Towards a Social Bioarchaeology of the Mycenaean Period

A biocultural analysis of human remains from the Voudeni cemetery, Achaea, Greece

Ioanna Moutafi

• Editorial: Oxbow Books
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781789254839
• Categoría: Sciences sociales
• Categoría: Archéologie

This book investigates the complex relationship between funerary treatment and wider social dynamics through a contextual analysis of human skeletal remains and associated mortuary data from Voudeni, an important Mycenaean (1450–1050 BC) chamber tomb cemetery in Achaea, Greece. Voudeni is one of the most significant sites of Achaea, thoroughly investigated under the direction of the Honorary General Director of Antiquities, Dr Lazaros Kolonas. Over 60 chamber tombs, spanning the entire Late Helladic III period, have been excavated, yielding an unprecedented wealth of biocultural information. This study explores the post-mortem treatment of the body in the Voudeni cemetery, through a novel interpretive approach that transcends unproductive cross-disciplinary divisions. This biosocial approach integrates traditional archaeology, current reflections in mortuary archaeological theory and cutting-edge bioarchaeological methods, primarily focused on funerary taphonomy and archaeothanatology of commingled skeletal assemblages. The author proposes that the most effective route to explore the social dimensions of mortuary data is through an emic understanding of historically situated actions and experiences, both of the living actors, the mourners, and of the dead themselves. Human skeletal remains are used as the primary strand of evidence, both as the object of the acts of the living and the subject of their own lived experiences. Most importantly, this study aspires to show how reconciliation between abstract theoretical advances and empirical biocultural data may be possible, providing the most insightful path to a better understanding of the archaeological mortuary record. The book provides a thorough background on Mycenaean mortuary research and explores the topic in successive stages: a) theoretical and methodological framework, b) detailed taphonomic analysis and osteological results of 20 tombs, c) multivariate analysis of bio-cultural data across socio-temporal parameters (with special emphasis on the distinction between the palatial LHIIIA-B and the transitional post-palatial LHIIIC period), and d) final synthesis, addressing questions pertaining to changing social conditions in Achaea and key issues of current Mycenaean mortuary research. These include: tomb re-use; form, diversity, sequence and frequency of mortuary activities; mortality profiles; differential inclusion, visibility and funerary treatment of different groups/identities; changes in treatment of the dead body, reflecting shifts in notions of the self and social relationships. The results shed new light on social developments in Mycenaean Achaea, showing that the complex interaction between changing social conditions and mortuary practice is often reflected in subtle, yet meaningful, shifts of emphasis in the post-mortem treatment of bodies and bones, rather than in blatant radical changes.

1

Setting the stage

1.1 Introduction

The first look into a Mycenaean chamber tomb, upon discovery, is breath-taking. Under the dim light coming through the narrow tomb’s stomion, the characteristic smell of soil and damp, and the light chill from the underground temperature, you step in carefully, watching your steps, trying to adjust your eyes. And then you see it. You see it all. Bones and ceramics, mixed-up, scattered all around. Something shiny in places. More vessels, and more bones. Bones, bones, and more bones. A few skeletons in situ, articulated bodies lying calmly in their original position. But, mostly, bones disarticulated, bones broken, fragmented bodies, scattered around and piled-up and squeezed in pits ... awe-inspiring and enigmatic, this entangled mass leaves you perplexed.

This imaginary entrance into a tomb is obviously far from a real archeological operation but the feeling is, more or less, the same. Collective burials are one of the most challenging assemblages an archaeologist can come across. What do these variable forms of mortuary practice actually tell us? How are we to make sense of this anarchic mass of bones and objects? How were the lives lived by these people? What was the story of those who buried them? But, most importantly, why does it even matter?

Death is an integral part of life in all human societies. Rather than a monolithic event, dying represents a social process, encompassing a series of collective social acts (aka mortuary practices). Current theory perceives mortuary practice not as passive reflection of reality, but rather as a point of self-representation and social transition, involving redefinition of identities, personhood, and social relation ships (including age, gender, kin, status). The peculiarity of the mortuary record (human remains, architecture, land scape, material and organic goods) lies in its transcending character between cultural and biological evidence. It thus provides unique social information, allowing us at once to assess: a) the historically-situated agency of the living; b) tangible information on the actual lives of the dead; and c) the agency that the dead themselves may still exert during post-mortem interaction with the living. Therefore, by studying deathways in their totality, we can reach an emic understanding of complex social processes in the past.

This book sets out to investigate the complex relation ship between Mycenaean funerary treatment and wider social dynamics, as expressed in Late Bronze Age Voudeni in Achaea, through a novel interpretive bioarchaeological approach. This approach transcends unproductive cross-disciplinary divisions and attempts to integrate, on an equal footing, traditional archaeology, mortuary archaeological theory, and state-of-the-art methods for the analysis of human (and particularly commingled) remains. This study proposes that the most effective route to exploring social aspects in mortuary data is through an emic understanding of historically situated actions and experiences, both of the living actors, the mourners, and of the dead themselves. In this model, human skeletal remains are the primary strand of evidence, both as the object of the acts of the living and the subject of their own lived experiences (see further in Chapter 4).

