Cemeteries are microcosms of society bound together in sacred spaces. As manifestations of social mores, cemeteries allow anthropologists to obtain information on social development and structure. Where noninvasive study is mandated, crucial methods of interpretation include studies of landscape design, floral incorporation, grave marker design and development, and grave mementos. This thesis discusses these and other methods as they are used to infer group mores. It also indicates how information acquired from methods can be adversely affected by outside influences, such as vandalism, weathering, and replotting. This thesis adds to known methods of cemetery research another unbiased, noninvasive tool that is the analyses of public cemetery sales records of a known society's municipal cemetery, Greenwood Cemetery of Orlando, Florida. Greenwood Cemetery opened at approximately the same time as the founding of its host city, Orlando, Florida. All burial and plot ownership, regardless of the social status of the owner, are publicly accessible in accordance with the requirements of the Florida Sunshine law. As the city and the cemetery followed parallel development, socioeconomic trends affected the city and the cemetery in a similar manner. Using public records dating from 1890 to 2010, a random survey was conducted that acquired sale dates, death dates, prices, numbers of plots purchased, and types of plots purchased. Using SPSS, the acquired information was statistically analyzed for correlations to known historic moments such as The Great Depression and the Florida Land Boom. Comparisons of data revealed fluctuations in the time between purchase and death: a decreasing length of time, an increasing length of time, and a repeated decreasing of time. The survey of the prices of plots revealed a positive correlation over time, indicating uniformity. A strong shift from the purchase of full body plots to cremation plots over time was evident, which was interpreted as a reflection of a shift in religious and social mores. Additionally, the study showed a significant increase in the percentage of purchased plots used. An ANOVA reveals that replotting is not significant enough to affect interpretation of cultural mores manifested in landscape design and spatial usage. While the results lend themselves to more questions and study, the analyses of cemetery sale records demonstrates its vitality as an unbiased, noninvasive, publicly accessible instrument. The analyses of sales records will also enable cross cultural comparisons.

Despite prohibitions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad strictly forbidding the practice of dramatic acts of public mourning, Muslim women have persisted in wailing performances throughout history and across boarders. Pashtun social ethics require women to participate in visitation exchanges commemorating sorrowful and joyous events experienced by members of their social circle known as gham-xadi exchanges. These exchanges, which involve performative mourning rites, affirm a woman’s place in society through the maintenance of complex social networks. This research examines the role ritualized mourning performances play in the construction and maintenance of ethnic and religious identities among Pashtun women living in Pakistan. It explores the opposing pressures of Islamic prescription and Pashtun traditions regarding funerary rites and women’s mourning, arguing that social changes taking place in recent decades have caused these pressures to come into increasing conflict with one another. While urbanization and the shift from an agrarian to an industrial based economy in Pakistan has led to the amplified importance of wailing performances, globalization and growing exposure to the West has revitalized anxieties surrounding proper religious practices. The process of Islamization occurring through constitutional and educational reforms in Pakistan compounds this anxiety. These tensions have created an identity crisis among Pashtun women in Pakistan who are then forced to reconcile these disparate demands resulting in the layering of their identities. / text

Atkins performed an archaeological relocation of a nineteenth century cemetery on behalf of Luminant Mining Company, within the Kosse Mine in Robertson County, Texas between the years of 2011 and 2012. The Head Cemetery offers unique opportunities to examine views of death and burial in rural, central Texas during the period of the early statehood until around 1900. The Head family and other members of the settlement were part of a pioneer community exhibiting clear expressions of family and community affiliations through spatiality and the material culture of burials. An analysis of coffin hardware and burial practices provides suggestions for dating and identifying unknown interments and exploring changing sentiments towards death by Anglo American settlers within the broader sociohistorical context of the nineteenth century. / text

abstract: This dissertation focuses on the diversity inherent to the process of social community construction. Building upon previous archaeological and bioarchaeological studies of community identities, the current project emphasizes the need for consideration of the impact of diversity on community identity formation in the past and illustrates the utility of a bioarchaeological approach for undertaking this task. Three specific aspects of community formation are addressed: (1) the relationship between symbolic community boundaries and geographic space, (2) the influence of diverse discourses of intra-community sub-groups on community formation, and (3) the negotiation of community boundaries by outsiders. To investigate these aspects of community construction in the past, dietary practices and mortuary rituals of the Late Intermediate Period (c. AD 900-1470) Ychsma society of the central Peruvian coast are examined as a case study. Previous anthropological and sociological studies demonstrate that diet and burial customs are common mechanisms used in processes of group identification around the world, including the Andes. In the current study, analyses of materials from Armatambo and Rinconada Alta in the Rimac Valley are used to examine the ways in which isotopic and dental indicators of diet and archaeological contextual indicators of mortuary rituals correspond with or crosscut spatial burial patterns and additional groups based on sex, age at death, and biogeochemically reconstructed residential origins. Observed patterns are interpreted using a theoretical framework that incorporates sociocultural theory of identity with pre-Columbian Andean ideology of the body, self, and social environment. Results reveal differences in large-scale trends in diet and mortuary practices associated with burial at each site that are interpreted as evidence of symbolic community boundaries between sites. Complexities within larger trends reveal evidence of internal diversity as well as fluidity across community boundaries. Specifically, evidence is presented for intra-community dietary differences, intra-community differences associated with age and sex, and finally evidence of external relationships. This consideration of diversity in community identity construction is concluded to profoundly refine current understandings of Ychsma social interactions. Consequently, this study demonstrates empirical investigation of social diversity is necessary for understanding the complex nature of the social construction of communities in the past. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2015

