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During prehispanic times (1250 B.P. - 1521 A.D), Mesoamerica was the most powerful nation in the entire America continent. One of the most important ethnic groups was the Zapotecs located in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Their history started in those days and it has not ended. The ancient Zapotec gave human femora from the dead special treatments. This thesis seeks to understand the cultural meaning of human femora within ancient Zapotec belief systems, especially the cultural meaning when special treatment of femora was involved in mortuary rituals and practices long after the death of the individual. To understand when this practice began, who did it, why they did it, and what was the significance of human femora for the Zapotecs, it was necessary to know where those femora came from, from ancestors or captives. This research included bioanthropological methodologies considering sex, age and minimum number of individuals, to determine if this practice had a pattern, and also observations on whether human femora had cultural and natural taphonomic modifications. The data were collected from publications from Lambityeco, Mitla, Monte Albán and San Miguel Albarradas, Oaxaca. The results demonstrated that ancient Zapotecs used ancestors' remains as part of their rituals, particularly the femur. Therefore we still lack any bioanthropological evidence for Zapotecs taking human captives.

Diversity of Chachapoya mortuary practices is not well understood archaeologically, even though the region has received some attention for the monumental constructions and visually striking mortuary complexes located high on open cliff faces. This may be due to the difficult accessibility and often poor state of preservation consistent with many Chachapoya mortuary and occupation sites. This thesis reconstructs mortuary practices at La Petaca in the Chachapoyas region of Peru, applying paleodemographic and GIS methodological approaches to facilitate and improve the bioarchaeological study of commingled skeletal remains in an open, disturbed communal funerary context. Research focused on SUP CF-01, a natural cave context utilized as a group burial. The sample of human remains retrieved from SUP CF-01 (n= 8182) estimated an MNI of 43 adults and 12 juveniles, including a range of demographic categories. By employing a total station to record the cave structure, and a GIS to analyze the deposit of commingled remains, this thesis was able to measure the distances between paired elements and to explore possible post-depositional practices that could have created this commingled and disturbed deposit. This bioarchaeological analysis incorporating demographic and spatial analysis indicated that this collective burial was a primary context, and most likely a result of a gradual accumulation of complete bodies and movement of later skeletonized elements to make room for successive burials. When compared to other mortuary contexts at this complex, including a comparative secondary cave context and over 120 constructed mausoleums, it appears that all community members were included in the mortuary practices at this complex.

abstract: Federal legislation prioritizes the repatriation of culturally unidentifiable human remains to federally-recognized Indian tribes that are linked geographically to the region from which the remains were removed. Such linkages are typically based on a Eurocentric notion of the exclusive use and occupancy of an area of land - a space-based approach to land use. Contemporary collaborations between anthropologists and indigenous communities suggest, however, that indigenous patterns of land use are better characterized as place-based and are therefore more complex and fluid than is reflected in current legislation. Despite these insights, space-based approaches remain common within archaeology. One example is the inference of territorial behavior from the presence of monuments within the archaeological record. Drawing on osteological and mortuary data derived from a sample of Adena mounds located in northern Kentucky, this dissertation adopts a place-based approach in order to evaluate the archaeological association between monumentality and territoriality. The relative amounts of skeletal and phenotypic variability present at various spatial scales are quantified and compared and the degree to which mortuary and phenotypic data exhibit spatial structure consistent with the expectations of an isolation-by-distance model is assessed. Results indicate that, while burial samples derived from some mounds exhibit amounts of phenotypic variability that are consistent with the expectations of a territorial model, data from other mounds suggest that multiple groups participated in their construction. Further, the general absence of spatial structure within the phenotypic data suggests that the individuals interred in these mounds are perhaps better characterized as representing an integrated regional population rather than localized groups. Untested archaeological inferences of territoriality may therefore mischaracterize regional population dynamics. In addition, these results suggest that the prioritization criteria for the repatriation of culturally unidentifiable human remains may merit revision. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2019

