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Instructor: Dr. James M. Davidson
Course Level/Structure: Graduate seminar
Time:    Monday only -- periods 5 through 7(11:45am - 2:45 pm)  
Class Room: CBD (Classroom Building 105), Room 0334
(located across University Ave, at 105 NW 16th St)

Office: Turlington B128
Email: davidson@anthro.ufl.edu (jmicson@aol.com)
Office Hours: Tues 10-12; Wed 1-3 (and by appointment)

Course Description and Objectives:  The seminar's goal is to provide a solid grounding in the anthropological literature of Mortuary studies; that is, data derived from a study of the Death Experience.  In addition to archaeological data, a strong emphasis will be placed on the theoretical underpinnings of mortuary data, drawn from cultural anthropology and ethnography.  Along with more theoretical papers, specific case studies will be used to address a variety of topics and issues, such as Social Organization and Social Structure, Skeletal Biology (e.g., Paleodemography, Paleopathology, and other issues of Bioarchaeology), Gender Issues, The Ethics of using Human Remains, and Post-Processual Critiques of Mortuary Archaeology. The time range that we will cover in the course will span from the Neolithic to the early 20th century, and numerous cultures from all parts of the globe will be our subject matter.

Weekly Readings

Week 1 (No class)

Week 2 (Aug 27)

Introduction: Historical Perspectives on the Anthropological and Archaeological Study of Death.

Emphasis during the first class sessions will be on some of the fundamental literature upon which contemporary interpretations of archaeological mortuary studies are based. The readings include both summaries of historical developments and older works; some of the latter have only historical value.

It may be helpful to read Chapman and Randsborg 1981 first, as background.

Hertz, Robert
1960 [1907] A contribution to the study of the collective representation of death. In Death and the Right Hand. The Free Press, Glencoe, IL.

NOTE: Read only pp. 27-86 (notes for these pages are between 117-154).

Kroeber, Alfred L.
1927    Disposal of the dead. American Anthropologist 29:308-315.

Childe, V. Gordon
1945    Directional changes in funerary practices during 50,000 years. Man 45:13-19.

Binford, Lewis R.
1962 Archaeology as anthropology. American Antiquity 28(2):217-225.

Ucko, Peter
1969  Ethnography and archaeological interpretation of funerary remains. World Archaeology 1: 262-80.

Chapman, Robert, and Klavs Randsborg
1981   Approaches to the archaeology of death. In The Archaeology of Death, edited by Robert Chapman, I. Kinnes, and Klavs Randsborg, pp. 1-24. Cambridge University Press.

Supplementary Reading: not required, but very useful

Palgi, Phyllis and Henry Abramovitch
1984 Death: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology 13:385-417.

Bartel, Brad
1982   A historical review of ethnological and archaeological analyses of mortuary practices. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1:32-58.

Binford, Lewis R.
1971    Mortuary practices: their study and their potential. In Approaches to the Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practices, edited by J. A. Brown. Society for American Archaeology Memoir 25: 6-29.

Goodenough, Ward
1965 Rethinking status and Role: Toward a general model of the cultural organization of social relationships. In The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology, edited by Michael Blanton, pp. 1-24. A.S.A. Monographs No. 1. Praeger, New York.

Brown, James A.
1971 The dimensions of status in the burials at Spiro. In Approaches to the Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practices, edited by J.A. Brown, pp. 92-112. Society for American Archaeology Memoir 25.

Tainter, Joseph A.
1978    Mortuary practices and the study of prehistoric social systems. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 1:105-141.

Braun, David
1979    Illinois Hopewell burial practices and social organization: a reexamination of the Klunk-Gibson mound group. In Hopewell Archaeology: The Chillicothe Conference, edited by D. Brose and N. Greber, pp. 66-79. Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio.  

Supplementary reading: not required but strongly recommended, especially Saxe’s discussion and definition of his hypotheses

Saxe, Arthur A.
1970  Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practices. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Michigan. (emphasize pp. 1-121)

Braun, David
1981 A Critique of Some Recent North American Mortuary Studies. American Antiquity 48(2):398-416.

Tainter, Joseph A.
1981 Reply toA Critique of Some Recent North American Mortuary Studies. American Antiquity 46(2):416-420.

