Spring 2019
ANG 6191
Download Syllabus (PDF)
Instructor: Dr. James M. Davidson
Course Level/Structure: Graduate seminar
Time: Thursdays only — periods 2 through 4 (8:30 to 11:30 am)
Class Room: Turlington Hall, Room 1208H
Office: Turlington B134
Email: davidson@ufl.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 2-5 pm (and by appointment)
Course Description and Objectives: The seminar’s goal is to provide a solid grounding in the anthropological literature of Mortuary studies; that is, data derived from a study of the Death Experience. In addition to archaeological data, a strong emphasis will be placed on the theoretical underpinnings of mortuary data, drawn from cultural anthropology and ethnography. Along with more theoretical papers, specific case studies will be used to address a variety of topics and issues, such as Social Organization and Social Structure, Spirituality and Religion, Skeletal Biology (e.g., Paleodemography, Paleopathology, and other issues of Bioarchaeology), Gender Issues, The Ethics of using Human Remains, and Post-Processual Critiques of Mortuary Archaeology. The time range that we will cover in the course will span from the Neolithic to the early 20th century, and numerous cultures from all parts of the globe will be our subject matter.
Course Requirements:
| Class participation/attendance | 5% |
| Leading Class Discussion | 5% |
| Synopses (of specific readings) | 20% |
| Two essay/reaction papers | 20% |
| Major research paper | 50% |
Texts:
1). Chapman, Robert (editor)
1981 The Archaeology of Death. Cambridge University Press.
2). Parker Pearson, Mike
1999 The Archaeology of Death and Burial. Texas A&M University Press.
3). The primary texts will be derived from individual readings (e.g., articles, book chapters) (see below)
Attendance: Regular attendance and participation in class discussions is a requirement. Students are expected to have read the material for that day, and come to class prepared to discuss the readings.
Synopses of Readings/Two Exercise or Reaction Papers:
For some key readings, a synopsis (i.e., a critical summary) ranging from one to three paragraphs (not to exceed one page in length for each reading) will be required and due at the beginning of each class, before we begin the discussion. Readings requiring synopses are marked with a bold, underlined X at the end of each citation.
Two smaller paper assignments, on specific readings, will range from 5 to 10 pages each. Their topics and due dates are given below.
Team Discussion:
Each week, one and two students will lead class discussion. Each individual or group will be expected to meet outside of class to organize readings and to prepare a list of questions/points of discussion. If you wish, you may meet with me, to talk about the readings prior to class. As this constitutes a substantial portion of the grade (5%), each team member will be expected to participate and have an active voice.
Research Paper:
One major research paper will be due at the end of the semester: graduate students (15 to 20 pages); undergraduate students (10 to 15 pages).
Each student will choose the individual topics of the paper, after consultation with me. It could involve original research, an analysis of an existing dataset, or a comparison of two or more papers, sites, or theories. Each student will be required to present his or her work to the class, during the last week of the semester. The formality of this presentation (e.g., power point, etc) will be negotiable.
Final Papers Are Due on last day of Spring Semester — Wednesday, April 24, 2019.
Grading:
A final letter grade will be assigned at the end of the semester, according to this scale:
A (93-100%)
A- (90-92%)
B+ (88-89%)
B (83-87%)
B- (80-82%)
C+ (78-79%)
C (73-77%)
C- (70-72%)
D+ (68-69%)
D (63-67%)
D- (60-62%)
E (59% or below)
Attendance: Regular attendance is required. Excessive unexcused absences will detract from the student’s final grade (see above).
Accommodating Students with Disabilities:
Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office. The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student, who in turn must provide this documentation to me when requesting accommodation.
Academic Honesty:
The University reminds every student of the implied pledge of Academic Honesty: “on any work submitted for credit the student has neither received nor given unauthorized aid.” This refers to cheating and plagiarism. Consult the Student Guide at www.dso.ufl.edu/stg/ for further information. Students caught cheating will be referred to the University administration for disciplinary action, the consequences of which can include (among other things) failure of this course.
Weekly Readings
Week 1 (January 10)
NO CLASS I will be attending the Society for Historical Archaeology Meetings
Week 2 (January 17)
Historical Perspectives on the Anthropological and Archaeological Study of Death
Emphasis during the first class sessions will be on some of the fundamental literature upon which contemporary interpretations of archaeological burials are based. The readings include both summaries of historical developments and older works; some of the latter have only historical value.
