I am an Ad Astra Fellow (Assistant Professor / Lecturer) at University College Dublin. I received my PhD in anthropology from the University of Michigan in 2016. I was a visiting scholar at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Comparative Archaeology from 2016–2017, held a Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Fellowship at the University of Cambridge from 2017–2019, was an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department at Vassar College from 2019–2021, and was the College Fellow in Archaeological Science in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard from 2021–2022.
My research centers on the bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology of Late Prehistoric complex societies in the Iberian Peninsula (Copper Age) and Romania (Early Bronze Age). I have also begun to work on bias and knowledge production in archaeology, with a specific interest in archaeological publishing. My methodological focus is on developing approaches to maximize the information recoverable from commingled and fragmentary human remains.
Archaeology lends a critical perspective to research on social inequality due to the eld's unique... more Archaeology lends a critical perspective to research on social inequality due to the eld's unique access to deep history, emphasis on materiality, and explicit incorporation of multiple lines of evidence. This paper o ers a concise overview of archaeological approaches aimed at students and scholars in other elds. We develop a categorization of disciplinary strategies, arguing that archaeologists address institutionalized inequality through examining inequalities in the accumulation of goods or resources (economic di erentiation); access to resources or knowledge (social di erentiation), and inequalities in action, the ability to make decisions for oneself or others (political di erentiation). We illustrate these categories with reference to the distinctions between material, relational, and embodied wealth. We draw upon a broad range of geographic, chronological, and cultural case studies to illustrate the exibility and utility of archaeological methods for answering questions about inequality in human societies.
Success in academic archaeology is strongly influenced by the publication of peer-reviewed articl... more Success in academic archaeology is strongly influenced by the publication of peer-reviewed articles. Despite the importance of such articles, minimal research has explicitly examined the factors influencing publishing decisions in archaeology. In order to better understand the landscape of archaeological publishing, we distributed a short survey that solicited basic professional and demographic information before asking respondents to (1) identify journals that publish important archaeological research, (2) identify journals that people who read archaeological academic CVs value most highly, and (3) rank the factors that affected their decisions about where to submit an article for publication. Our results from 274 respondents generated a list of 167 individual journal titles. Prestige was viewed as the most important factor that affected publishing decisions, followed by audience and open access considerations. There was no relationship between respondent-generated journal rankings and SCImago Journal Ranks (SJR), but there were significant differences in average SJR by gender and career stage. Responses showed consensus on only a small number of highly ranked archaeology and science-subject journals, with little agreement on the importance of most other journals. We conclude by highlighting the areas of disciplinary consensus and divergence revealed by the survey and by discussing how implicit prestige hierarchies permeate academic archaeology.
The Matter of Prehistory: Papers in Honor of Antonio Gilman Guillén, 2020
Traditional studies of prehistoric inequality have focused on its material traces in the archaeol... more Traditional studies of prehistoric inequality have focused on its material traces in the archaeological record, examining evidence such as architecture, patterns of long-distance exchange, craft specialization, settlement hierarchies, and mortuary treatment. Bioarchaeological data from human skeletons provide a unique and complementary line of evidence with which to augment existing archaeo- logical approaches, as embodied inequalities in the lived experience of diet, mobility, trauma, disease, physiological stress, and activity patterns can lead to differences that are osteologically measurable. Bioarchaeological investigations of inequality are particularly important for the Iberian Copper Age (circa 3250–2200 BC), a period marked by significant social transformations, including the emergence of complex sites. This chapter focuses on the available osteological evidence for patterning in diet, mobility, and violence at complex Chalcolithic sites such as La Pijotilla, Los Millares, Marro- quíes, Perdigões, Valencina-Castilleja, and Zambujal to explore the biocultural impact of Copper Age social transformations. The chapter concludes with recommendations for continuing to develop a regional bioarchaeology of the Iberian Copper Age while embedding bioarchaeological data within the larger context of archaeological investigations of inequality within Iberian late prehistory.
The Apuseni Mountains of southwestern Transylvania (Romania) are home to the richest gold and cop... more The Apuseni Mountains of southwestern Transylvania (Romania) are home to the richest gold and copper deposits in Europe, key resources that fueled the development of social complexity during the Bronze Age (ca. 2700-800 B.C.E.). This landscape encompasses a significant amount of topographic and ecological diversity , with upland landscapes incorporating major mineral deposits, forests, pastures, and salt springs, and low-land agropastoral landscapes abutting the major interregional Mureș River corridor. Local Early Bronze Age (ca. 2700-2000 B.C.E.) communities typically buried their dead in stone-covered tumuli in the uplands, though there are also examples of burial in lowland settlements. The relationship between upland and lowland mortuary contexts is an enduring question within the regional archaeological record. In this paper we present a case study that compares individuals from two sites: the lowland settlement of Alba Iulia-Pârâul Iovului and the upland cemetery of Meteș-La Meteșel. We ask whether there were differences between the uplands and the low-lands in terms of mortuary practices and eligibility for burial, or differences in the lived experience of pathology or trauma. Our results show that there are few significant differences between the two samples. Adults and subadults, as well as males and females, are represented at both sites, and levels of skeletal pathology are low, while dental insults are more frequent. We conclude by outlining a strategy for developing a regional bioarchae-ology that will incorporate multiple lines of archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence and enhance our understanding of the biocultural dynamics of the region.