My research centers on changes in personhood, identity and funerary rituals from the Early Agricultural Period to the Classic Period in the Tucson Basin. The three core papers of my dissertation represent submissions to peer-review journals or book chapters, all of which are connected by similar research themes. The first paper examines changes in funerary rituals from the Early Agricultural Period (2100 B.C.-A.D. 50 ) to the Early Preclassic Period (A.D. 475-750) and how these changes modified social relationships between the dead, their families and the community. A total of 21 archaeological sites and 436 burials were analyzed. The predominant mortuary rituals in the Early Agricultural Period were inhumations characterized by variations in body position and location, possibly emphasizing individuality. These rituals changed in the Preclassic Period as cremation became the dominant practice. Cremations during this period were mainly secondary deposits with low quantities of bone located in cemeteries within habitation courtyard groups. Social group membership was emphasized through these cremations. Results suggest that triggers for changes in funerary rituals through time were multicausal, but these changes are reflective of emerging group identities with strong social cohesion, consistent with patterns observed in other archaeological evidence from the area. The second paper explores how the Preclassic Hohokam (A.D. 475-1150) of the Tucson Basin created different pathways to personhood for the dead. This consisted of examining how bodies were treated within cremation practices at four recently excavated Tucson Basin Hohokam archaeological sites and through consideration of different ethnographic accounts of cremation practices among Native American groups from the Southwestern United States. Historical accounts of cremation practices utilized in this work originate from the Pima (Akimel O'odham), Tohono O'odham, and several Yuman-speaking groups. Based on archaeological and linguistic evidence, the ancestors of these historic groups had ancestral connections with the Hohokam. Results of my research suggest dynamic transitions of personhood occurred at death while these transitions occurred both with the dead as well as the living. Subsequent to the cremation pyre bodies were transformed into "body-objects" and continued to evoke memories of the deceased person's life. Furthermore, at these events mutually-identifying relationships were created, transformed or destroyed through interactions of the community, family and deceased. The third paper examines the identification of and changes in aspects of personhood among the Tucson Basin Hohokam from the Preclassic (A.D. 475-1150) to Classic periods (A.D. 1150-1450/1500). This is done by examining the biological profile, posthumous treatment of the body and mortuary practices of remains of 764 individuals from seven sites. Cremation was the predominant mortuary practice in the Tucson Basin during the Preclassic and Classic periods. However, inhumation also co-occurred at lower frequencies, particularly for fetus and infants, possibly due to the undeveloped form of self that these individuals had within the society. Through time cremation rituals changed particularly for individuals older than 15 years at death and adults. In the Preclassic Period, after the body was burned, the remains were fragmented, divided and distributed as inalienable possessions among families and within specific networks. This suggests a social construction of self that was more relational, part-person and part-object. In the Classic Period, these practices decreased and the remains were not divided but left in place or transferred almost wholly to a single secondary deposit. The perceptions of personhood in the Classic Period changed to a self that was considered as bounded units and more-whole even after its transformation during the cremation fire. It is possible that this transition through time occurred as a result of more centralized and private rituals, and by a general decrease in emotive networks. The changes in mortuary rituals are similar to broader sociopolitical changes observed in the Classic Period where an increase in social differentiation and complexity has been postulated.

The principal aim of the thesis is to investigate the mortuary practices of the late Iron Age period in south-eastern Britain, focusing on identification of the wider sequence of activity. It is evident that the deposition of the calcined remains and associated objects are just one element in a more complicated pattern of behaviour. A number of contemporary inhumation burials and mortuary-related features drawn from an increasing number of sites illustrate the wider practices in operation. The identification of pyre-related features and debris lies at the core of this study providing an opportunity to advance understanding of pyre technology as well as the mortuary rituals. This study provides an opportunity to advance late Iron Age mortuary studies in relation to the cosmological, political and ideological structure (Fitzpatrick 1997; Pearce 1997a; 1997b; 1999; McKinley 2000).

Ce travail s’intègre à deux projets syro-américains au Nord de la Syrie : le projet de fouille à Tell Mozan / Urkesh (G. Buccellati et M. Kelly Buccellati) et le projet de fouille à Tell Hamoukar (C. Reichel et S. al-Kintar). Il s’agit de deux fouilles programmées en coopération avec la Direction Générale des Antiquités et des Musées de Syrie (DGAM). Nous souhaitions, à travers cette étude archéothanatologique, réintégrer les données anthropologiques dans les analyses de population au même titre que les données archéologiques, pour approfondir les connaissances préétablies, en développant une approche multidisciplinaire sur des données inédites. Une telle recherche se révélait essentielle pour compléter cette mosaïque de connaissances des diverses sociétés anciennes qui ont occupé la Haute Mésopotamie du Chalcolithique à l’âge du Bronze moyen (3700-1600 av. J.-C.) laissant derrière elles des évidences précieuses. / This disseration deals with two Syrian-American excavation projects in the north of Syria: the one at TellMozan / Urkesh (G. Buccellati Buccellati and Kelly) and the project at Tell Hamoukar (C. Reichel and S. al-Kintar).These two excavations are planned in the cooperation with the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums ofSyria (DGAM). We aim, through this archeothanatological study to reintegrate the anthropological data in the globalarcheological analysis of the population as well, in order to deepen our pre-established knowledge in the same timeof developing a multidisciplinary approach on such unpublished data. Such research is essential to complete thisrevealed knowledge mosaic of various ancient societies that occupied Upper Mesopotamia from Chalcolithic to theMiddle Bronze Age (3700-1600 BC.) leaving behind valuable evidences.