It may be helpful to read Chapman and Randsborg 1981 (pp. 1-24) first, as background.
Hertz, Robert
1960 [1907] A contribution to the study of the collective representation of death. In Death and the Right Hand. The Free Press, Glencoe, IL. X
Read only pp. 27-86 of Hertz (notes for these pages are between 117-154).
Kroeber, Alfred L.
1927 Disposal of the dead. American Anthropologist 29:308-315
Childe, V. Gordon
1945 Directional changes in funerary practices during 50,000 years. Man 45:13-19.
Binford, Lewis R.
1962 Archaeology as anthropology. American Antiquity 28(2):217-225. X
Ucko, Peter
1969 Ethnography and archaeological interpretation of funerary remains. World Archaeology 1: 262-80. X
Chapman, Robert, and Klavs Randsborg
1981 Approaches to the archaeology of death. In The Archaeology of Death, edited by Robert Chapman, I. Kinnes, and Klavs Randsborg, pp. 1-24. Cambridge University Press.
Supplementary Reading (not required, but useful)
Palgi, Phyllis and Henry Abramovitch
1984 Death: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology 13:385-417.
Bartel, Brad
1982 A historical review of ethnological and archaeological analyses of mortuary practices. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1:32-58.
Parker Pearson — Chapter One (pages 1-20)
Week 3 (January 24)
Theoretical Positions and Issues
This class will focus on the framework within which the interpretation of human burials developed in the 1970s and 1980s.
Binford, Lewis R.
1971 Mortuary practices: their study and their potential. In Approaches to the Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practices, edited by J. A. Brown. Society for American Archaeology Memoir 25: 6-29. X
Goodenough, Ward
1965 Rethinking “status” and “role”: Toward a general model of the cultural organization of social relationships. In The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology, edited by Michael Blanton, pp. 1-24. A.S.A. Monographs No. 1. Praeger, New York. X
Brown, James A.
1971 The dimensions of status in the burials at Spiro. In Approaches to the Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practices, edited by J.A. Brown, pp. 92-112. Society for American Archaeology Memoir 25.
Tainter, Joseph A.
1978 Mortuary practices and the study of prehistoric social systems. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 1:105-141. X
Braun, David
1979 Illinois Hopewell burial practices and social organization: a reexamination of the Klunk-Gibson mound group. In Hopewell Archaeology: The Chillicothe Conference, edited by D. Brose and N. Greber, pp. 66-79. Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio. X
(Supplementary reading: not required but strongly recommended, especially Saxe’s discussion and definition of his hypotheses)
Saxe, Arthur A.
1970 Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practices. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Michigan. (Emphasize pp. 1-121)
Braun, David
1981 A Critique of Some Recent North American Mortuary Studies. American Antiquity 48(2):398-416.
Tainter, Joseph A.
1981 Reply to “A Critique of Some Recent North American Mortuary Studies.” American Antiquity 46(2):416-420.
Parker Pearson —- Chapter 4 (pages 72-94)
Week 4 (January 31)
Theoretical Positions and Issues II
O’Shea, John M.
1984 Mortuary Variability: An Archaeological Investigation. Academic Press, New York. (emphasize Chapters 1, 2, 3, 7, 8)
Peebles, Christopher S. and Susan M. Kus
1977 Some archaeological correlates of ranked societies. American Antiquity 42(3):421- 448. X
Hodder, Ian
1982 The identification and interpretation of ranking in prehistory: A contextual perspective. In Ranking, Resource and Exchange: Aspects of the Archaeology of Early European Society, edited by A. C. Renfrew and S. J. Shennen, pp. 150-154. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. X
Parker Pearson —– Chapter 2 (pages 21-44)
Week 5 (February 7)
Explanation and Mortuary Studies
Case studies highlighting specific applications of mortuary theory. The readings for this week deal with the interpretation of the rise of sedentism and marking control over critical resources. This is the subject of Saxe’s (1970) Hypothesis 8.
Chapman, Robert
1981 The emergence of formal disposal areas and the “problem” of megalithic tombs in prehistoric Europe. In The Archaeology of Death, edited by R. Chapman, I. Kinnes, and K. Randsborg, pp. 71-81. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. X
Charles, Douglas and Jane Buikstra
1983 Archaic mortuary sites in the central Mississippi drainage: distribution, structure, and behavioral implications. In Archaic Hunters and Gatherers in the American Midwest, edited by J. L. Phillips and J.A. Brown, pp. 117-145. Academic Press, New York.
