scholarly journals Megaliths in Tropical Africa: Social Dynamics and Mortuary Practices in Ancient Senegambia (ca. 1350 BCE – 1500 CE)

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (15) ◽  
pp. 363-412
Author(s):  
Augustin F.C. Holl
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Territorial Strategies ◽  
Territorial Marking

When analyzed systematically, Tropical Africa megalithism appears to have emerged in contexts of friction between different lifeways, agriculturalists versus foragers, pastoralists versus hunter-gatherers-fishermen, or agriculturalists versus fishing folks. The monuments built were clearly part of actual territorial strategies. Research conducted by the Sine Ngayene Archaeological Project (2002-2012)  frontally addressed the “Why” of the emergence of megalithism in that part of the world, and probes the reasons for the performance of the elaborate burial practices preserved in the archaeological record. This paper emphasizes the diversity and complexity of burial protocols invented by Senegambian “megalith-builders” communities from 1450 BCE to 1500 CE. Senegambian megalithism is shown to have proceeded from territorial marking imperatives, shaping a multi-layered cultural landscape through the implemented mortuary programs anchored on the construction of Ancestorhood. Keywords: Megaliths; Senegambia; Cultural landscape; Mortuary program; Burial practice; Monolith-circle; Sine-Ngayene;

scholarly journals Megaliths in Tropical Africa: Social Dynamics and Mortuary Practices in Ancient Senegambia (ca. 1350 BCE – 1500 CE)

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-412
Author(s):  
Augustin F.C. Holl
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Territorial Strategies ◽  
Territorial Marking

When analyzed systematically, Tropical Africa megalithism appears to have emerged in contexts of friction between different lifeways, agriculturalists versus foragers, pastoralists versus hunter-gatherers-fishermen, or agriculturalists versus fishing folks. The monuments built were clearly part of actual territorial strategies. Research conducted by the Sine Ngayene Archaeological Project (2002-2012)  frontally addressed the “Why” of the emergence of megalithism in that part of the world, and probes the reasons for the performance of the elaborate burial practices preserved in the archaeological record. This paper emphasizes the diversity and complexity of burial protocols invented by Senegambian “megalith-builders” communities from 1450 BCE to 1500 CE. Senegambian megalithism is shown to have proceeded from territorial marking imperatives, shaping a multi-layered cultural landscape through the implemented mortuary programs anchored on the construction of Ancestorhood. Keywords: Megaliths; Senegambia; Cultural landscape; Mortuary program; Burial practice; Monolith-circle; Sine-Ngayene;

scholarly journals The Appropriation of Death In Classical Athens

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alexandra Donnison
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Foreign Workers ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Funeral Practice ◽  
Grave Markers ◽  
Ideological Change

<p>This thesis is about the change in Athenian burial practices between the Archaic and Classical periods (500-430 B.C.E.), within the oikos and the polis. I argue that during this period there was a change in both burial practice and ideology. I hypothesise that the Homeric conception of death was appropriated by the state leading to a temporary ideological change in Athens between 500-430 B.C.E., with the result that the aristocratic Athenian oikoi exhibited a trend of anti-display. There then followed another shift in ideology, whereby the Athenian aristocrats reappropriated death, taking state funerary symbols and applying them to private death, which then resulted in the re-emergence of lavish yet iconographically different grave monuments. This is a study of varied and disparate sources ranging from archaeological evidence to later literature. It is divided into three parts. Chapter One outlines exactly what the changes in funeral practice were between the Archaic and Classical periods. It focuses on the decline of grave markers, the shift to extramural burial, the change in how funerals and death were depicted, the increased emphasis on state burial and the change in both public and private mourning practices around 480 B.C.E. I argue that there was a definite change in how the Athenians interacted with their dead, both physically and ideologically. Chapter Two examines the reasons behind the change in burial practices around 480 B.C.E. I argue that it is improbable such a complex change had simple factors or motivations behind it but rather that the most likely cause of such a shift in attitude was a combination of complex reasons, where a few predominate, such as appropriation of death by the polis resulting in glorified state burials and development of democracy. Chapter Three examines the re-emergence of grave monuments. The archaeological record reveals a reappearance of stone funerary sculpture a decade or so after the middle of the fifth century (c. 440-430 B.C.E.). I argue that the re-emergence of funeral sculpture was influenced heavily by foreign workers who brought with them their own burial practices which in turn inspired Athenian aristocrats to re-appropriate death and begin erecting private funeral monuments, however instead of only using Homeric imagery, as they had in earlier periods, they appropriated state symbols and incorporated them into private monuments.</p>

scholarly journals The Appropriation of Death In Classical Athens

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alexandra Donnison
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Foreign Workers ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Funeral Practice ◽  
Grave Markers ◽  
Ideological Change

