Immune To Death: Humanity and Human Remains in the Context of a Research Facility (original) (raw)
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Mortality, 2019
This paper explores the mummies in the Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo, Sicily as material objects that become agents of cultural meaning on regional and universal levels through processes of human praxis. Informed by three theoretical notions: materiality, spatiality and Daniel Miller's understanding of consumption, the analysis focuses on two ongoing events: the commoditization of the Catacombs as a tourist site and the scientific investigation of the mummies and their environment by teams of experts from the Sicily Mummy Project. These events are identified as processes of consumption, that is, praxes through which engagement with a material object confers it with the agency to generate cultural meaning. In general, the scientific investigation of the mummies as repositories of medical data has enabled their universal cultural agency as 'biological archives'. By contrast, arguably, the unique historical materiality of child mummy, Rosalia Lombardo, has enabled her agency as a metonym for contemporary, regional Sicilian identity.
Archaeologists have often taken it for granted that death is a taboo topic in modern society. However, the fear of death hypothesis is contested within the social sciences, so does it still follow that the display of the ancient dead is in some way shameful or unacceptable? In this paper it is argued that death is not taboo and that modern death scholars use archaeological source material as a way to understand the subtlety of the human experience. Funerary archaeology is not a dangerous topic; rather it makes a very real and valuable contribution to modern society, providing one of the few ways that people can experience a corpse and so explore their own mortality and with it their place within the larger human story.
Jan Turek: Archaeology of Death, 14 - Ethics of funerary archaeology
Deapertment of Archaeology, Charles University, Prague, 2020
THIS IS THE LAST LESSON OF THE COURSE Archaeology of Death E-learning Dear Colleagues, As the Covid-19 safety measures are limiting our communication, please use the following web link to download presentation of the Archaeology of Death course. https://cuni.academia.edu/JanTurek/Teaching-Documents Since the lesson 4, that we have already missed I include much more texts and references, so you can use it as e-learning material. Let’s hope we are going to have chance to catch up with the lectures later the spring term. Meanwhile stay safe and Good luck! Sincerely Jan Turek Center for Theoretical Study Archaeology of Death Syllabus by Jan Turek The lecture provides a basic overview of the theory and methodology of the study of funerary areas, burial contexts and social and symbolic perception of death in prehistoric societies. Through the archaeological evidence of funerary rituals will be presented not only prehistoric people's attitudes toward death and the afterlife but also their culture, social organization, symbolic systems and cosmology. The focus on archaeology of personhood will be targeted mainly on the analysis of age and gender categories. Introductory topics summarize the methodology of field and laboratory research of funerary data in archaeology including application of scientific methods, spatial analysis of burial data and palaeodemography. In the interpretation section of the course an attention is also paid to the social and ritual significance of death and the transformation of human understanding of mortality. We are going to focus on case studies from different periods and locations throughout the world from Palaeolithic to the rise of historical societies. Case studies will further shed light on the social interpretation of burial data and their use in reconstructing social relationships, and will present significant discoveries. The end of the course is devoted to the ethics of the archaeological research of funerary and the political and ethical controversies surrounding human remains. This lecture is designed for audience among archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and others who have a professional interest in funerary evidence, or general curiosity about past death and burial. 1. Introduction to burial archaeology. Forms of burial in prehistory, hierarchy of burial sites and monuments. 2. Human understanding of death and the beginnings of funerary practices. Death and perception of time, regeneration, reincarnation, immortality. The earliest evidence of funerary behaviour. The question of cannibalism. 3. Basics of field methodology of burial contexts and funerary areas. Survey and excavation methods. Taphonomy, geochemical and geophysical methods. 4. Scientific methods of analysis - Burial contexts and human remains. Paleoanthropology and Palaeopathology. 4.2 Scientific methods of analysis - Burial contexts and human remains. Palaeopathology and Paleoparasitology. 5. Population Processes, DNA and Demography Population processes. Palaeodemography and methods of molecular biology 6. Stable Isotopes & Mobility Studies; Diet reconstruction Methods used for reconstruction of individual mobility and diet. 7. GIS & Spatial analysis of funerary areas: An Introduction 8. Shamanism and burials in the Palaeolithic period. 9. Burial rites as the source for reconstruction of prehistoric society Death at the beginning of agriculture. Genealogy, Power, wealth, Cult of Death; Feasting with ancestors. 10. Age and Gender reconstruction Gender categories, children in pre-industrial societies. 11. Death and monuments in the landscape Burial sites, burial monuments and settlement structure, What is a ritual landscape? Death in the living space. Houses of dead – genesis of barrows. Human sacrifices and ancestral worship. Barrows…. 12. Archaeology of violence, warfare, disease, magic and sacrifice 13. Mummies; preservation of soft tissue. Body decoration & face reconstruction Eternity, mumification and natural environment. 14. Ethics of funerary archaeology Political and ethical treatment issues of human remains and their analysis. Scientific sampling, exhibiting human remains, repatriation and reburial.