Under the theoretical framework advocated here, drawing on theories of practice, agency, and existential phenom enology, past human action and experience can only be approached if historically situated. This is why a single cemetery, Voudeni in Achaea, with a life-span covering the entire Late Helladic (LH) III period (c. 1450–1050 BC) was chosen as the core case-study for this research. The cemetery of Voudeni, an emblematic site of Mycenaean Achaea, was excavated systematically in the 1990s by Honorary General Director of Antiquities Lazaros Kolonas, providing, thus, a uniquely large and well-documented body of material and skeletal evidence. The cemetery comprised exclusively chamber tombs, the typical Mycenaean tombs for collective burials; continuous use was attested in most of them and the selected sample includes a variety of primary and secondary funerary contexts. This rich biocultural assemblage from Voudeni offers, thus, the opportunity to look closely at the mortuary practices of a community living in one of the most interesting areas of the Mycenaean world, both during the palatial Late Helladic IIIA–B period, and the transitional, post-palatial, Late Helladic IIIC.

Through the analysis of this very specific case, this study attempts to explore the relationship between chang ing social conditions and Mycenaean mortuary practice at many different levels. The aim is both to shed new light on several questions pertaining to the changing social conditions in Achaea during this time (and especially the transitional LHIIIC period following the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces) and to tackle key issues in current Mycenaean mortuary research. These briefly include: specifics of tomb re-use; form and diversity of funerary practices; sequence and frequency of mortuary events; demographic composition and mortality profiles of the study population; organising 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); changes in notions of personhood and social relationships (see further in Chapter 4).

Most importantly, this study aims to contribute a solid methodological blueprint for approaching the social dimen sions of mortuary rites. Through the reconciliation between abstract theory and a multi-disciplinary study of empirical bio-cultural data, especially addressing methodological issues pertaining to the analysis of commingled remains, this book aspires to overcome cross-disciplinary divides, advocating a holistic bioarchaeological approach as the most insightful path to a better understanding of the archaeolog ical mortuary record.

The research is presented in successive stages: a) after reviewing the history of research (Chapters 1–3), the the oretical and methodological framework of this work is outlined in Chapters 4–5; b) Detailed bio-cultural data and osteological results are presented in Chapter 6; c) the relationships of intersecting variables in bio-cultural mortuary data across socio-temporal parameters (with special empha sis on the distinction between the palatial LHIIIA–B and the transitional post-palatial LHIIIC period) are explored in Chapter 7; and d) a final synthesis, aiming to shed new light on questions pertaining to changing social conditions in Achaea and general issues in current Mycenaean mortuary research is given in Chapters 8–9. Analytically:

Chapter 1 presents introductory summaries on: termi nology and chronology (1.2); socio-political conditions of the Mycenaean period, with the emphasis on mortuary customs (1.3); specifics of LHIII Achaea (1.4); and general background information on the Voudeni cemetery (1.5.)

Chapter 2 provides a theoretical review of past (2.1) and current (2.2) approaches to the social dimensions of mor tuary practices and research directions in bioarchaeology (2.3.) The outline of this chapter follows the paradigmatic shifts in archaeological theory. This necessarily linear presentation was opted as the easiest way to illustrate the ongoing theoretical debates in our field, with no necessary implications for a strict linearity in disciplinary progress.

Chapter 3 presents the current state of play in Mycenaean mortuary research, providing: a) a brief review of the history of research so far (3.2), and b) key questions of current Mycenaean mortuary studies (with relevant back ground), with the focus on issues of special interest to the bioarchaeological study of the Voudeni cemetery (3.3–3.4.) These include: a) an overview of Mycenaean mortuary architecture, with special emphasis on its relationship with human action (3.3.1); b) the ritual and other activities (3.3.2), with emphasis on mode of burial, placement of the body, location of burial within the tomb; secondary treatment of the dead and activities related to Mycenaean collective burials; c) issues of vertical status funerary differentiations (3.4.1); d) collective identity (3.4.2); and e) defining aspects of personhood and lived identities, such as gender and age (3.4.3.) Finally, a review of bioarchaeological research in prehistoric Aegean is given in section 3.5.

Chapter 4 draws on the theoretical background outlined in previous chapters and presents the interpretive model of this study, together with details on scope and aims. The basic theoretical premises and main research objectives are given in 4.1. In section 4.2, an integrative bioarchaeological approach for the investigation of social dimensions in mor tuary practice is proposed. This operates on a dual scope that treats human remains both as the object of the practices of the living and the subject of their own lived experiences. The focus of the present study is on the first aspect (i.e. mortuary practices), which is presented in section 4.3 together with the basic methodological premises. Finally, specific questions addressed in this study are summarised in 4.4.