The purpose of this research was to determine whether there were biases among funeral home and cemetery professionals with regards to hiring mortuary science graduates with tattoos. An anonymous survey including a photograph of either a male or female with various degrees of visible body art, ranging from none to extreme, was sent to 1484 members of the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association. The primary methodology used to determine whether biases existed regarding visible body art were a semantic differential and a hireability scale. The survey was designed to gather information related to the following three research questions: 1. What are employers’ perceptions regarding hireability of individuals based on extent of visible body art? 2. Are there differences in the employers’ perceptions regarding visible body art based on the gender of the individuals in the photographs? 3. What are the differences in perceptions regarding visible body art based on respondent age, gender, and their own extent of visible body art? Of the surveys distributed, responses totaled 151. Due to incomplete information, 74 were discarded. The number of surveys used in the analysis was 77. Results indicated no specific biases of employers' perception towards potential hirees with body art. These results were based on multiple categories, including age and gender of respondent, extent of body art of respondent, and respondent position within their companies. Although the responses were neutral and showed no significant bias towards hirees with body art, mortuary science students should be aware of potential biases of the families served by the funeral homes, including age of the deceased and family members, as well as the conservative nature of the funeral profession.

Cette étude retrace l’évolution de certains traitements réservés aux cadavres et aux restes humains en Égypte en se concentrant sur l’époque prédynastique et les six premières dynasties. Les cimetières contemporains de cette période de formation et d’affirmation des principaux éléments constitutifs de la civilisation pharaonique témoignent de la coexistence de pratiques funéraires associées à l’émergence de la momification artificielle et de pratiques mortuaires intervenant sur des corps partiellement ou totalement décomposés. L’objectif est de réévaluer par une approche archéothanatologique la documentation relative à ces deux catégories de traitements du corps, afin d’appréhender la diversité des pratiques de cette période. Cette étude vise donc à replacer le corps du défunt au centre de la discussion sur les pratiques mortuaires égyptiennes en prenant en compte deux ères chronologiques souvent considérées séparément. La relecture des publications archéologiques et de certaines archives de fouilles dans cette perspective a permis de proposer une sélection hétérogène de sépultures et de dépôts de restes humains provenant de 27 cimetières de la vallée égyptienne du Nil. Cette sélection d’inhumations offre une vision d’ensemble de la manière dont pouvaient être traités les défunts, ce qui permet de discuter de la continuité entre les pratiques prédynastiques et dynastiques et de confronter les données recueillies aux différentes interprétations possibles des gestes identifiés. / This study examines the evolution of practices pertaining to the treatment of human bodies and remains in Egypt from the Predynastic era through the first six dynasties. Burial grounds contemporaneous with the formation and affirmation of the principal constituents of the pharaonic civilization indicate the coexistence of funerary practices related to the emergence of artificial mummification, and mortuary practices involving partially or fully decomposed bodies. The purpose is to reevaluate, through the lens of archaeothanatology, the existing documentation regarding these two body treatment categories to better understand the diversity of practices over this period. The study aims to see the body of the deceased as the focal point of the discussion on Egyptian mortuary practices by taking into consideration two chronological eras often examined separately. Studying archaeological publications and archival documents of past excavations from this perspective provides a heterogeneous set of human sepultures and deposits found in 27 cemeteries throughout the Egyptian Nile valley. The cases chosen for the purpose of this study offer a comprehensive outlook into how the deceased were treated, which gives the grounds for discussing the continuity between predynastic and dynastic practices and for confronting the collected materials with diverse possible interpretations of these treatments.

