I still remember...

The following is a repost of an earlier blog but I felt that it was fitting today since this Remembrance Day I find my thoughts drifting back to ‘my guys.’ For a school project last February a group of my classmates and I trudged into Royal Oak Burial Park to collect data for a cemetery database. Straight forward data collection, however, was quickly transformed by the power of the dead. Today I took a moment to think back to that fateful day and appreciate the sacrifice of the Canadian military. So, my guys, rest in peace I still remember you.

Navetas...boats and bones

I recently had the opportunity to learn about a unique treatment of human remains from the island of Menorca. Through periods of Menorca history the island has been fairly isolated from outside contact. This isolation gave rise to some unique practices, as outside cultural influences were not at play. A very interesting burial practice occurred on the island during the pre-Talaiotic period. From 1200 and 750 BC a funerary practice of the people living on Menorca involved building megalithic stone burial chambers called Navetas.

 

Naveta des Tudons (http://www.menorcaweb.com/reports/archaeological-sites/naveta-des-tudons/)

The name comes from modern scholars, due to their appearance of an upturned boat. We do not know what the local people called them as we have found no written language from this period on the island. These structures contained two chambers an upper and a lower chamber. The deceased individuals were first wrapped in a shroud with a bone button and placed in the lower chamber. When this chamber began to fill up the bodies that had skeletonized were moved to the upper chamber. So far this sounds like many other cultures burial practices right? Megalithic funerary monuments, collective burials, and secondary burials are all funerary practices seen in a variety of different culture; here is where it gets weird. When the skeletonized remains were moved to the upper chamber they were distributed into piles according to body part such as skulls in one location, long bones in another, pelves in another, etc. The distribution of remains in this manner is as far as I know unique to this culture (although if anyone has other information I would be pleased to hear it!). Scholars have no idea why the pre-Talaiotic people separated remains in this manner and we likely will never know why but it certainly is interesting to ponder on.

Real live dead Romans!?

Back from the dead? It has been awhile since I have posted anything to my blog, apologies. I’ve been busy with a summer job which was only loosely related to archaeology. The good news is I am once again immersed in the archaeology of death this time quite literally. I am currently at a field school learning excavation and analysis techniques for osteological specimens. We are excavating a Roman necropolis located somewhere in the Mediterranean. I apologize for being cryptic however it is important to keep the remains safe from being overrun with overly curious tourists or looters.

Last week I came face to face with my first real live dead Roman. The experience was so incredibly surreal I can scarcely think of words to describe it. To imaging you were in the presence of a person who lived and breathed 1500 years ago is honestly a little difficult to even fathom.

My excitement at finally being able to put all my archaeological theory and method classes into real field work was pretty spectacular. I had to admit though, dealing with death is always a tricky business and not just because our century old skeletal remains were more than a little fragile. I found that although my days were filled with excitement and contentment at being able to engage in my passion, my nights were troubled by nightmares of the dead who could not rest in peace. The job of a bioarchaeologist is certainly a controversial one even for them. The ability to study and understand more about a past society is extremely fulfilling and rewarding and yet… I have mixed feelings about disturbing the earthly remains of a fellow human being. It is a surprising position to find myself in since I truly believe in the value of archaeological inquiry for everyone but I find myself wondering what my tomb occupants would have thought if they could see us fussing over their bones 1500 years in the future? Would they be horrified and appalled?  Would they laugh? Would they want to tell us more? Would they care? I can only hope that by treating these remains with the utmost respect and dignity that our actions are not offending our grave occupants.

Reflections on a Semseter of Death

My final semester as an undergrad is finally coming to a close (assuming I pass all my courses of course). It has been one heck of a ride. There have been ups and downs, wins and losses, many lessons learned and much sleep missed. Being so close to the end is both exhilarating and terrifying. I am ready to be done, to embark on a new chapter of my life. I also have no idea what that chapter might entail which is more than a little frightening.

My last semester has been one of the hardest of my undergraduate career. Trying to balance a heavy course load, job searching, and training (I'm a Canadian national team athlete) has been incredibly draining. I also struggled with the myriad of different projects I had to complete for my various classes. It seems we are finally saying goodbye to lecture, essay, exam course formats. This semester I gained invaluable new skills through professors encouraging engagement with a variety of different mediums. I helped to created a webpage (It's on Anglo-Saxon execution cemeteries), I started blogging, I worked with databases, and I learned basic statistics (not a new medium to the education system I know, but certainly new to me!). Learning these news skills is incredibly relevant to the job-market today but getting there inevitably involved a good deal of frustration and exhaustion.

I suppose it may not have helped that all my courses seem to be focused on death and human remains, which can at times get a bit depressing. Interestingly though, I think my engagement with death has actually made me think about death in more positive terms. Death surrounds us all. It is common to all humans, in all cultures, in all time periods. It is the common factor between all the remains that archaeologists study, no matter what race, or sexual orientation, nationality, identity; they are all dead. So in a way death unites us, and that to me is strangely comforting.

I lived dear to my family, I gave up my life yet a maiden.

Here I lie dead and I am ashes, and these ashes are earth.

But if the earth is a goddess, I am a goddess, I am not dead.

                           Roman tomb epitaph (CIL, vol. VI, no 35, 887)

 

For anyone interested in tomb epigraphy, here is a link  to a selection from the Roman Republic, Enjoy!

 

 

Do we need to legalize same-sex death?

I came across a recent re-post of an older blog from the Death Reference Desk that I found incredibly disturbing and for none of the reasons you might expect when reading a blog about death. The post was talking about some of the legal issues surrounding same-sex marriage rights and their effect on funerary practices. I have always been a supporter of same-sex marriage. I think it is completely ridiculous to still be enforcing inequality in any way; its 2013 people, smarten up!

I have never before considered the legal implications of legislation prohibiting gay-marriage on funerary practices. Apparently in states or countries where gay-marriage is not legal, same-sex partners have no legal rights to the body of their deceased partner. The blog post told the story of a man, Ron, who had to fight with the state authorities and the office of the medical examiner to get the body of his partner of 17 years released to him for burial. It took Ron four weeks to finally get the body released to him even though his partner had specified in his will he wished his final rights to be undertaken by Ron. I find this story to be incredibly sad and shocking particularly in relation to what we have been learning about in class this week.

We have been learning about the complicated politics of death, particularly the repatriation of human remains. There are people around the world fighting to get the human remains of ancestors re-buried in order to respect the deceased’s beliefs and wishes about their funeral and burial rites. There has been a massive shift in archaeology and anthropology in the last few decades from a primacy of scientific inquiry above all else to a primacy of beliefs systems and traditions associated with human remains. While I definitely think this is a positive shift in the field, I find it a little disconcerting that the voices advocating for respecting the wishes of the long dead are louder than the voices advocating for respecting the wishes of the very recently dead. It makes me quite angry to think that someone who has just been torn apart by the loss of a loved one has to deal with the additional trauma of having to fight to lay their loved one to rest. I sincerely hope that more states and countries will soon legalize same-sex marriage and stop treating human beings as second-class citizens because of their sexual orientation.