Chapter 5 presents the material and methods of this study. The material is presented in 5.1, including details on sample selection and related problems. The principles of osteological data collection, including recording standards and explicit procedure, are presented in 5.2. This section also includes the basic methodology for recording aspects not examined in this study per se (i.e. pathology, stature, entheseal changes) but used in order to assist the refitting analysis of commingled remains and individuation process. Methods and selected terminology on sex and age estimations are presented in 5.3. The methodological package compiled for the reconstruction of funerary practices is presented analytically in 5.4, including: segregation and individuation of commingled remains (5.4.1); estimation of Minimum Number of Individuals (5.4.2); evaluation of preservation patterns (5.4.3); anatomical articulation and position of skeletal remains (5.4.4); terminology, criteria and classification of different types of funerary disposal (5.4.5) and of specific secondary activities (5.4.6); procedure for inferring a reliable chronological frame of funerary contexts and cases (5.4.7). The methodology for and background to palaeodemographic analysis are given in 5.5, while the statistical methods used for the synthetic examination of intersecting variables are presented in 5.6.

Chapter 6 presents the results of this study by tomb. Each tomb is presented in a different section, with the first sub-section (e.g. 6.1.1) summarising the archaeological data and initial evaluations as presented by the excavator (Kolonas 1998; forthcoming), the second (e.g. 6.1.2) presenting the osteological results, and the third (e.g. 6.1.3) the bioarchaeological reconstruction of the funerary activities as assessed in this study.

Chapter 7 includes the presentation and synthetic analysis of aggregated results. The qualitative and quantitative exam ination of intersecting variables are set out as follows: Tomb characteristics and groupings (spatial variables and chronol ogy) in 7.1; Demographic parameters and mortality profiles in 7.2, including presentation of basic distributions (7.2.1), age-specific mortality profiles (7.2.2), further investigation of mortality profiles by sex and age (7.2.3), frequency of tomb use (7.2.4), sex and age distributions in different tomb groups (7.2.5); Types of funerary disposal and preservation patterns in 7.3 (classification of tomb contexts: 7.3.1, preservation patterns: 7.3.2, ambiguous contexts: 7.3.3, age and sex distributions in different contexts by type, location, date: 7.3.4); Funerary practices in 7.4 (specific secondary activities: 7.4.1, attributes of primary burials: 7.4.2).

Chapter 8 brings together the final discussion on all the above. Section 8.1 summarises the bioarchaeological reconstruction of funerary practices in Voudeni, assessing the formation of the various assemblages (8.1.1), diversity of funerary practice (8.1.2), frequency and sequence of funerary events (8.1.3), and discussing their cross-sections across time (8.1.4) and tomb characteristics (8.1.5). Section 8.2 discusses the demographic aspects of funerary diversity, including the interpretation of mortality profiles (8.2.1), temporal demographic differences (8.2.2), and differential funerary treatment across sex and age (8.2.3). The meaning of all these is explored in section 8.3, which discusses the motivation for interference with past remains (8.3.1), bodily fragmentation and enchainment practices (8.3.2), associations between tomb attributes and vertical status differentiation (8.3.3), and the place of children in mortuary practices at Voudeni (8.3.4). Finally, mortuary practice in its historical context is addressed in section 8.4, focusing on the relationship between shifts in mortuary practice at Voudeni and social developments in LHIIIC Achaea.

Finally, a concluding summary is given in Chapter 9.

1.2 Chronology and terminology

The conventional Aegean Bronze Age chronology follows the old tripartite temporal division (Early, Middle, Late), with different cultural labels for the three main geographical areas (mainland: ‘Helladic’, Crete: ‘Minoan’, Cycladic islands: ‘Cycladic’); each period is further divided in I, II, III. This relative chronology derives from correlations between stratigraphic sequence and typological ordering of material culture. The accumulating archaeological evidence progressively led to increasingly refined sub-divisions for each period (e.g. LHIIIA2 Early). Notwithstanding a plethora of inherent methodological problems of this system, well-established associations between the chronologies of different regions, inside and outside the Aegean, have been developed and a widely accepted approximate framework is now in use (Warren and Hankey 1989, 71, table 2.6; Wiener 2003; for particular associations of the LHIIIC c...

Índice

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Setting the stage
• 2. Studying mortuary practices
• 3. The state of play in Mycenaean mortuary research
• 4. A holistic bioarchaeological approach to mortuary practices
• 5. Material and methods
• 6. Tombs, bones and stories
• 7. Exploring the data
• 8. Understanding funerary practice
• Appendix: Supplementary information
• Bibliography