The present thesis aims to expand and acquire new knowledge on the emergence of portrait mummies during the Roman period in Egypt and their socio-religious status. The emergence and decorative program of these mummies are commonly understood as an artistic expression of Hellenistic Greek and Roman settlers in Egypt. This attestation is often based upon uncontextualized isolated portraits. The study of uncontextualized isolated portraits has also caused an unsatisfactory approach to dating criteria. In response, the present thesis aims to study contextualized portrait mummies – with the image of the deceased still forming part of the mummy and ideally with an attested find spot – in light of a multicultural society consisting of Egyptian, Hellenistic and Roman cultural and religious traditions.  A total of 85 portrait mummies have been collected to provide context for the expressed cultural traditions. Seven group burials have been reconstructed based upon excavation reports for further contextualization. The results of the collected portrait mummies and reconstructed group burials are subsequently studied against a background of Egyptian, Hellenistic and Roman cultural and religious traditions to highlight dominant cultural features. The results of the present thesis illustrate portrait mummies were an expression of a culturally complex society. The treatment of the body and decorative program suggests cultural and religious notions were rooted within Egyptian traditions that were appropriated, re-defined and adapted by a society comprised of Egyptians, Hellenes and Romans. Portrait mummies consequently express multiple cultural layers. Previously established dating criteria were found to remain to be the most valid and reliable. Contextualized portrait mummies, however, have put forward a new dating criterion that ought to be taken into consideration: octagonal framing.

The bioarchaeology of prehistoric south Florida has been an area of archaeological interest for the last century because of the interplay between ancient populations and the unique environment of the Everglades. The purpose of this study is to analyze the pathology, demography and mortuary practice of the ancient Southeast Florida aboriginal population at Miami One to assess the similarity of Miami One to other south Florida populations during the prehistoric period. The Miami One site (8DA11) is one of many related sites located along the shore of the Miami River. It was continuously occupied from the Late Archaic (ca.1000 B.C.) through the Glades II period (1000 A.D.). Archaeological material associated with the Glades III period (ca. A.D. 1200) was also present. A large quantity of human remains was recovered and half of this collection is being temporarily housed at the University of South Florida. The burials were secondary and commingled in nature, having been recovered from solution holes which served as natural ossuaries. A total of forty-nine adults and fourteen juveniles are reported. Nineteen cases of osteoarthritis related to age and injury are described. Thirty-two cases of infection are described, including periostitis, osteomyelitis, and a possible treponemal infection. Seven cases of trauma are also present. Radiographic evidence demonstrates a low frequency of metabolic disruptions in the population. Dental pathology consists mostly of severe attrition, abscessing, calculus and very few caries, all consistent with a hunter-gatherer subsistence pattern. Mortuary data, including demography, pathology, type of burial, burial location and burial artifacts, are compared to that of five other contemporaneous sites and an earlier site associated with the Glades culture in southeast Florida. The data gathered in this study are consistent with those of the six additional sites, indicating that the local culture is indeed part of the larger Glades culture assigned to southeast Florida and that these groups are culturally heterogeneous.

Previous research on the funerary practices of the Viking Age has found evidence to suggest that people were sometimes executed for the purpose of following others into death. There are several well-known examples of this practice from around Scandinavia, including graves from Birka, Bollstanäs, and Gerdrup, where men appear to have been executed using brutal methods. Written sources such as Ibn Fadlān's travelogue and Sigurdskvädet, however, often place an emphasis on the killing of women during funerary rites – a practice that is inconsistent with the archaeological evidence. Where women have been suggested to have been executed as part of a funerary ritual, their skeletons often show no evidence for violence. This study was therefore conceived in order to critically compare the archaeological and textual evidence with a view to establishing the potential reasons for this discrepancy. By applying a theoretical framework that focused on the funeral as a ‘mortuary drama,’ the study has identified different potential causes for the absence of skeletal injuries on female individuals. It is possible, for example, that while women were killed they were often subjected to other types of fatal violence that do not leave injuries on the bone. It is also possible that women who were executed were more often cremated, rather than buried. Finally, it is possible that both men and women could be killed as part of these rites, and that the identity and the gender of the victim was of less symbolic importance than the act itself. The study shows that although the graves are scattered over vast geographical areas, they appear to have some certain commonalities, nevertheless the graves are interpreted differently. Variations, when comparing graves and the historical sources, appear natural, as Viking culture as well as their graves carry great variations. This study has shown that the types of fatal violence described in historical sources differ from the archaeological evidence presented in modern excavations.

In the Maya region, covering architecture and human remains in white marl has traditionally been interpreted as an act of defacement that accompanied some termination rituals. Recently, researchers have shown that such covering was a form of ritualized wrapping or sealing and could occur in the absence of other signs of desecration, as a part reverential termination. Here, I build on this work to argue that such sealing is not necessarily part of termination rites at all and could occur independently in mortuary contexts. I also suggest that such sealing is a distinct subset of other types of mortuary wrapping. Decoupling sealing from termination and exploring its relationship to other forms of wrapping helps refine our understanding of mortuary and ritual categories in the Maya area.