The Dignity of the Dead: Ethical Reflections on the Archaeology of Human Remains
Ethical Approaches to Human Remains, 2019
What is wrong with moving, analysing, and exhibiting an inert body of the past? Is it morally legitimate to manipulate the body or part of it that constituted the physiological essence of a subject with dignity? This chapter focuses, from a philosophical perspective, on analysing whether the notion of dignity can be applied to the human remains of a subject that no longer is. Ascribing dignity to dead bodies is problematic and needs conceptual clarifications in order to determine whether human corpses have certain moral status and should be protected or whether the notion of dignity should only be attributed to living persons. In this regard, as philosphers, we present a different notion of dignity from that used by Kant (1785) that it is commonly accepted when speaking about dignity, particularly since the Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations General Assembly 1948). In this chapter, the concepts "present dead" and "forgotten dead" are differentiated to justify that, even though the latter have not been object of special moral protection, they should be included under the concept of dignity. In addition, a notion of dignity grounded in the hermeneutical concept of understanding is presented to justify the role archaeology plays in providing a particular moral status to human remains and the material elements associated to them. 1 This paper falls within the Juan de la Cierva research programme IJCI-2014-19375 funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia y Competitividad of Spain. 2 This paper falls within the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia postdoctoral programme (SFRH/BPD/102407/2014) and of the research project HAR2015-64632-P, "Paisajes rurales antiguos del Noroeste peninsular: formas de dominación romana y explotación de recursos (CORUS)", financed by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and directed from the Instituto de Historia (CCHS, CSIC).
Historical Archaeology, 2021
European perspectives on the study of human remains, particularly mummified individuals with associated material culture, highlight the multidisciplinary research potential of these rare discoveries. The diverse evidence associated with mummified remains offers unique potential to consider how the deceased was experienced over time. Scientific analyses reveal the complex taphonomic processes leading to the selective survival of tissue and cultural items. Medical approaches to mummies have been long established, but historical examples can combine cultural and historical sources with the palaeopathological to develop more nuanced understandings of disease and lifestyle, identifying both individual biographies and wider cultural trends in mortuary practice. Study of mummies raises ethical considerations similar to those for skeletonized remains, but given the greater recognition of their humanity, further social and religious considerations are relevant. Investigation needs to be set ...
More than Metaphor. Approaching the Human cadaver in Archaeology.
Developments in body theory have had a strong impact on archaeology in recent years, but the concept of the body has tended to remain abstract. The term “body” is often used as a synonym for self or person, and the remains of bodies and body parts have often been approached theoretically as signs or symbols. While this has emphasized the importance of the body as a cultural construct and a social product, archaeologists have tended to overlook the equally important biological reality of the body. Bodies are more than metaphors. They are also biological realities. Maybe this becomes especially obvious at death, when the embodied social being is transformed into a cadaver, continuously in a state of transformation due to the processes of putrefaction and decomposition. In this transition, the unity of the mindful body and the embodied mind breaks down, and cultural and social control over the body can no longer be exercised from within, but instead has to be imposed from the outside. This article explores the friction between the culturally and socially produced body and the body as a biological entity at death. Through an approach that focuses both on the post mortem processes that affect the cadaver – and that can be seen as an ultimate materialization of death – and the practical handling of the dead body by the survivors, the author suggests a way toward an integrative and transdiciplinary approach to death and the dead body in archaeology.
Thematic Section: Blurring the Boundaries between the Living and the Dead: The Bioarchaeology of Postmortem Agency, edited by JJ Crandall & DL Martin, 2014
Archaeology increasingly acknowledges the porous conceptual boundaries dividing the living from the dead. Deconstructions of the ways Cartesian thinking has plagued bioarchaeology in particular have recast dead bodies and their accoutrements as dynamic symbols and tools which often engage the living This article overviews ongoing efforts to nuance understandings of death, the body and social agency in archaeology while introducing this special section of 8 papers focused on bioarchaeological studies of the social afterlives of the biologically-expired, or ‘postmortem agency’. We advocate against strictly defining postmortem agency given that various bioarchaeological data sets capture human behavior on various scales. Agency is well-theorized in archaeology thus we call for further integration of biological and taphonomic data derived from the study of dead bodies into existing approaches. Materiality and embodiment theories, in particular, have opened up avenues for bioarchaeologists to adapt existing models of agency to skeletal and mortuary data sets. To illustrate the merit of making postmortem agency a focus of bioarchaeological work, we conclude with a summary of the new methodologies and interpretive frameworks each of the theme papers present. These papers make clear that developing a bioarchaeology of undeath can only enliven archaeological reconstruction and theory-building across anthropology.
Jan Turek: Archaeology of Death,12:1 - Archaeology of violence, warfare, disease, magic & sacrifice
Department of Archaeology, Charles University, Prague, 2020
Dear Colleagues, As the Covid-19 safety measures are limiting our communication, please use the following web link to download presentation of the Archaeology of Death course. https://cuni.academia.edu/JanTurek/Teaching-Documents Since the lesson 4, that we have already missed I include much more texts and references, so you can use it as e-learning material. Let’s hope we are going to have chance to catch up with the lectures later the spring term. Meanwhile stay safe and Good luck! Sincerely Jan Turek Center for Theoretical Study The lecture provides a basic overview of the theory and methodology of the study of funerary areas, burial contexts and social and symbolic perception of death in prehistoric societies. Through the archaeological evidence of funerary rituals will be presented not only prehistoric people's attitudes toward death and the afterlife but also their culture, social organization, symbolic systems and cosmology. The focus on archaeology of personhood will be targeted mainly on the analysis of age and gender categories. Introductory topics summarize the methodology of field and laboratory research of funerary data in archaeology including application of scientific methods, spatial analysis of burial data and palaeodemography. In the interpretation section of the course an attention is also paid to the social and ritual significance of death and the transformation of human understanding of mortality. We are going to focus on case studies from different periods and locations throughout the world from Palaeolithic to the rise of historical societies. Case studies will further shed light on the social interpretation of burial data and their use in reconstructing social relationships, and will present significant discoveries. The end of the course is devoted to the ethics of the archaeological research of funerary and the political and ethical controversies surrounding human remains. This lecture is designed for audience among archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and others who have a professional interest in funerary evidence, or general curiosity about past death and burial.