Week 5 (Sept 17)
Theoretical Positions and Issues II

O'Shea, John M.
1984    Mortuary Variability: An Archaeological Investigation. Academic Press, New York. (emphasize Chapters 1, 2, 3, 7, 8)

Peebles, Christopher S. and Susan M. Kus
1977   Some archaeological correlates of ranked societies. American Antiquity 42(3):421- 448.

Hodder, Ian
1982 The identification and interpretation of ranking in prehistory: A contextual perspective. In Ranking, Resource and Exchange: Aspects of the Archaeology of Early European Society, edited by A. C. Renfrew and S. J. Shennen, pp. 150-154. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Case studies highlighting specific applications of mortuary theory.  The readings for this week deal with the interpretation of the rise of sedentism and marking control over critical resources.  This is the subject of Saxe's (1970) Hypothesis 8.

Chapman, Robert
1981 The emergence of formal disposal areas and the problem of megalithic tombs in prehistoric Europe. In The Archaeology of Death, edited by R. Chapman, I. Kinnes, and K. Randsborg, pp. 71-81. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Charles, Douglas and Jane Buikstra
1983   Archaic mortuary sites in the central Mississippi drainage: distribution, structure, and behavioral implications. In Archaic Hunters and Gatherers in the American Midwest, edited by J. L. Phillips and J.A. Brown, pp. 117-145. Academic Press, New York.

Saxe, Arthur A. and Patricia L. Gall
1977  Ecological determinants of mortuary practices: the Temuan of Malaysia. In Cultural- Ecological Perspectives on Southeast Asia, edited by W. Wood, 41: 74-82. Papers in International Southeast Asia Studies, Ohio University, Athens.

Goldstein, Lynne
1981    One-dimensional archaeology and multi-dimensional people: spatial organization and mortuary analysis. In The Archaeology of Death, edited by R. Chapman, I. Kinnes, and K. Randsborg, pp. 53-69. Cambridge University Press.

Dillehay, Tom D.
1990  Mapuche ceremonial landscape, social recruitment and resource rights. World Archaeology 22: 223-241.

Glazier, Jack
1984    Mbeere ancestors and the domestication of death. Man (ns) 19:133-148.

Paper No. 1:  write an essay (5 to 10 pages in length), that discusses the Saxe-Binford approach to Mortuary data, emphasizing the middle range nature of their efforts, and describing how their approach may be defined as representationist.  How can it be applied to archaeological data, and what would be some potential pitfalls in this application? Paper is Due Monday, October 1, 2007.

Topics covered in this class would include paleodemography, paleopathology, diet and nutrition, and the biological costs and benefits of maize agriculture.  Consider the prehistoric and historic case studies; how do they differ?

Ambrose, Stanley H., Jane Buikstra, and Harold W. Krueger
2003 Status and gender differences in diet at Mound 72, Cahokia, revealed by isotopic analysis of bone. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22:217-226.

Rose, Jerome C., Murray K. Marks, and Larry L. Tieszen
1991 Bioarchaeology and Subsistence in the Central and Lower Portions of the Mississippi Valley. In What Mean These Bones? Studies in Southeastern Bioarchaeology, edited by M.L. Powell, P.S. Bridges, and A.M. Wagner Mires, pp. 7-21. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Larsen, Clark Spencer; Mark C. Griffin, Dale L. Hutchinson, Vivian E. Noble, Lynette Norr, Robert F. Pastor, Christopher B. Ruff, Katherine F. Russell, Margaret J. Schoeninger, Michael Schultz, Scott W. Simpson, and Mark F. Teaford
2001 Frontiers of Contact: Bioarchaeology of Spanish Florida. Journal of World Prehistory 15(1):69-123.

Davidson, James M., Jerome Rose, Myron Gutmann, Michael Haines, Cindy Condon, and Keith Condon
2002 The Quality of African-American Life in the Old Southwest near the Turn of the 20th Century. In The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere, edited by Richard Steckel, pp. 226-277. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Wood, James W., George R. Milner, Henry C. Harpending, and Kenneth M. Weiss
1992 The osteological paradox: Problems of inferring health from skeletal samples. Current Anthropology 33(4): 343-370.

