neville’s interpretations of Saxon graves were a form of memory work, defining his personal, familial and martial identity in relation to the landscape and locality of his aristocratic home at Audley End, near Saffron Walden, Essex. Subsequently, I argue that Neville’s prehistoric and Romano-British discoveries reveal his repeated concern with the end of Roman Britain and its barbarian successors. Finally, embodied within Neville’s descriptions of early Medieval graves and their location we can identify a pervasive Anglo-Saxonism. Together these strands of argument combine to reveal how, for Neville, Saxon graves constituted a hitherto unwritten first chapter of English history that could be elucidated through material culture and landscape.