Charles, D. K., and J. E. Buikstra
2002 Siting, sighting and citing the dead. In The Space and Place of Death, Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, no. 11, edited by H. Silverman and D. Small, pp. 13-25. Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association. X
Saxe, Arthur A. and Patricia L. Gall
1977 Ecological determinants of mortuary practices: the Temuan of Malaysia. In Cultural- Ecological Perspectives on Southeast Asia, edited by W. Wood, 41: 74-82. Papers in International Southeast Asia Studies, Ohio University, Athens.
Goldstein, Lynne
1981 One-dimensional archaeology and multi-dimensional people: spatial organization and mortuary analysis. In The Archaeology of Death, edited by R. Chapman, I. Kinnes, and K. Randsborg, pp. 53-69. Cambridge University Press. X
Dillehay, Tom D.
1990 Mapuche ceremonial landscape, social recruitment and resource rights. World Archaeology 22: 223-241. X
Glazier, Jack
1984 Mbeere ancestors and the domestication of death. Man (ns) 19:133-148.
Parker Pearson —- Chapter 3 (pages 72-94)
Paper No. 1: write an essay (5 to 10 pages in length), that discusses the Saxe-Binford approach to Mortuary data, emphasizing the middle range nature of their efforts, and how their approach may be defined as “representationist.” How can it be applied to archaeological data, and what would be some potential pitfalls in this application?
Week 6 (February 14)
Bioarchaeological Perspectives
Topics covered in this class would include paleodemography, paleopathology, diet and nutrition, and the biological costs and benefits of maize agriculture. Consider the prehistoric and historic case studies; how do they differ?
Ambrose, Stanley H., Jane Buikstra, and Harold W. Krueger
2003 Status and gender differences in diet at Mound 72, Cahokia, revealed by isotopic analysis of bone. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22:217-226.
Rose, Jerome C., Murray K. Marks, and Larry L. Tieszen
1991 Bioarchaeology and Subsistence in the Central and Lower Portions of the Mississippi Valley. In What Mean These Bones? Studies in Southeastern Bioarchaeology, edited by M.L. Powell, P.S. Bridges, and A.M. Wagner Mires, pp. 7-21. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
Larsen, Clark Spencer; Mark C. Griffin, Dale L. Hutchinson, Vivian E. Noble, Lynette Norr, Robert F. Pastor, Christopher B. Ruff, Katherine F. Russell, Margaret J. Schoeninger, Michael Schultz, Scott W. Simpson, and Mark F. Teaford
2001 Frontiers of Contact: Bioarchaeology of Spanish Florida. Journal of World Prehistory 15(1):69-123.
Wesolowski, Veronica
2006 Caries prevalence in skeletal series – Is it possible to compare? Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Vol. 101(Suppl. II): 139-145.
Davidson, James M., Jerome Rose, Myron Gutmann, Michael Haines, Cindy Condon, and Keith Condon
2002 The Quality of African-American Life in the Old Southwest near the Turn of the 20th Century.In The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere, edited by Richard Steckel, pp. 226-277. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Wood, James W., George R. Milner, Henry C. Harpending, and Kenneth M. Weiss
1992 The osteological paradox: Problems of inferring health from skeletal samples. Current Anthropology 33(4): 343-370.
Wright, Lori E. and Cassady J. Yoder
2003 Recent Progress in Bioarchaeology: Approaches to the Osteological Paradox. Journal of Archaeological Research 11(1):43-70.
King, T., L.T. Humphrey, and S. Hillson
2005 Linear Enamel Hypoplasias as Indicators of Systemic Physiological Stress: Evidence From Two Known Age-at-Death and Sex Populations From Postmedieval London. American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Supplementary Readings (not required, but may be useful, especially if you have little experience in skeletal biology, paleopathology, paleodemography, etc.)
Larson, Clark Spencer
2002 Bioarchaeology: The Lives and Lifestyles of Past People. Journal of Archaeological Research 10(2):119-166.
Boquet-Appel, Jean-Pierre and Claude Massett
1982 Farewell to Paleodemography. Journal of Human Evolution 11:321-333.
Van Gerven, Dennis P. and George J. Armelagos
1983 “Farewell to Paleodemography?” Rumors of Its Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated. Journal of Human Evolution 121:353-360.
Week 7 (February 21)
Archaeological Case Studies I: North America
Brown, James A.
1981 The search for rank in prehistoric burials. In The Archaeology of Death, edited by R. Chapman, I. Kinnes, and K. Randsborg, pp. 25-37. Cambridge University Press.