Wright, Lori E. and Cassady J. Yoder
2003 Recent Progress in Bioarchaeology: Approaches to the Osteological Paradox. Journal of Archaeological Research 11(1):43-70.

Supplementary Readings (not required, but may be useful, especially if you have little experience in skeletal biology, paleopathology, paleodemography, etc.)

Larson, Clark Spencer
2002 Bioarchaeology: The Lives and Lifestyles of Past People. Journal of Archaeological Research 10(2):119-166.

Boquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre and Claude Massett
1982 Farewell to Paleodemography. Journal of Human Evolution 11:321-333.

Van Gerven, Dennis P. and George J. Armelagos
1983 Farewell to Paleodemography? Rumors of Its Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated. Journal of Human Evolution 121:353-360.

Week 8 (Oct 8)

Archaeological Case Studies I: North America

Brown, James A.
1981  The search for rank in prehistoric burials. In The Archaeology of Death, edited by R. Chapman, I. Kinnes, and K. Randsborg, pp. 25-37. Cambridge University Press.

Gilman, Patricia S.
1990 Social organization and Classic Mimbres period burials in the SW United States. Journal of Field Archaeology 17:457-469.

Howell, Todd L. and Keith W. Kintigh
1996  Archaeological identification of kin groups using mortuary and biological data: an example from the American Southwest. American Antiquity 61(3):537-554.

Shryock, Andrew J.
1987  The Wright Mound reexamined: Generative structures and the political economy of a simple chiefdom. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 12:243-268.

Mainfort, Robert C., Jr.
1989 Adena chiefdoms? Evidence from the Wright Mound. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 14(2):164-178.

Milner, George R., Eve Anderson, and Virginia G. Smith
1991 Warfare in late prehistoric west-central Illinois. American Antiquity 56(4):581-603.

Archaeological Case Studies II: South America, Europe, the Near East

Byrd, Brian F., and Christopher M. Monahan
1995 Death, mortuary ritual, and Natufian social structure. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 14:251-287.

Dillehay, Tom D.
1995 Mounds of social death: Araucanian funerary rites and political succession. In Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices, edited by Tom D. Dillehay, pp. 281-313. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington.

Pollock, Susan
1991 Of priestesses, princes and poor relations: The dead in the royal cemetery of Ur. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 1(2): 171-189.

Randsborg, Klavs
1981 Burial, succession and early state formation in Denmark. In The Archaeology of Death, edited by Robert Chapman, I. Kinnes, and Klavs Randsborg, pp. 105-121. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Ethnographic and Historical Accounts on the Treatment of the Dead

Metcalf, Peter A.
1976 Who are the Berawan? Ethnic classification and the distribution of secondary treatment of the dead in central north Borneo. Oceania 47:85-105.

Metcalf, Peter
1981 Meaning and materialism: The ritual economy of death. Man 16:564-578.

Precourt, Walter E.
1984  Mortuary practices and economic transaction: A hologeistic study. Research in Economic Anthropology 6: 161-170.

Aries, Phillipe
1974 Western Attitudes Toward Death. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

Week 11 (Oct 29)

Ethnographic Observations II

Elliott, John R.
1990 Funerary Artifacts in Contemporary America. Death Studies 14: 601-612.

Pearson, Michael Parker
1982 Mortuary practices, society and ideology: an ethnoarchaeological study. In Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, edited by Ian Hodder, pp. 99-113. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Farrell, James J.
1980 Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830-1920. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. (Read pages 16-73).

McGuire, Randall H.
1988 Dialogues with the Dead: Ideology and the Cemetery. In The Recovery of Meaning: Historical Archaeology in the Eastern United States, edited by Mark P. Leone and Parker B. Potter, Jr., pp. 435-480. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.

Mainfort, Robert C., Jr.
1985 Wealth, space, and status in a historic Indian cemetery. American Antiquity 50:555-579.

Bell, Edward L.
1990 The historical archaeology of mortuary behavior: Coffin hardware from Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Historical Archaeology 24(3):54-78.

Bell, Edward L.
1994 Archaeological investigations of historical cemeteries: An introduction to scholarly trends and prospects. In Vestiges of Mortality and Remembrance, by Edward L. Bell, pp. 1-54. Scarecrow Press, Methuen (NJ) and London.

