Sevi Triantaphyllou | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (original) (raw)
Papers by Sevi Triantaphyllou
Journal of Archaeological Science:Reports, 2023
This paper explores the character of the Petras human bone deposits in order to identify and reco... more This paper explores the character of the Petras human bone deposits in order to identify and reconstruct the original burial conditions and subsequently understand the social processes that resulted in the formation of a variable burial record. The Petras cemetery, located on the northeast coast of Crete, consists of 24 excavated House Tombs. The site was in use from Early Minoan IB (2900–2650 BCE) until Middle Minoan IIB (1850–1700 BCE), providing an excellent opportunity for the study of Prepalatial and Protopalatial mortuary practices. Drawing on existing research in social bioarchaeology, this study implements an integrated bioarchaeological approach involving the analysis of funerary taphonomy such as aspects of bone preservation, anatomical articulation and the position of skeletal remains. This way the given paper aims to reconstruct the funerary practices and their embedded meaning. Results suggest that all members of the community, were secondarily manipulated, while fully or partially decomposed, often inside the original burial location. A few intact primary burials present an exception which may attest to an ancestral population. The skeletal remains, even the ones placed inside funerary vessels, were reduced and re-arranged in commingled piles of bones in order to create room for new burials. Beyond practical considerations, the latter acts were also part of a ritual program, as the deposition of complete vases to fragmentary remains infer. Moreover, the Petras House Tombs attest to diachronic variability in group size, patterns of use and spatial arrangements of the human remains. Yet, these distinct choices were part of a single narrative which stressed the importance of a collective past, as the constant choice of the burial locale, the successive building upon old tombs and the commingled, unindividuated masses of bones indicate.
SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Bulletin De Correspondance Hellenique, 2014
SCOPUS: re.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Journal of Greek Archaeology
The scope of the present paper is to scrutinise the evidence regarding settlement continuity, esp... more The scope of the present paper is to scrutinise the evidence regarding settlement continuity, especially where continuous replication of the same buildings is involved, and to investigate how it was practiced in Late Bronze Age mound settlements in terms of building methods. Furthermore, we aim to investigate how building continuity or change related to people’s lives and the spatial organisation of their mundane activities and social practices which concerned their biological and social reproduction.
Journal of Greek Archaeology 7, 2023
The scope of the present paper is to scrutinise the evidence regarding settlement continuity, esp... more The scope of the present paper is to scrutinise the evidence regarding settlement continuity, especially where continuous replication of the same buildings is involved, and to investigate how it was practiced in Late Bronze Age mound settlements in terms of building methods. Furthermore, we aim to investigate how building continuity or change related to people’s lives and the spatial organisation of their mundane activities and social practices which concerned their biological and social reproduction
The osteological material under study consists of 510 skeletal remains dating from the Early Neol... more The osteological material under study consists of 510 skeletal remains dating from the Early Neolithic (6000 BC) to the Early Iron Age (1100-700 BC). It comes from nine different cemeteries and burial locations extending from the coastal to the inland areas of the study region. The current thesis attempts to explore two major issues: 1) the reconstruction of aspects of life history and 2) the treatment and manipulation of the deceased as revealed by the human skeletal remains. With regard to the former, the investigation of demographic parameters, patterns of health and oral status as well as diet have been considered. In short, local conditions defined by environmental and social constraints probably affected the general quality of life reconstructed for the study populations. There is an overall tendency however, towards declining levels of health and oral status in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age populations, while certain assemblages provide high levels of infant and child mortality, possibly associated with a type of anaemia. There is also a substantial involvement of the upper skeleton in work patterns, possibly related to activities such as food acquisition, processing and preparation. Meanwhile, the evidence for dietary patterns from the NeolithiclEarly Bronze Ages to the Late BronzelEarly Iron Ages is consistent with an overall shift from a high reliance on meat consumption to a diet bas<:don carbohydrate foodstuffs. The evaluation of the manipulation of the deceased, alongside the evidence for mortuary differentiation through time, reveals a striking transformation from the practice of single inhumations in the Early Bronze Age to multiple/secondary burials in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age assemblages, suggesting a shift in emphasis from individual to lineage-group identity. Furthermore, the integration of biological inferences with the evidence of mortuary behaviour provides further insights into sex roles and the position of subadults, otherwise invisible, in the living community.
