Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewTowards A Social Bioarchaeology of the Mycenaean Period: A Biocultural Analysis of Human Remains from the Voudeni Cemetery, Achaea, Greece By Ioanna Moutafi. Oxford: Oxbow 2021. Pp. 328. $59.99. ISBN 9781789254822 (cloth).Joanne M.A. MurphyJoanne M.A. MurphyUniversity of North Carolina Greensboro Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreThis book examines in great detail the skeletal remains from 20 chamber tombs in the Mycenean cemetery at Voudeni, Achaea, in western Greece, and contextualizes the findings broadly in traditional archaeology, mortuary archaeological theory, and state of the art methods of analysis for human remains. Through this novel holistic approach, Moutafi succeeds in her goal of creating a solid methodological approach to the social dimensions of mortuary rites that will be appreciated by many. The volume is a product of several years of work that started with the author’s doctoral dissertation at the University of Sheffield and continued with her research at the University of Cambridge as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow.The cemetery at Voudeni consists solely of chamber tombs and was excavated and published by Lazaros Kolonas in the 1990s. The use of the cemetery spans the period of the Mycenean palaces, the subsequent “collapse” of palatial society, and the succeeding period of social reorganization (1450–1050 BCE). The chronological span of the tombs and the clarity of the documentation of their excavation make this cemetery an excellent data set for this type of study and afforded the author the opportunity to conduct a fine-grained analysis of the data, which she uses to highlight changes and similarities between the earlier (LH IIIA–B) and later use (LH IIIC). The author interrogates the evidence along several major lines of inquiry that are prominent in current Mycenean scholarship: “tomb reuse; form and diversity of funerary practices; sequence and frequency of mortuary events; demographic composition and mortality profiles of study population; organizing principles in the diversity of mortuary activities; differential inclusion and visibility between social groups; differential funerary treatment based on different identities (e.g., sex, age)” (2). She illustrates key changes in funerary practices, treatment of the dead, and the demographic profiles of the dead between LH IIIA–B and LH IIIC.The book is divided into nine chapters and a short appendix. In the first three chapters, Moutafi contextualizes her approach and the data set in the scholarship of Mycenean Greece and gives a history of the variety of theoretical approaches to mortuary archaeology. These three chapters make the book accessible and useful to a wide audience by giving a valuable overview of the Mycenaean period and related current debates, which will be helpful for both specialists and nonspecialists. Chapter 1 focuses on terminology; presents a summary of the social dynamics of Mycenean Greece, especially mortuary practices in Achaea; and provides a brief background to the Voudeni cemetery. Chapter 2 discusses shifts in approaches to mortuary practices and bioarchaeology. The author divides her discussion of past approaches into critical summaries of early approaches, New Archaeology, criticisms of New Archaeology, and early postprocessualism. She presents the theories of practice and structuration and of agency and personhood as current approaches. She then examines how scholars have incorporated human remains into these debates and approaches. In chapter 3, Moutafi discusses a history of Mycenean mortuary studies, highlighting key areas in the field, which she identifies as tomb architecture and mortuary practices; she also includes a discussion of debates that have explored demography and status through mortuary practices. She concludes the chapter with a presentation of current bioarchaeological research in Mycenaean scholarship.Chapters 4 and 5 focus on methodology. In chapter 4, a very succinct chapter on a “holistic bioarchaeological approach,” Moutafi explains the background to her theoretical framework and argues for the value of combining osteological studies with cultural studies to maximize the information that can be added to our understanding of the past by using human remains. After contextualizing her own framework in global bioarchaeological studies and stressing her appreciation of the complexity of mortuary and skeletal studies, she outlines the specific goals and aims of the study. She identifies her main goal as exploring the relationship of funerary practices to social conditions during the Late Helladic period at Voudeni by addressing specific themes: formation character of the material assemblage; types of disposal; frequency and sequence of funerary events inside the tombs; diversity of primary and secondary funerary treatment; organizing patterns in the diversity of funerary acts; and demographic compositions of the cemetery population. Chapter 5 presents the data analyzed in the study and the methodology. She begins the chapter by explaining the selection of the sample for the study, how the osteological data was gathered, and how age and sex were determined. Section 5.4 forms a major contribution of this study, as it explains how the author separated out individuals, created body counts, addressed preservation issues in the bones, and modeled primary and secondary treatment of the bodies. In a culture like Mycenaean Greece, which had so many comingled and group burials, this kind of explicit and penetrating methodology is much needed to investigate such large data sets more fruitfully and to understand the many nuances in the mortuary settings.In chapter 6, the longest chapter by far in the volume, Moutafi presents for each tomb: a description of the tomb; a summary of the archaeological data from the tomb, which relies heavily on the work of the excavator Kolonas; the results of osteological analysis; and a reconstruction of the funerary activities. This structure and organization means that the reader can clearly understand the context of each tomb and compare the tombs in relation to their contents, their architecture, the positioning and treatment of the human remains, and the demographics. Excavation details and documentation combined with fine-grained analysis of the osteological remains means that the chapter also offers a great opportunity for scholars to incorporate this data into future studies on a wide range of Mycenaean issues.Chapters 7 and 8 focus on observations, analysis, and interpretation of the data. In chapter 7, the author delves deeply into the demographic variables and mortuary practices of primary and secondary treatments of the dead. She then examines the observed patterns by conducting a detailed comparison between tombs by type, date, and location. The conclusions are numerous and nuanced: for example, throughout the Late Helladic period the ratio of male to female adults was similar; and infants, subadults to the age of 7 years, and older adults were underrepresented; but the number of younger adults increased prominently in LH IIIC. In chapter 8, she interprets the observations made in chapter 7 to reconstruct the funerary practices in Late Helladic Voudeni, the changing demographic profile of those buried in the tombs, and the social meaning of these practices and profiles. She then highlights the changes in funerary practices from LH III A–B to those carried out in LH IIIC. Chapter 9 consists of a helpful summary of the volume and the interpretations. The short appendix consists mainly of tables that supplement the data provided in the text.The volume highlights the complex relationship between funerary treatment and wider social dynamics; it presents a strong and clear methodology on how to maximize the contribution of human remains to archaeological debates and re-creation of past societies; and it provides a data set that is rich for future mining on a whole host of questions about Mycenaean society.Notes[email protected] Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 127, Number 1January 2023 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Views: 91Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/722734 Views: 91Total views on this site HistoryPublished online October 04, 2022 Copyright © 2023 by the Archaeological Institute of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.