Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Anthropology, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Art History, June 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Raymond A. Callahan, Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) program. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis discusses the evidence for funerary practices afforded to children in the Earlier Bronze Age in Britain (circa 2500BC to 1400BC) focussing on three key case study areas: Scotland, Yorkshire and Wessex. A long-view of the Earlier Bronze Age has been adopted to enable broad patterns to be determined and discussed. The wider aim is to offer a fuller understanding of the perception and importance of children within Earlier Bronze Age society. Following the theoretical and methodological framework adopted throughout the study the evidence for the mortuary treatment of children and the grave furnishings provided for them is discussed with particular reference to how children’s graves compare to those of adults in the same chronological period. To accompany this study, a comprehensive catalogue of previously recorded children’s burials both by inhumation and after cremation has been compiled by the writer for the three case study areas. This includes data both from antiquarian sources and from modern excavation reports detailing aspects of grave location, positioning of the body and associated material culture in the form of grave goods. The corpus is then reviewed and discussed for each of the case study areas. The aim of each study is to analyse the significance of aspects of funerary practice and the role of grave goods in association with children of fifteen years of age or younger within regional burial traditions. This study indicates that children are under-represented in the burial record and suggests that formal burial was not open to all immature individuals. In each of the case study areas funerary rites afforded to children are generally consistent with those of adults but this study demonstrates that the inclusion of certain objects found in adult graves (such as bronze knife-daggers) were not considered appropriate for inclusion in the grave of a child. A number of exceptional and highly-furnished graves are present which indicate that it was possible for children to be perceived as significant members of Earlier Bronze Age society during life and in the Otherworld.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional & Community Planning / Anne E. Beamish / Cemeteries are often perceived as static landscapes containing markers of our collective past. Although this characterization encapsulates the function of a funerary landscape, it does not account for the experiential and restorative qualities these spaces can provide. Memorials can act as a bridge, connecting us to the departed by allowing for the projection of remembrance onto a tangible medium. At the turn of the 20th Century, the funerary industry in the United States began to define itself as a profession with the introduction of preservation technologies. Although these methods were not initially accepted, they are now considered to be the modern societal norm. Recently, there has been a revival in natural burial practices as an alternative to the traditional casket-embalming method. Ecological cemeteries incorporate natural burial practices as a way to provide their clientele with a sustainable, natural way of interment. This burial process includes a basic grave, shroud or biodegradable enclosure for the body and no toxic embalming fluids as a way of ensuring the body returns to the earth while enhancing the natural ecological cycle. These natural burial sites do not display rows of gravestones but are rather evocative landscapes meant to provide consolation without the environmental drawbacks that modern burial practices pose. This more sustainable, but often invisible, practice uses little physical denotation for mourners to identify their loved ones. Cemetery design needs to retain the emotive and restorative qualities of funerary landscapes while accommodating the growing trend of natural burials. This project aims to create a design framework that can inform existing and future cemeteries by investigating burial norms, how people commemorate, the experiential design of funerary landscapes, and the evolution of natural burials. These findings were combined with precedent studies, surveys, interviews, and design guidelines. The resultant design guidelines were then applied to an existing cemetery, Sunrise Cemetery located in Manhattan, Kansas. The proposed funerary landscape will provide mourners with a meaningful place for commemoration while maintaining healthy ecologies and could lead to a considerable shift in burial norms in the United States by demonstrating how a variety of remembrance practices can be accommodated in an ecological cemetery.

