Join the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures for its Afternoon Anthropology Lecture Series in which Olivia Jones, who is affiliated with the Department of Sociology & Anthropology, West Virginia University West Virginia Archaeological Research & Collections Management Facility, Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex, will discuss “Missing or Presumed Dead: Identifying patterns of infant burial in Mycenaean Achaia.”

Abstract: 

The Mycenaean Period (Late Bronze Age; 1600-1100 BC) in the Greek World is characterized by an explosion and elaboration of tomb architecture including shaft graves, beehive stone-built tholoi, and stone cut chamber tombs as well as an increasing complexity of mortuary ritual most notably visible in the postmortem manipulation of bodies. However, within this escalation of mortuary complexity archaeologists have routinely found simple pit or cist graves within settlements that contain the remains of infants. Despite the abundance of data, previous bioarchaeological research has rarely focused solely on the infant age group due to issues of differential burial treatment, poor preservation, and lack of recognition of infant remains by excavators. In this presentation, I outline a research design and present preliminary data for a regional analysis of infant burials, including intramural and extramural contexts, to reconstruct patterns of mortuary practices and explore notions of infant identity in the Mycenaean period.