Documenta Praehistorica, 2010
In the Neolithic of Northern Greece the disposal of the deceased is strongly related to the commu... more In the Neolithic of Northern Greece the disposal of the deceased is strongly related to the community of the living, and in most cases to the built environment. Burials often occur in close proximity to, or underneath ‘domestic’ structures. The constant association of dead ancestors with the living social environment may indicate a particular desire by Neolithic people to negotiate their past by incorporating it into their own present. This paper addresses such issues, based on new evidence from the Neolithic settlement of Avgi, NW Greece. A group of cremations were recently located inside ten small pots buried in an open space in the Neolithic village. The burials consisted of tiny amounts of heavily burnt human bones and, in two cases, were accompanied by carbonized seeds. This paper will discuss the occurrence of the burial pots and the associated cremations as tokens of memory and of special links to the past represented by the dead ancestors.
SpringerBriefs in Archaeology, 2014
In this chapter, we trace the development of anthropological approaches to human skeletal remains... more In this chapter, we trace the development of anthropological approaches to human skeletal remains in Greece, from their inception in the late nineteenth century to the proliferation of bioarchaeological studies in the 1990s to the present. The early work of European scholars in the region and the educational background of the first Greek scholars introduced nineteenth and early twentieth century European anthropology to Greece and shaped research and educational agendas until the 1970s. Beginning in the late 1930s and lasting well into the 1980s, the fundamental research of J.L. Angel was disseminated in the eastern Mediterranean, establishing the basis for bioarchaeology. Following political changes in the 1970s, institutional advancements in Greece accelerated. The study of human skeletal remains, originally anchored in the medical sciences, entered the curricula of other University departments such as biology, history and ethnology and archaeology. The presence of independent scholars, often supported by foreign schools of archaeology, has resulted in important contributions to bioarchaeological research in Greece. The management of human skeletal remains, inextricably linked to that of other archaeological finds, should advance through acknowledgment of the dual role of human skeletal remains in research and through the establishment and operation of open access research institutions for the study of these finds.
Pharos: journal of the …, 2006
The Pre- and Protopalatial cemetery in context. 2nd Petras Symposium, 2017
Death in Late Bronze Age Greece, 2020
Burial practices in Late Bronze Age Macedonia do not manifest particularly elaborate traits in te... more Burial practices in Late Bronze Age Macedonia do not manifest particularly elaborate traits in terms of grave architecture and prestigious items accompanying the dead. In contrast to practices in the southern mainland, local communities adopted subtler and less homogeneous forms of treating the deceased in an attempt to signify their particular identities in the cultural, political, and symbolic landscape. Recent research has established a special focus on descent in extramural cemeteries, such as the cist grave cemetery with multiple burials at Spathes on Mount Olympus, the tumuli of Western Macedonia and Southern Pieria, the burial enclosures of Faia Petra, and the tumuli at Exochi and Potamoi in Eastern Macedonia. In Central Macedonia, on the other hand, where tell settlements dominate the natural and symbolic landscape, burial practices possess a less prominent place in the social space. The dominant trait here seems to be the absence of formal mortuary practices. Burials may oc...
MNHMH / MNEME. Past and Memory in the Aegean Bronze Age, 2019
Bulletin archéologique des Écoles françaises à l’étranger, 2020
Journal of Archaeological Science:Reports, 2023
This paper explores the character of the Petras human bone deposits in order to identify and reco... more This paper explores the character of the Petras human bone deposits in order to identify and reconstruct the original burial conditions and subsequently understand the social processes that resulted in the formation of a variable burial record. The Petras cemetery, located on the northeast coast of Crete, consists of 24 excavated House Tombs. The site was in use from Early Minoan IB (2900–2650 BCE) until Middle Minoan IIB (1850–1700 BCE), providing an excellent opportunity for the study of Prepalatial and Protopalatial mortuary practices. Drawing on existing research in social bioarchaeology, this study implements an integrated bioarchaeological approach involving the analysis of funerary taphonomy such as aspects of bone preservation, anatomical articulation and the position of skeletal remains. This way the given paper aims to reconstruct the funerary practices and their embedded meaning. Results suggest that all members of the community, were secondarily manipulated, while fully or partially decomposed, often inside the original burial location. A few intact primary burials present an exception which may attest to an ancestral population. The skeletal remains, even the ones placed inside funerary vessels, were reduced and re-arranged in commingled piles of bones in order to create room for new burials. Beyond practical considerations, the latter acts were also part of a ritual program, as the deposition of complete vases to fragmentary remains infer. Moreover, the Petras House Tombs attest to diachronic variability in group size, patterns of use and spatial arrangements of the human remains. Yet, these distinct choices were part of a single narrative which stressed the importance of a collective past, as the constant choice of the burial locale, the successive building upon old tombs and the commingled, unindividuated masses of bones indicate.
SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Bulletin De Correspondance Hellenique, 2014
SCOPUS: re.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Journal of Greek Archaeology
The scope of the present paper is to scrutinise the evidence regarding settlement continuity, esp... more The scope of the present paper is to scrutinise the evidence regarding settlement continuity, especially where continuous replication of the same buildings is involved, and to investigate how it was practiced in Late Bronze Age mound settlements in terms of building methods. Furthermore, we aim to investigate how building continuity or change related to people’s lives and the spatial organisation of their mundane activities and social practices which concerned their biological and social reproduction.