<p>This thesis is about the change in Athenian burial practices between the Archaic and Classical periods (500-430 B.C.E.), within the oikos and the polis. I argue that during this period there was a change in both burial practice and ideology. I hypothesise that the Homeric conception of death was appropriated by the state leading to a temporary ideological change in Athens between 500-430 B.C.E., with the result that the aristocratic Athenian oikoi exhibited a trend of anti-display. There then followed another shift in ideology, whereby the Athenian aristocrats reappropriated death, taking state funerary symbols and applying them to private death, which then resulted in the re-emergence of lavish yet iconographically different grave monuments. This is a study of varied and disparate sources ranging from archaeological evidence to later literature. It is divided into three parts. Chapter One outlines exactly what the changes in funeral practice were between the Archaic and Classical periods. It focuses on the decline of grave markers, the shift to extramural burial, the change in how funerals and death were depicted, the increased emphasis on state burial and the change in both public and private mourning practices around 480 B.C.E. I argue that there was a definite change in how the Athenians interacted with their dead, both physically and ideologically. Chapter Two examines the reasons behind the change in burial practices around 480 B.C.E. I argue that it is improbable such a complex change had simple factors or motivations behind it but rather that the most likely cause of such a shift in attitude was a combination of complex reasons, where a few predominate, such as appropriation of death by the polis resulting in glorified state burials and development of democracy. Chapter Three examines the re-emergence of grave monuments. The archaeological record reveals a reappearance of stone funerary sculpture a decade or so after the middle of the fifth century (c. 440-430 B.C.E.). I argue that the re-emergence of funeral sculpture was influenced heavily by foreign workers who brought with them their own burial practices which in turn inspired Athenian aristocrats to re-appropriate death and begin erecting private funeral monuments, however instead of only using Homeric imagery, as they had in earlier periods, they appropriated state symbols and incorporated them into private monuments.</p>

scholarly journals Changing relationship between the dead and the living in Japanese prehistory

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1754) ◽  
pp. 20170272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naoko Matsumoto
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Kinship System ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Continuous Presence

The aim of this paper is to propose a new insight on the changing burial practice by regarding it as a part of the cognitive system for maintaining complex social relationships. Development of concentrated burials and their transformation in Japanese prehistory are examined to present a specific case of the changing relationship between the dead and the living to highlight the significance of the dead in sociocultural evolution. The essential feature of the burial practices observed at Jomon sites is the centrality of the dead and their continuous presence in the kinship system. The mortuary practices discussed in this paper represent a close relationship between the dead and the living in the non-hierarchical complex society, in which the dead were not detached from the society, but kept at its core, as a materialized reference of kin networks. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolutionary thanatology: impacts of the dead on the living in humans and other animals’.

Houses and burials at Lepenski Vir

2000 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Radovanović
Keyword(s):  
Dietary Change ◽  
Spatial Patterning ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Archaeological Material ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Local Hunter

Houses and burials recorded in the settlements of Lepenski Vir I and II and burials previously ascribed to Lepenski Vir III are here discussed in view of the recent analyses of archaeological material and re-analyses of the field burial record from this site. Evidence of pottery in situ in houses of Lepenski Vir I, together with the evidence for important dietary change in the Lepenski Vir community in the course of the second half of the seventh millennium cal BC, reinforces the assumption, made by a number of scholars over several previous decades, of intensive contacts between early Neolithic groups and local hunter-gatherers. Burial practice throughout the seventh and sixth millennia cal BC at Lepenski Vir is thus reanalyzed in this new light. Apart from burials unrelated to architectural remains, five ‘types’ of burial deposition are noted in relation to houses of Lepenski Vir I–II, all but one having a distinct chronological and spatial patterning. The inhabitants' choice of mode of deposition of the deceased is always associated with a certain location in the settlement, sometimes used over several centuries. In the course of their history, these locations were often used for building a particular house or group of houses. The content of such houses is also discussed wherever it was possible. Duality in settlement organization could also be recognized in the burial practices related to settlement architecture. The attribution of the majority of burial remains to early Neolithic Lepenski Vir III is here also questioned in the light of new data and reinterpreted settlement sequences.

scholarly journals A systematic review of post-marital residence patterns in prehistoric hunter-gatherers

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devon D. Brewer
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Strontium Isotope ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Sexually Transmitted ◽  
Isotope Studies ◽  
And Behavior

