The Bioarchaeology of the Human Head: Decapitation, Decoration, and Deformation

Foreword

Foreword The human head as represented by skulls has a long history of study in anthropology in general and bioarchaeology in particular. Indeed, the focus on human anatomy above the neck is a founding interest of physical anthropology , largely emphasizing biology and with little attention paid to the social dimensions of treatment of the body at the time of a person’s death. Bioarchaeology —the study of human remains from archaeological contexts—is now at the forefront of an emerging understanding of social embodiment, the interplay between biology and culture, and values of a society expressed in the remains of its deceased. Past societies practiced a remarkable array of body treatments. Upon death, the bodies—especially the heads—of the deceased were frequently modified in very patterned ways. These modifications performed by the living and applied to the dead were informed by a complex interplay of religion, politics, economics, and long-standing social behaviors oftentimes associated with gender or age or both. Usually, bodies were buried near the place of death. However, “trophies” representing the body and the person (oftentimes heads) were sometimes transported over long distances. In this remarkable book, the authors focus on the bioarchaeology of the human head, discussing the various ways in which the head was treated at the time of death as well as before and after. Treatments were not random affairs but reflect intentional and ritualized practices with significant social meaning. In addition to providing a description of these practices, bioarchaeologists use a broad array of contextual information to understand what motivated these treatments. The earliest evidence of skull treatment is represented in cut marks deriving from the removal of soft tissue on the face of the 600,000-yearold Bodo cranium from the Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia (White 1986). In this instance, the activity associated with defleshing may have been related to ritual or cannibalism, two areas of historical interest in anthropology . Such craniofacial perimortem treatment is only rarely found before the Holocene, when humans began to practice an extensive range of craniofacial xiv Foreword modifications, including the kinds of cut marks documented in Bodo and other Pleistocene hominids. During the Holocene, humans greatly diversified head and skull treatments, including plastering, modeling, and painting (e.g., Bonogofsky 2005). In many settings, the head was removed altogether. Decapitation , however, was motivated by multiple factors, sometimes as a form of execution. In some settings, disembodiment followed death, for the purpose of long-term curation of the skull, both for public display and as heirlooms in households. In other settings, holes were drilled or entire sections of the head or skull removed. These practices were mostly performed on the deceased, but not always. The ethnographic and social historical records reveal a common theme involving head treatment, both for the living and for the dead. That is, the head (represented by the skull in archaeological contexts) is what Bonogofsky and others have described as “the seat of personhood,” or the element of the body that displays a person’s identity. We are what our heads broadcast about us as individuals, including hair treatment, facial features, facial morphology, and various material items that can be attached to it, such as strings, beads, rings, and plugs. Collectively, this montage of biological and cultural gives the person his or her identity. Via the context of historical sources, ethnography, and archaeology, bioarchaeologists are well positioned to provide perspectives on past societies through the study of body treatment. Contrary to the notion held by some that archaeology is missing from bioarchaeology (see Goldstein 2006), the study of ancient remains from archaeological contexts is well demonstrated by the authors of this volume as successfully linking the biological with the behavioral and social dimensions of humanness. Although bones and teeth are a central focus in bioarchaeological inquiry, the questions and hypotheses that the remains allow us to address are linked to the larger study of the human condition and the multiple ways in which the human condition is preserved in mortuary settings. This volume builds on the notion that human remains provide a window to the past and especially identity (see Knudson and Stojanowski 2009). The bioarchaeology of the skull is now much more than the typological focus that was emphasized by the founders of physical anthropology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This volume and the growing body of literature reveal the skull as a window into identity well beyond the biological forensics. We are now beginning to dig deep into...