Journal of Greek Archaeology 7, 2023
The scope of the present paper is to scrutinise the evidence regarding settlement continuity, esp... more The scope of the present paper is to scrutinise the evidence regarding settlement continuity, especially where continuous replication of the same buildings is involved, and to investigate how it was practiced in Late Bronze Age mound settlements in terms of building methods. Furthermore, we aim to investigate how building continuity or change related to people’s lives and the spatial organisation of their mundane activities and social practices which concerned their biological and social reproduction
The osteological material under study consists of 510 skeletal remains dating from the Early Neol... more The osteological material under study consists of 510 skeletal remains dating from the Early Neolithic (6000 BC) to the Early Iron Age (1100-700 BC). It comes from nine different cemeteries and burial locations extending from the coastal to the inland areas of the study region. The current thesis attempts to explore two major issues: 1) the reconstruction of aspects of life history and 2) the treatment and manipulation of the deceased as revealed by the human skeletal remains. With regard to the former, the investigation of demographic parameters, patterns of health and oral status as well as diet have been considered. In short, local conditions defined by environmental and social constraints probably affected the general quality of life reconstructed for the study populations. There is an overall tendency however, towards declining levels of health and oral status in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age populations, while certain assemblages provide high levels of infant and child mortality, possibly associated with a type of anaemia. There is also a substantial involvement of the upper skeleton in work patterns, possibly related to activities such as food acquisition, processing and preparation. Meanwhile, the evidence for dietary patterns from the NeolithiclEarly Bronze Ages to the Late BronzelEarly Iron Ages is consistent with an overall shift from a high reliance on meat consumption to a diet bas<:don carbohydrate foodstuffs. The evaluation of the manipulation of the deceased, alongside the evidence for mortuary differentiation through time, reveals a striking transformation from the practice of single inhumations in the Early Bronze Age to multiple/secondary burials in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age assemblages, suggesting a shift in emphasis from individual to lineage-group identity. Furthermore, the integration of biological inferences with the evidence of mortuary behaviour provides further insights into sex roles and the position of subadults, otherwise invisible, in the living community.
Documenta Praehistorica, 2010
In the Neolithic of Northern Greece the disposal of the deceased is strongly related to the commu... more In the Neolithic of Northern Greece the disposal of the deceased is strongly related to the community of the living, and in most cases to the built environment. Burials often occur in close proximity to, or underneath ‘domestic’ structures. The constant association of dead ancestors with the living social environment may indicate a particular desire by Neolithic people to negotiate their past by incorporating it into their own present. This paper addresses such issues, based on new evidence from the Neolithic settlement of Avgi, NW Greece. A group of cremations were recently located inside ten small pots buried in an open space in the Neolithic village. The burials consisted of tiny amounts of heavily burnt human bones and, in two cases, were accompanied by carbonized seeds. This paper will discuss the occurrence of the burial pots and the associated cremations as tokens of memory and of special links to the past represented by the dead ancestors.
SpringerBriefs in Archaeology, 2014
In this chapter, we trace the development of anthropological approaches to human skeletal remains... more In this chapter, we trace the development of anthropological approaches to human skeletal remains in Greece, from their inception in the late nineteenth century to the proliferation of bioarchaeological studies in the 1990s to the present. The early work of European scholars in the region and the educational background of the first Greek scholars introduced nineteenth and early twentieth century European anthropology to Greece and shaped research and educational agendas until the 1970s. Beginning in the late 1930s and lasting well into the 1980s, the fundamental research of J.L. Angel was disseminated in the eastern Mediterranean, establishing the basis for bioarchaeology. Following political changes in the 1970s, institutional advancements in Greece accelerated. The study of human skeletal remains, originally anchored in the medical sciences, entered the curricula of other University departments such as biology, history and ethnology and archaeology. The presence of independent scholars, often supported by foreign schools of archaeology, has resulted in important contributions to bioarchaeological research in Greece. The management of human skeletal remains, inextricably linked to that of other archaeological finds, should advance through acknowledgment of the dual role of human skeletal remains in research and through the establishment and operation of open access research institutions for the study of these finds.
