From Life to Death: Dynamics of Personhood in Gallo-Roman Funerary Customs, Luxemburg Province, Belgium

Author(s):  
Jessica I. Cerezo-Román ◽  
Koen Deforce

This chapter explores the identification of, and changes in, aspects of personhood through the study and interpretation of funerary customs. The geographical and temporal foci are the Luxembourg province of south-eastern Belgium from AD 1–150 where variations in social and political organization are well documented but cremation funeral customs are not. This research explores one overarching question: how did the personhood of the deceased change throughout the different stages of cremation customs within and between two contemporary Gallo-Roman sites located in the Belgian province of Luxembourg? The sites selected are Weyler (Henrotay 2011; Henrotay and Bossicard 1999), located in Arlon, and Houffalize, located in Houffalize/Mont (Henrotay 2012) (Fig. 9.1). Two primary datasets were utilized: 1) biological profiles of the human skeletal remains, and, 2) posthumous treatments of bodies inferred from analysis of the remains within their burial contexts. In this chapter, we also contrast these findings with historical accounts of cremation customs among ancient Roman populations.We argue that Gallo-Roman mortuary practices mediated the dead from biological death through a liminal state where personhood was transformed from subject to object/subject before final burial. The concept of personhood is employed in identity research across the social sciences, and in recent years also has been applied in archaeology (e.g. Fowler 2005; Jones 2005). Our research employs the notion of personhood—what constituted the state or condition of being a person—to elucidate the portrayal of individuals in the past. This definition follows previous research in the concept (e.g. Brück 2006a, 2006b; Fowler 2010; Williams 2004a). Throughout an individual’s life social relationships change and new ones are formed. These also are dependent on the individual’s age, sex, class, race, disabilities, and particular group affiliations, among other factors. Mauss (1985) posited that frames of reference for personhood changed through time and space, according to distinct cultural ideologies. Building on this idea Meyer Fortes (1987) added that personhood also was negotiated and dependent upon social relationships and in light of specific moral codes. These ideas suggest that personhood is a social category, that it is inherently dynamic and relational and that it only takes on meaning through the enactment of relationships.

Britannia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 177-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Gowland

ABSTRACTHuman skeletal remains from Roman Britain are abundant and provide a rich repository of social as well as biological information concerning health, migration, diet and body/society interactions. At present, skeletal remains tend to be marginalised in studies of Roman trade, the military, economy, urbanisation and the like, yet they have huge potential to contribute to current debates. This article aims to highlight the potential of bioarchaeological analysis for understanding aspects of social identity in Roman Britain through the use of a more integrated, theoretical approach towards embodied interactions. It encourages future collaborative scholarship between bioarchaeologists, archaeologists and historians. The social determinants of health and identity will vary greatly between regions and the only way of establishing the diversity of life across the Roman Empire is through the instigation of a more comprehensive, large-scale, integrated study of funerary and skeletal assemblages.


Antiquity ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 91 (360) ◽  
pp. 1656-1658
Author(s):  
Kathryn M. Baustian

Traditionally, reconstructions of social complexity in past societies have relied on a plethora of indicators including, but not limited to, ancient texts, monumental architectural and archaeological evidence for hierarchical leadership, surplus storage, craft specialisation and the density of populations. With the exception of mortuary patterns, particularly the quantity and quality of grave goods, bioarchaeological data have featured less prominently in archaeological interpretation. Over the past 40 years, however, the study of human skeletal remains has been more firmly integrated into theoretical explorations of the past, and the broader development of biocultural models has contributed more fully to archaeological research. The first of the two volumes reviewed here is exemplary of current bioarchaeological approaches that draw on human biology, cultural development and physical environments to understand the human experience.


2002 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Knüsel

Ritual and ritual specialists have often been dissociated from power in the writings of prehistorians and archaeologists. From ethnographic and ethnohistoric accounts, however, ritual specialists often exert disproportionate control over the maintenance, manipulation, and elaboration of social codes and practices. Their roles in ritual practice (orthopraxy in non-literate societies) and its effect on decision-making accord them considerable social and political importance. Due to this involvement they become the targets of ritual sanctions that include punitive rites, ritualized deaths, and suppression during periods of rapid social change, both from within their own societies and from without. The present article derives from a re-analysis of the Vix (Côte-d'Or, Burgundy) human skeletal remains, specifically with reference to the age, sex and health status of the interred individual. An evaluation of the social roles of this so-called ‘Princess’ is then attempted, integrating this biological information with that derived from a consideration of the grave inclusions and their imagery in the context of competitive feasting and social change in the late Hallstatt period.