Gilman, Patricia S.
1990 Social organization and Classic Mimbres period burials in the SW United States. Journal of Field Archaeology 17:457-469.
Howell, Todd L. and Keith W. Kintigh
1996 Archaeological identification of kin groups using mortuary and biological data: an example from the American Southwest. American Antiquity 61(3):537-554. X
Shryock, Andrew J.
1987 The Wright Mound reexamined: Generative structures and the political economy of a simple chiefdom. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 12:243-268. X
Mainfort, Robert C., Jr.
1989 Adena chiefdoms? Evidence from the Wright Mound. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 14(2):164-178. X
Milner, George R., Eve Anderson, and Virginia G. Smith
1991 Warfare in late prehistoric west-central Illinois. American Antiquity 56(4):581-603. X
Week 8 (February 28)
Archaeological Case Studies II: South America, Europe, the Near East
Byrd, Brian F., and Christopher M. Monahan
1995 Death, mortuary ritual, and Natufian social structure. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 14:251-287. X
Dillehay, Tom D.
1995 Mounds of social death: Araucanian funerary rites and political succession. In Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices, edited by Tom D. Dillehay, pp. 281-313. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington. X
Pollock, Susan
1991 Of priestesses, princes and poor relations: The dead in the royal cemetery of Ur. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 1(2): 171-189.
Randsborg, Klavs
1981 Burial, succession and early state formation in Denmark. In The Archaeology of Death, edited by Robert Chapman, I. Kinnes, and Klavs Randsborg, pp. 105-121. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. X
Week 9 (March 7)
No Classes – Spring Break
Week 10 (March 14)
Ethnographic and Historical Accounts on the Treatment of the Dead
Metcalf, Peter A.
1976 Who are the Berawan? Ethnic classification and the distribution of secondary treatment of the dead in central north Borneo. Oceania 47:85-105. X
Metcalf, Peter
1981 Meaning and materialism: The ritual economy of death. Man 16:564-578. X
Precourt, Walter E.
1984 Mortuary practices and economic transaction: A hologeistic study. Research in Economic Anthropology 6: 161-170. X
Aries, Phillipe
1974 Western Attitudes Toward Death. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Week 11 (March 21)
Ethnographic Observations II
Elliott, John R.
1990 Funerary Artifacts in Contemporary America. Death Studies 14: 601-612.
Pearson, Michael Parker
1982 Mortuary practices, society and ideology: an ethnoarchaeological study. In Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, edited by Ian Hodder, pp. 99-113. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. X
Farrell, James J.
1980 Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830-1920. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. (Read pages 16-73).
McGuire, Randall H.
1988 Dialogues with the Dead: Ideology and the Cemetery. In The Recovery of Meaning: Historical Archaeology in the Eastern United States, edited by Mark P. Leone and Parker B. Potter, Jr., pp. 435-480. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. X
Dethlefsen, Edwin N. and James Deetz
1966 Death’s Heads, Cherubs, and Willow Trees: Experimental Archaeology in Colonial Cemeteries. American Antiquity 31(4):502-510.
Jamieson, Ross W.
1995 Material culture and social death: African-American burial practices. Historical Archaeology 29(4):39-58. X
Week 12 (March 28)
Archaeological Case Studies III: Historical Archaeology
Mainfort, Robert C., Jr.
1985 Wealth, space, and status in a historic Indian cemetery. American Antiquity 50:555-579. X
Bell, Edward L.
1990 The historical archaeology of mortuary behavior: Coffin hardware from Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Historical Archaeology 24(3):54-78. X
Bell, Edward L.
1994 Archaeological investigations of historical cemeteries: An introduction to scholarly trends and prospects. In Vestiges of Mortality and Remembrance, by Edward L. Bell, pp. 1-54. Scarecrow Press, Methuen (NJ) and London.
Cannon, Aubrey
1989 The Historic Dimension in Mortuary Expressions of Status and Sentiment. Current Anthropology 30(4):437-458. X
Davidson, James M.
2008 Identity and Violent Death: Contextualizing Lethal Gun Violence within the African-American Community of Dallas, TX (1900-1907). The Journal of Social Archaeology 8(3):321-356.