The understanding of ancient societies is often mainly based on how their burial sites have been interpreted. This is especially true for ancient societies where the burial sites may be the only remaining traces which can be studied. With a classical model, their analysis can yield valuable results on certain areas such as identifying status relationships and spatial groupings. The social structure that originally affected how the burial ceremony was conducted, however has largely been a subject of speculation. To analyse this structure a new theoretical foundation is required. In this thesis a ritualization perspective rooter in ritual theory has been implemented. It´s inclusion allows for the study of the structuring processes within the burials by identifying the normative actions which constituted the ritual. This approach requires methods capable of recreating that the ritual actions through the funerary remains. For this reason, the methodological approach employed has been largely rooted in archaeothanatology and taphonomy. In this thesis the Lapita culture which was active in Melanesia ca. 3000 BP has been in focus. This culture was chosen since its societal structure has so far been speculated widely but so far, no consensus has been reached. Only two Burial sites of adequate size and quality have been found to date, Reber-Rakival in Papua New Guinea and Teouma in Watom. These sites have been analysed previously and the findings suggest a rich variation in the funerary ritual implemented at the sites. Ritual has long been linked to societal structure but there are few methods which allow an archaeologist to study this structure through the ritual. The methods have been employed on physical remains from Reber-Rakival and recorded images from Teouma with the aim of clarifying the funerary ceremony and identifying the normative actions at both sites. The addition of previous research and ethnographic data was incorporated to compare and further clarify the interpretations. The resulting interpretation suggests that the burial practice and societal structure at the different sites had some overlap in how individuals of differing genders were positioned and treated. The extent to which this treatment was at the core of the ritual however, varied. In Teouma there was a clearly defined androcentric influence which was prevalent in both how the bodies were positioned and to what extent they were interfered with. This differed to the societal structure which affected the burials in Reber-Rakival which could not be as clearly defined given the greater level of disturbance at the site but was clearly not as extreme in favour of males. This indicates that different societal structures were in place but at present it cannot be considered as a conclusive estimation, further research is required to test it. / Tolkandet av forntida samhällen har ofta till stor del baserats på hur deras begravningsformer tolkas. Dessa undersökningar kan ge goda resultat men har oftast varit fokuserade på att identifiera exempelvis status och spatiala grupperingar. Den sociala strukturen som påverkade begravningsceremonin undersöks sällan närmare än via bred spekulation i den klassiska modellen. För att studera denna sociala struktur genom begravningsritualen närmare krävs teoretiska perspektiv som sällan brukas inom klassisk arkeologi. Ett teoretiskt perspektiv med vilket just denna struktur kan studeras är ritualization. Genom detta perspektiv kan de identifierbara normativa handlingarna inom en begravningsritual ses som en återspegling av den sociokulturellt strukturerande processen som påverkade ritualens utförande. Detta kräver metoder som kan återskapa handlingarna genom de material som finns tillhanda. I denna uppsats har Lapitakulturen i Melanesien som var verksam ca. 3000 år sedan legat i fokus för att se hur effektiv denna metod är på en relativt okänd kultur var sociala struktur är oöppen för vid spekulation i nuläget. Bara två större gravplatser från Lapitakulturen har identifierats i nuläget, Reber-Rakival i Papua Nya Guinea och Teouma i Vanuatu, så analysen har begränsats till dessa två platser.  Metoderna som använts har sina rötter i arkaeothanatologi och tafonomi har implementerats på fysiska material från Reber-Rakival och bildbevis från Teouma. Endast handlingar som direkt påverkade kroppens position inkluderades och ämnade att klargöra den rituella processen med focus på normativa handlingar och identifieringen av potentiella indikatorer för att tolka hur den rituella strukturen kan tolkas. Jämförelse med resultat från tidigare analyser och etnografiska exempel utfördes för att testa tolkningarna. Resultaten av dessa metoder visade att den rituella processen hade vissa likheter mellan de två platserna. Speciellt i att de varierade beroende på den gravlagdes kön. Vid sin kärna var det dock olika. Detta kunde ses i de mycket tydligare tecken på en klar separation mellan könen med en klar androcentrisk agenda i de rituella handlingarna i Teouma jämfört med Reber-Rakival där de rituella normerna var mer svårtolkade då platsen var mer störd men indikerar att den rådande strukturen inte var lika extrem i fördel för manliga individer. Denna uppskattning kan dock i nuläget inte ses som en slutgiltig tolkning, ytterligare studier krävs för att testa den.

The use of geophysical tools to locate clandestine burials involving bodies has seen increasing popularity among forensic personnel. Often, these search methods are important to highlight certain areas where a body may or may not be located prior to utilizing invasive search techniques. Because of the success of these tools within real-life forensic searches, the use of controlled studies that monitor and detect cadavers over certain lengths of time have been increasingly utilized. However, these controlled studies have not monitored various burial scenarios that mimic real-life situations. This study focused on detecting and monitoring six burials containing pig carcasses used as proxies for human bodies and two control burials with a conductivity meter and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) with a 500-MHz and a 250-MHz antenna over a twelve month period. Each burial within this study represented a different forensic scenario that mimicked a real-life situation. Further, forensic use of GPR in both controlled settings as well as real-life searches have mainly focused on the use of a 500-MHz antenna. Therefore, this research also compared the use of a 250-MHz antenna with a 500-MHz antenna. Lastly, a number of GPR imagery options were utilized including reflection profiles and horizontal slices with various GPR software programs to compare the results obtained. Results obtained from the conductivity meter were compared to the results obtained by both antennae of the GPR. Overall, the use of multiple GPR imagery options provided increased resolution of the burial scenarios. Results showed that the conductivity meter was not a beneficial geophysical tool because none of the burial scenarios were detected. On the other hand, the use of GPR showed that the graves with objects added to the pig carcasses provided iv increased resolution compared to the graves containing only pig carcasses. Lastly, the 250-MHz antenna provided better resolution of the burial scenarios than the 500-MHz antenna due to easier discrimination of the forensic targets. Therefore, the use of a 250-MHz antenna would be a viable option to search for clandestine burials containing adult-sized bodies

No description available.

No description available.

Yes / Uses new C14 chronology to chart the burial sequence within and the development of the iconic round barrow.