EAA Annual Meeting: Burial in Prehistory

15th EAA Annual Meeting, Riva del Garda, Italy, 15-20 September, 2009

Session title: BURIAL IN PREHISTORY: OLD ISSUES AND NEW TECHNIQUES

Preliminary Call for Papers

Deadline for paper proposals: 15th April, 2009

Session organizers:
Dr. Krum Bacvarov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences: krum.bacvarov@gmail.com)
Dr. Gassia Artin (Université Lyon 2: gassiart@hotmail.com)

Dear Colleague,
The 15th EAA Annual Meeting will be held in Riva
del Garda, Italy, 15-20 September, 2009. We are
releasing this Preliminary Call for Papers now,
so as to give potential contributors more lead
time to plan their schedules as well as to receive relevant feedback.

Keywords: prehistoric burial, social archaeology,
bioarchaeology, analytical techniques, Europe, the Near East.

Abstract: Burial has been considered in prehistoric archaeology as often as the everyday contexts and this is logical since death has always been a critical element of human life. Throughout the history of archaeology as a discipline, scientists have regularly explored various aspects of this field, from descriptions of excavated remains to assessments of archaeological bones to reconstructions of complicated mortuary practices and ritual behavior. Research on burial archaeology gradually intensified and set off in separate directions, especially in the last few decades, forming well defined subfields and schools, depending on national scientific traditions as well as on local/regional and chronological variations. Human biology and chemistry contributed greatly to the Archaeology of Death yielding the new discipline of bioarchaeology and brand new and promising techniques of assessing human bones, ranging from stable isotopic studies to ancient DNA analysis.

Summarizing the background of Archaeology of Death, one can clearly distinguish three major directions of current research interest:

• Social archaeology of mortuary remains including interpretations and reconstructions of socio-ritual patterns;
• - Bioarchaeological assessments including ‘traditional’ ageing and sexing as well as innovative modeling of social and ritual behavior;
• Stable isotopic studies, AMS 14C dating, ancient DNA analysis yielding dietary, chronological, and genetic evidence, respectively.

Another critical trend to be considered is certain regionalism in prehistoric research on mortuary practices that has produced separate schools in major European countries as well as in the USA and Russia. Although globalization and integration processes affect prehistoric archaeology too, it is obvious that there are huge gaps, especially in its theoretical aspects, that still need to be bridged by joint efforts.

Therefore, we propose the session on Burial in Prehistory: Old Issues and New Techniques. Its goal is to bring together mainstream archaeologists as well as bioarchaeologists and geneticists, from different research centers/schools who are currently working on aspects of prehistoric mortuary practices in the research directions listed above, to discuss their respective fields of expertise and to find similarities and distinctions both in their subjects and their approaches, to share their respective views on how these different approaches and techniques are to be combined and used together to construct new interpretative frameworks.

The following major topics are suggested for consideration:

• Archaeology of Burial;
• Bioarchaeology: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow;
• Assessment of Archaeological Human Bones;
• Burials in Various Prehistoric Settings: What Is Similar, What Is Different;
• Assessing Death, Interpreting Life;
• Personal Life Cycles and Socio-Cultural Identities;
• Exploring Similar Contexts But Speaking Different Languages.

The space and time framework of the session covers Europe and the Near East, from the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age. This will facilitate both the comprehensiveness and the conciseness of discussions focusing on more or less similar and contemporaneous contexts in different social and cultural settings, and on the models and techniques used to interpret them.

Deadline for paper proposals: 15th April, 2009

archaeology conferencearchaeology conference Published: 3.16.09 / 8am
Tags: archaeology, conference