Little, Barbara J., Kim M. Lamphear, and Douglas W. Owsley
1992 Mortuary display and status in a nineteenth-century Anglo-American cemetery in Manassas, Virginia. American Antiquity 57(3):397-418. X
Gould, Elspeth M. and David B. Chappel
2000 Graveyard gleanings: socio-economic, geographical and gender inequalities in health at Tynemouth, UK, 1833-1853. Journal of Public Health Medicine 22(3):280-286.
Davidson, James M.
2010 Keeping the Devil at Bay: The Shoe on the Coffin Lid and Other Grave Charms in 19th and Early 20th Century America. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 14(4):614-649.
Paper No. 2: Write an essay (5 to 10 pages in length) discussing the methodologies and theoretical underpinnings of historic mortuary studies, contrasting them with prehistoric theory and datasets. Especially emphasize the search for “status” markers.
Week 13 (April 4)
Ethical Perspectives in Mortuary Archaeology
McGowan, Gary S. and Cheryl J. LaRoche
1996 The Ethical Dilemma Facing Conservation: Care and Treatment of Human Skeletal Remains and Mortuary Objects. Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 35(2):109-121.
Crist, Thomas
2002 Empowerment, Ecology, and Evidence: The Relevance of Mortuary Archaeology to the Public. In Public Benefits of Archaeology, pp. 101-117, edited by Barbara J. Little. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Buikstra, Jane E., and Claire C. Gordon
1981 The study and re-study of human skeletal series: The importance of long-term curation. In The Research Potential of Anthropological Collections, edited by A.E. Cantwell, J.B. Griffin, and N.A. Rothschild, pp. 449-465. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 376. X
Walker, Phillip L.
2000 Bioarchaeological Ethics: A Historical Perspective on the Value of Human Remains. In Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton, pp. 3-39, edited by M. Anne Katzenberg and Shelley R. Saunders. Wiley-Liss, Inc. X
Rose, Jerome C., Thomas J. Green, and Victoria D. Green
1996 NAGPRA is forever: Osteology and the repatriation of skeletons. Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 81-103. X
Watkins, Joe
2004 Becoming American or Becoming Indian? Nagpra, Kennewick and Cultural Affiliation. Journal of Social Archaeology 4(1):60-80. X
Morrell, Virginia
1995 Who Owns the Past? Science 268(5216):1424-1426.
World Council of Indigenous Peoples
1990 The sacred and the profane: The reburial issue as an issue. Death Studies 14:503-517.
Supplimentary Reading:
- H. Edgar, Heather, Edward A. Jolie, Joseph F. Powell, and Joe E. Watkins
2007 Contextual issues in Paleoindian repatriation: Spirit Cave Man as a case study.Journal of Social Archaeology 7(1): 101–122
Week 14 (April 11)
Postprocessual and other Criticisms of Mortuary Site Studies
Chapman, Robert
2003 Death, society, and Archaeology: the social dimensions of mortuary practices. Mortality 8(3):3-5-312.
Barrett, John C.
1990 The monumentality of death: The character of Early Bronze Age mortuary mounds in southern Britain. World Archaeology 22:179-189. X
Sullivan, Lynne P.
2001 Those Men in the Mounds: Gender, Politics, and Mortuary Practices in Late Prehistoric Eastern Tennessee. In Archaeological Studies of Gender in the Southeastern United States, edited by Jane M. Eastman and Christopher B. Rodning, pp. 101-126. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. X
Joyce, Rosemary A.
2001 Burying the Dead at Tlatilco: Social Memory and Social Memories. In Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association Number 10; Social Memory, Identity, and Death: Anthropological Perspectives on Mortuary Rituals, edited by Meredith S. Chesson, pp. 12-26. X
Brown, James
1995 On Mortuary Analysis – with Special Reference to the Saxe-Binford Research Program. In Regional Approaches to Mortuary Analysis, pp. 3-26, edited by Lane Anderson Beck. Plenum Press, New York.
Chapman, Robert
1995 Ten years after-Megaliths, mortuary practices, and the territorial model. In Regional Approaches to Mortuary Analysis, edited by L.A. Beck, pp. 29-51. Plenum Press, New York.
Lull, Vicente
2000 Death and Society: a Marxist approach. Antiquity 74:576-580.
Morris, Ian
1991 The archaeology of ancestors: The Saxe/Goldstein hypothesis revisited. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 1(2): 147-169.
Harke, Heinrich
2002 Interdisciplinarity and the archaeological study of death. Mortality 7(3):340-341.
Pearson, Mike Parker
1993 The powerful dead: Archaeological relationships between the living and the dead. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3(2): 203-229.