Pharos: journal of the …, 2006
The Pre- and Protopalatial cemetery in context. 2nd Petras Symposium, 2017
Death in Late Bronze Age Greece, 2020
Burial practices in Late Bronze Age Macedonia do not manifest particularly elaborate traits in te... more Burial practices in Late Bronze Age Macedonia do not manifest particularly elaborate traits in terms of grave architecture and prestigious items accompanying the dead. In contrast to practices in the southern mainland, local communities adopted subtler and less homogeneous forms of treating the deceased in an attempt to signify their particular identities in the cultural, political, and symbolic landscape. Recent research has established a special focus on descent in extramural cemeteries, such as the cist grave cemetery with multiple burials at Spathes on Mount Olympus, the tumuli of Western Macedonia and Southern Pieria, the burial enclosures of Faia Petra, and the tumuli at Exochi and Potamoi in Eastern Macedonia. In Central Macedonia, on the other hand, where tell settlements dominate the natural and symbolic landscape, burial practices possess a less prominent place in the social space. The dominant trait here seems to be the absence of formal mortuary practices. Burials may oc...
MNHMH / MNEME. Past and Memory in the Aegean Bronze Age, 2019
Bulletin archéologique des Écoles françaises à l’étranger, 2020
Funerary practices represent well-articulated stages of culturally constructed acts which are mot... more Funerary practices represent well-articulated stages of culturally constructed acts which are motivated by the loss of a member(s) of a community(ies). The process of different forms of behaviours characterized by repeated performances occurring in both space and time in the mortuary setting would describe ritualization. The socially articulated components of this process can be distinguished by some sort of formalization as regards the use of space, the time, the codes of communication, gestures and symbols but also the participation of people. The formalized norms framing performances appear to be in a constant change, modification and negotiation due to the dialectical and continuous fluency of the relationships created between the ‘habitus’ of participants and the ritual practices. The performance of special activities and strategies can be experienced only when ritual participants are eligible in viewing, decoding and interpreting the symbolic meanings evoked throughout these processes. A strict classification thus between the ritual and the non-ritual, the sacred and the profane, the normal and the deviant but also between the living and the dead may be of minimal significance in prehistoric societies. In contrast, the fluent and changing character of multi-staged performances shaped through continuous and relational social negotiations framed by dimensions such as the participants, the dead individual(s), the circumstances of death(s) and/or the biography but also ideas on perceptions and experiences of the surrounding world would have probably made more meaning to traditional small-scale communities.
In the prehistoric Aegean, funerary practices have until now been dominated primarily by aspects of material culture which can be potentially quantified and statistically demonstrated such as the architecture and construction of grave types and the elaboration and accumulation of grave goods. Processes related to the disposal of the deceased – not confined necessarily to the conventional notion of ‘burial’ – which can be perceived through a more dramatic, memorable and performative mode should be distinguished by the different stages of manipulation and transformation of the dead body. The latter alongside the sensory experiences involved during but equally importantly after the funeral have only recently drawn the attention of research. Furthermore, the visualistic apparatus created throughout the funerary performances reflecting the perceptional conditions to which the human agents involved were exposed to, that is the mortuary space and time, beautification of the dead body and of the participants, gestures, symbolic paraphernalia, mental state and sensory experiences can perhaps be imagined by iconographic evidence held in selected mortuary assemblages of the Late Bronze Age only.
The scope of the workshop will be to disentangle different acts of transforming and viewing the body in the prehistoric Aegean based on archaeological evidence and paradigms derived from the funerary domain. Emphasis will be given on the integration of methodological approaches applied by osteoarchaeology but also of modern ideas of visualization and the archaeological theory of the human body.
Prepalatial and Protopalatial Crete is characterized by extensive contact networks across the isl... more Prepalatial and Protopalatial Crete is characterized by extensive contact networks across the island as well
as with the broader southern Aegean. Although these networks have been identied by means of various
material cultural remains, the extent to which their formation and maintenance was based on demic diusion
remains elusive. Furthermore, recent studies have highlighted the cultural heterogeneity characterizing
Cretan communities of the time, despite the aforementioned contact networks. is heterogeneity raises
questions regarding the genetic identity and cohesion of Minoan populations. e current chapter explores
human mobility in central and eastern Crete during the Prepalatial and Protopalatial period in order to assess
the degree of gene ow in this region and time period. Our results reveal interesting patterns of biological
anity among Cretan groups, possibly associated with intermarriage or other forms of group mobility. It
appears that in most cases cultural contacts were accompanied by gene ow, but notable exceptions have
also been identied. In addition, the pronounced biodistance of specic Cretan communities from others
is suggestive of genetic heterogeneity in Prepalatial and Protopalatial eastern and central Crete, although
further research, encompassing material from more sites across the island, is required in order to explore
these issues more comprehensively.
MNEME: Past and Memory in the Aegean Bronze Age, in E. Borgna, I. Caloi, F. Carinci, R. Laffineur (eds.), MNEME. Past and memory in the Aegean Bronze Age, AEGAEUM 43, Leuven-Liège , 2019