Cannon, Aubrey
1989 The Historic Dimension in Mortuary Expressions of Status and Sentiment. Current Anthropology 30(4):437-458.

Dethlefsen, Edwin N. and James Deetz
1966 Death's Heads, Cherubs, and Willow Trees: Experimental Archaeology in Colonial Cemeteries. American Antiquity 31(4):502-510.

Jamieson, Ross W.
1995 Material culture and social death: African-American burial practices. Historical Archaeology 29(4):39-58.

Little, Barbara J., Kim M. Lamphear, and Douglas W. Owsley
1992 Mortuary display and status in a nineteenth-century Anglo-American cemetery in Manassas, Virginia. American Antiquity 57(3):397-418.

Paper No. 2: Write an essay (5 to 10 pages in length) discussing the methodologies and theoretical underpinnings of historic mortuary studies, contrasting them with prehistoric theory and datasets. Especially emphasize the search for status markers. Paper is Due Monday, November 19, 2007.

Week 13 (Nov 12) NO CLASS: VETERAN’S DAY OBSERVED

Week 14 (Nov 19)

Ethical Perspectives in Mortuary Archaeology

McGowan, Gary S. and Cheryl J. LaRoche
1996 The Ethical Dilemma Facing Conservation: Care and Treatment of Human Skeletal Remains and Mortuary Objects. Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 35(2):109-121.

Crist, Thomas
2002 Empowerment, Ecology, and Evidence: The Relevance of Mortuary Archaeology to the Public. In Public Benefits of Archaeology, pp. 101-117, edited by Barbara J. Little. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Buikstra, Jane E., and Claire C. Gordon
1981 The study and re-study of human skeletal series: The importance of long-term curation. In The Research Potential of Anthropological Collections, edited by A.E. Cantwell, J.B. Griffin, and N.A. Rothschild, pp. 449-465. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 376.

Walker, Phillip L.
2000 Bioarchaeological Ethics: A Historical Perspective on the Value of Human Remains. In Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton, pp. 3-39, edited by M. Anne Katzenberg and Shelley R. Saunders. Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Rose, Jerome C., Thomas J. Green, and Victoria D. Green
1996 NAGPRA is forever: Osteology and the repatriation of skeletons. Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 81-103.

Watkins, Joe
2004 Becoming American or Becoming Indian? Nagpra, Kennewick and Cultural Affiliation. Journal of Social Archaeology 4(1):60-80.

Morrell, Virginia
1995 Who Owns the Past? Science 268(5216):1424-1426.

World Council of Indigenous Peoples
1990 The sacred and the profane: The reburial issue as an issue. Death Studies 14:503-517.

Moving Beyond Saxe-Binford: Postprocessual and other Criticisms of Mortuary Site Studies

Barrett, John C.
1990  The monumentality of death: The character of Early Bronze Age mortuary mounds in southern Britain. World Archaeology 22:179-189.

Sullivan, Lynne P.
2001 Those Men in the Mounds: Gender, Politics, and Mortuary Practices in Late Prehistoric Eastern Tennessee. In Archaeological Studies of Gender in the Southeastern United States, edited by Jane M. Eastman and Christopher B. Rodning, pp. 101-126. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Gillespie, Susan D.
2001 Personhood, Agency, and Mortuary Ritual: A Case Study from the Ancient Maya. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20:73-112.

Brown, James
1995 On Mortuary Analysis; with Special Reference to the Saxe-Binford Research Program. In Regional Approaches to Mortuary Analysis, pp. 3-26, edited by Lane Anderson Beck. Plenum Press, New York.

Chapman, Robert
1995 Ten years after-Megaliths, mortuary practices, and the territorial model. In Regional Approaches to Mortuary Analysis, edited by L.A. Beck, pp. 29-51. Plenum Press, New York.

Lull, Vicente
2000 Death and Society: a Marxist approach. Antiquity 74:576-580.

Morris, Ian
1991 The archaeology of ancestors: The Saxe/Goldstein hypothesis revisited. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 1(2): 147-169.

Harke, Heinrich
2002 Interdisciplinarity and the archaeological study of death. Mortality 7(3):340-341.

Pearson, Mike Parker
1993 The powerful dead: Archaeological relationships between the living and the dead. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3(2): 203-229.

Presentations/Discussions of Individual Projects and Papers