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Introduction: Bioarchaeology and the Study of Violence
- University Press of Florida
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Introduction Bioarchaeology and the Study of Violence Debra L. Martin, Ryan P. Harrod, and Ventura R. Pérez Ancient human remains and the mortuary contexts in which they are located represent a uniquely rich data set for a wide range of investigations. Yet criticisms have been rightly made of earlier analysis that disconnected burials from their larger mortuary contexts and from their connection to living descendants (Martin 1998, 171). An additional problem that has limited the full interpretive power that may be gained from burial data is that researchers rarely used strong theoretical models or frameworks to pose hypotheses or questions that could be addressed with data derived from the skeletal remains. Left as largely descriptive studies focused on paleodemography and paleopathology, earlier studies failed to play much of a role in explaining the origin and evolution of human behavior and social relations. In an attempt to rectify this, bioarchaeology emerged as a way to integrate human remains into research programs that are responsive to the concerns of descendant populations and as a field that seeks to solve human problems. Bioarchaeology took shape in the early 1980s as processual archaeology began to provide a set of scientific principles and a focus on ecological explanations (Buikstra 1977). Concurrently, the concept of human adaptability developed within biological anthropology as a means of combining interests in evolutionary change with concern for the various adaptive problems humans face today, especially those living in limited and ecologically marginal environments (Buikstra and Cook 1980; Goodman et al. 1988; Larsen 1987). With questions that focus on how humans manage to survive and adapt (behaviorally, physiologically, 2 · Debra L. Martin, Ryan P. Harrod, and Ventura R. Pérez developmentally, or genetically) to environmental constraints and stressors , human adaptability clearly shared an ecological perspective with processual archaeology and bioarchaeology. The fact that bioarchaeology is interdisciplinary ensures that data collection and, more important, data interpretation will be scrutinized and challenged by people from a number of backgrounds with a variety of viewpoints on the appropriate use and meaning of data derived from human skeletal remains (Armelagos 2003). Bioarchaeological practice facilitates and provides an integrative methodology to bring together a number of previously decoupled aspects of burial analysis: 1. Bioarchaeology considers the connections between past and living groups. 2. Bioarchaeology’s raison d’être is to consider simultaneously the burial in its many contexts—for example, mortuary and funerary treatments, placement within particular areas, and the larger archaeological site and regional context. 3. Bioarchaeology considers the taphonomic (natural and cultural) aspects of human remains. 4. Finally, bioarchaeology as a disciplinary practice can be infused with theory related to known and hypothesized social dimensions , linking social and political processes with biological consequences . The chapters in Agarwal and Glencross (2011) provide excellent examples of this methodology, which is becoming known as “social bioarchaeology.” Signatures of Violence and New Methodologies in Bioarchaeology Bioarchaeology offers empirical data that help unravel large and important questions about humans and their long relationship with violence. Scheper-Hughes and Locke (1987, 31) presented a compelling metaphorical and theoretical framework for considering the embodiment of pain and suffering. They wrote that “the individual body should be seen as the most immediate terrain where social truths and social contradictions are played out . . . as well as the locus of personal and social resistance and struggle.” This notion provides a perfect metaphor for what bioarchaeological studies aim to do—reconstruct the ways that bodies are implicated in ideological, political, economic, and social processes (Sofaer 2006). [3.91.43.22] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 09:30 GMT) Introduction: Bioarchaeology and the Study of Violence · 3 Only bioarchaeology bridges the gap between the dead and living with such a robust and grounded data set. While archaeologists can provide the physical and cultural contexts of conflict and warfare with analysis of grave goods, iconography, architecture, and site layout, these studies often cannot infer anything about the once-living humans who prepared the grave goods or who made the murals or who built the structures. The human remains provide the most direct evidence of violence (both lethal and nonlethal forms) and can be used in conjunction with other data to infer patterns. The value of analyzing human remains is that it provides direct evidence about the ways ideology, violence, and power are used to maintain social control. By creating empirical links between trauma, pathology, and culture, this collection of studies provides insights into the human propensity for constructing and legitimizing violent cultural scripts that play out...