Author(s):  
Dennis Eversberg

Based on analyses of a 2016 German survey, this article contributes to debates on ‘societal nature relations’ by investigating the systematic differences between socially specific types of social relations with nature in a flexible capitalist society. It presents a typology of ten different ‘syndromes’ of attitudes toward social and environmental issues, which are then grouped to distinguish between four ideal types of social relationships with nature: dominance, conscious mutual dependency, alienation and contradiction. These are located in Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984) social space to illustrate how social relationships with nature correspond to people’s positions within the totality of social relations. Understanding how people’s perceptions of and actions pertaining to nature are shaped by their positions in these intersecting relations of domination – both within social space and between society and nature – is an important precondition for developing transformative strategies that will be capable of gaining majority support in flexible capitalist societies.


Edupedia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66
Author(s):  
Khulusinniyah ◽  
Farhatin Masruroh

The social-emotionaldevelopment of children is important to be developed from an early age. The emotionaldevelopment in early childhood, takes place simultaneously with their social development. Even there is claim that their emotional development is influenced by their social development. Itcaused by the emotional reactions displayed by early childhood as a response to the social relationships that they live with other people. The emotional development of early childhood can also affect the sustainability of social relationships. Stimulation is an important thing to give by early childhood educators and parents so they can optimize their social emotion development. With this treatment, they can grow into the life ready person in facing the complex future.


Author(s):  
Martin Krzywdzinski

This chapter examines the organizational socialization mechanisms in automotive plants in Russia and China. The empirical analysis starts with selection processes. How do the companies select candidates during recruitment and whom do they select? Are they looking for a certain type of employee? The chapter continues with the analysis of onboarding concepts in China and Russia and then follows the employees within their teams. It analyzes the social relationships in the team, which influence the socialization processes within the company. Finally, overarching company activities intended to promote social integration (team building, competitions) are examined to determine the extent to which they shape work behaviors and generate identification with the company. The analysis shows considerable differences between the Russian and the Chinese plants regarding the intensity and the effects of organizational socialization.


Author(s):  
Christopher Morton

Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) is widely considered the most influential British anthropologist of the twentieth century, known to generations of students for his seminal works on South Sudanese ethnography Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (OUP 1937) and The Nuer (OUP 1940). In these works, now classics in the anthropological literature, Evans-Pritchard broke new ground on questions of rationality, social accountability, kinship, social and political organization, and religion, as well as influentially moving the discipline in Britain away from the natural sciences and towards history. Yet despite much discussion about his theoretical contributions to anthropology, no study has yet explored his fieldwork in detail in order to get a better understanding of its historical contexts, local circumstances or the social encounters out of which it emerged. This book then is just such an exploration, of Evans-Pritchard the fieldworker through the lens of his fieldwork photography. Through an engagement with his photographic archive, and by thinking with it alongside his written ethnographies and other unpublished evidence, the book offers a new insight into the way in which Evans-Pritchard’s theoretical contributions to the discipline were shaped by his fieldwork and the numerous local people in Africa with whom he collaborated. By writing history through field photographs we move back towards the fieldwork experiences, exploring the vivid traces, lived realities and local presences at the heart of the social encounter that formed the basis of Evans-Pritchard’s anthropology.


Author(s):  
Mariek Vanden Abeele

Recent empirical work suggests that phubbing, a term used to describe the practice of snubbing someone with a phone during a face-to-face social interaction, harms the quality of social relationships. Based on a comprehensive literature review, this chapter presents a framework that integrates three concurrent mechanisms that explain the relational impact of phubbing: expectancy violations, ostracism, and attentional conflict. Based on this framework, theoretically grounded propositions are formulated that may serve as guidelines for future research on these mechanisms, the conditions under which they operate, and a number of potential issues that need to be considered to further validate and extend the framework.


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