Background and RationalePost-marital residence patterns refer to where a couple lives after marriage, such as near or with husband's kin (patrilocality) or wife's kin (matrilocality). These patterns influence other aspects of social organization and behavior, and potentially reveal key parts of human nature. Since the 1860s, anthropologists have sought to characterize prehistoric hunter-gatherers' post-marital residence patterns by extrapolating from modern hunter-gatherers' and chimpanzees' behavior. For many reasons, these extrapolations are invalid. I summarized direct evidence of residence patterns from prehistoric hunter-gatherers' remains.MethodsI conducted a systematic review of strontium isotope and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) studies of prehistoric hunter-gatherers and extinct hominins. I also carried out a systematic review of the reliability of classifying prehistoric hunter-gatherer individuals by sex. To evaluate assumptions underlying my analyses of residence patterns, I reviewed the ethnographic literature on hunter-gatherers' mortuary practices as represented in the eHRAF World Cultures database.ResultsThe archaeologic sites included in my review represent every inhabited continent except Australia, and their dates span almost the last 10,000 years. In the strontium isotope studies, most adults of both sexes were local, and women were slightly more likely to be local than men. Within sites, women and men had similar mtDNA distributions. Women in neighboring, contemporaneous communities had somewhat distinct mtDNA distributions from each other, while the mtDNA distributions of men in the different communities were less distinguishable. The statistical uncertainties for most summaries are fairly large. Taken together, the results indicate the burial communities were mostly endogamous and that exogamous marriages strained toward matrilocality. The very limited research on extinct hominins' residence patterns is consistent with these findings. In addition, there was only a moderate correspondence between morphologic and genetic estimates of sex in adult prehistoric hunter-gatherer individuals. When I corrected for this measurement error or relied on genetic estimates of sex only, the post-marital residence pattern results shifted in the direction of greater matrilocal tendencies. Modern hunter-gatherers' burial practices were consonant with the assumptions underlying my analyses.ConclusionsDirect evidence from prehistoric hunter-gatherers' remains indicates very different post-marital residence patterns than those extrapolated from modern hunter-gatherers' and chimpanzees' behavior. In prehistoric hunter-gatherer settings, endogamy may be the outcome of humans' long-term mating preferences. Endogamy may have inhibited bacterial sexually transmitted diseases in prehistory and enabled the evolution of altruism in humans.

Mesolithic mortuary ritual at Franchthi Cave, Greece

Antiquity ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 69 (263) ◽  
pp. 270-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracey Cullen
Keyword(s):  
Human Remains ◽  
Early Holocene ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Mortuary Ritual ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Southern Greece ◽  
Mesolithic Burials

Mesolithic sites are rare in the Aegean, and Mesolithic burials are uncommon throughout Europe. The Mesolithic human remains from Franchthi Cave, that remarkable, deeply stratified site in southern Greece, offer a rare glimpse into the burial practices of early Holocene hunter-gatherers of the Mediterranean.

scholarly journals SPATIAL REGENERATION OF MUSLIM BURIAL PRACTICES IN THE METROPOLITAN AREAS OF KUALA LUMPUR AND JAKARTA

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamad Reza Mohamed Afla
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Muslim Population ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Full Body

This article focuses on the subject of burial practices which are performed by the Muslim population and the management at public cemeteries within the metropolitan areas of Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. This research examines specifically, the conventional way of burial practice by the majority of the Muslim population. Unlike other major religions in Southeast Asia which are more open and flexible in the disposal of corpses, full body burial is mandatory in Islam. In response to the escalating issue of lack of space and land shortage for Muslim cemetery, local authorities of the two metropolitan areas have identified alternatives and solutions in handling these alarming situations. This research has recognised factors that lead to these problems, as well as discussing available methods to overcome these issues. The finding exhibits Muslim cemetery’s layout to be problematic due to abundance of burial practices accumulated by patrons which led to disorganisation of space and claustrophobia. This article concludes by providing proposals and design guidelines at the terrain level, together with recommendations that emphasise the long-term usage of the grave plots.

The Mycenaean Cemetery at Ayia Sotira, Nemea

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
R. Angus K. Smith ◽  
Mary K. Dabney ◽  
James C. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Organic Residue ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Remarkable Similarity ◽  
Local Character ◽  
Canadian Institute ◽  
Local Geology ◽  
Funerary Customs ◽  
Micromorphological Analysis

From 2006 to 2008 The Canadian Institute in Greece sponsored the excavation of a Mycenaean chamber tomb cemetery at Ayia Sotira near Koutsomodi in the Nemea Valley. The five modest tombs excavated by the project were undoubtedly associated with the nearby settlement of Tsoungiza, and offer a picture of the mortuary practices associated with this settlement. The practices at Ayia Sotira describe both local funerary customs and more generally “Mycenaean” ones observable throughout Mainland Greece and the Aegean. Explanations for the local character are found in the economic conditions of the nearby settlement, in the local geology, and presumably local customs. These were documented through careful recovery of the stratigraphy and contents of the tombs, including paleobotanical, phytolith, organic residue, and micromorphological analysis. The remarkable similarity of these tombs and their contents to those excavated at neighboring Zygouries confirm the local character of chamber tomb inhumation. Yet comparison with other chamber tomb cemeteries, notably nearby Aidonia, but also with examples in the Corinthia, Argolid, and elsewhere, demonstrate the general features of a common “Mycenaean” practice. Overall, burial practices in the chamber tombs at Ayia Sotira fits our reconstruction of the inhabitants of Tsoungiza being incorporated into a social and political system dominated by the inhabitants of Mycenae during the LH IIIA2–B periods.

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