In this introduction to the thematic issue Living and Dying in Mountain Landscapes, we develop an... more In this introduction to the thematic issue Living and Dying in Mountain Landscapes, we develop an analytical framework for the bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology of highland landscapes. We highlight new theoretical , methodological, and comparative contributions to the anthropological study of upland spaces. Theoretical contributions include examining identity, connectivity, and adaptation from an explicitly biocultural perspective. By bridging the biological anthropological focus on the somatic with an archaeological focus on the long term, bioarchaeology allows for the development of an embodied understanding of "marginal" highland environments, investigating how such landscapes shape and are shaped by human action over time. Recent advances in bioarchaeological methods, including isotopic analyses of mobility and diet and ancient DNA studies of kinship and relatedness, are combined with traditional osteological examinations of age, sex, ancestry, and disease to reconstruct the lifeways of mountain communities. These methodological advances take advantage of the topographical, geological, and ecological diversity of mountain landscapes. Finally, a comparative bioarchaeology of upland and lowland communities across space and time provides a deeper understanding of highland adaptations and identities. The papers share a number of unifying themes, including the impact of mountain landscapes on channeling resource control, creating or mediating diverse identities, and the importance of interdisciplinary investigations for developing an understanding of the relationship between people and place. As this issue demonstrates, the study of human remains must be situated within a holistic bioarchae-ological approach to life and death in order to understand the dynamic relationships between people and the highland environments they occupy.
Where people bury their dead is a critical part of mortuary rituals. This paper examines the rela... more Where people bury their dead is a critical part of mortuary rituals. This paper examines the relationship between the placement of the dead within a landscape and the social roles of the dead in the lives of the living. We examine the distribution of mortuary sites in southwest Transylvania during the Early and Middle Bronze Age (2700-1500 BCE), a period of significant socioeconomic transformation. We document a shift in the locations of cemeteries that is linked to the changing roles of the dead within society. During the Early Bronze Age, people placed their dead in highly visible tomb cemeteries in upland landscapes with access to metal and highland pasture. We argue that the living used mortuary practices to contest access to resources. During the Middle Bronze Age, however, people were primarily cremated and buried in flat urn cemeteries in similar contexts as settlements. We argue that this transition signifies changing institutions of metal procurement as well as a shift in the roles of the dead in the lives of the living. The analysis of cemetery placement has significant potential for revealing the organization and evolution of how bodies are used for political purposes in a broad range of geographic and chronological contexts.
In the last few decades, the discovery of large ditched enclosures in Iberia has revealed the div... more In the last few decades, the discovery of large ditched enclosures in Iberia has revealed the diversity and complexity of deposition and manipulation of human bone remains. Alongside traditional ritual burials (mainly megalithic tombs and hypogea), fragmented and scattered human bones mixed with other kinds of material culture began to appear in many features. This is the case for Ditch 5 at Marroquíes, which offers an excellent opportunity to explore this ritual behaviour. Based on a multi-proxy approach, three main conclusions can be drawn: 1) the skeletal elements present show deliberate selection of particular categories of bones; 2) depositional episodes included the remains of people who died at different points in time and were subject to different taphonomic processes, and 3) mobility patterns indicate that all individuals, with one possible exception, were local. The movement and manipulations of body parts may reflect the active role of people after death as social and symbolic elements that retain agency and capacity for action.
Commingled assemblages of fragmentary human skeletal remains are a common feature of many archaeo... more Commingled assemblages of fragmentary human skeletal remains are a common feature of many archaeological sites and pose significant analytical problems for bioarchaeologists. Such deposits often contain a high volume of the teeth of sub-adults for which it is challenging to estimate age, including developing permanent teeth with damaged roots, articulated teeth with roots obscured by alveolar bone, and deciduous teeth with completed root apices. Here, we present a new method for more precisely estimating age for the developmentally ambiguous teeth of subadults from archaeological contexts. We used a sample of articulated subadult dentition from the Copper Age site of Marroquíes in Jaén, Spain, to build linear models of the relationship between dental age and tooth wear for deciduous and permanent molars. We tested three different strategies for identifying and removing outliers to build a linear model with the strongest relationship between age and wear. The Adjusted Residual strategy, which used diagnostic plots of linear regression residuals in the statistical package R to identify and remove out-liers, was found to produce the strongest linear model. The linear model developed using the Adjusted Residual strategy was then used to provide estimated midpoint ages and upper and lower age bounds based on the wear scores from the sample of developmentally ambiguous teeth. This study demonstrates that it is possible to estimate the age of developmentally ambiguous deciduous and permanent molars with reference to an adequate sample of subadult dentition with estimated ages from the same population. This new method is valuable as it extracts information from developmentally ambiguous teeth that would otherwise be inaccessible, allows for rapid data collection, employs standard macroscopic dental scoring methods, and can be used for sites from other regions and periods. We conclude by discussing the applications of this new method within bioarchaeology and identify directions for future research on subadult dental wear.
Settlements incorporating large-scale human aggregations are a well-documented but poorly underst... more Settlements incorporating large-scale human aggregations are a well-documented but poorly understood phenomenon across late prehistoric Europe. The authors’ research examines the origins and trajectory of such aggregations through isotope analysis of human skeletal remains from the mega-site of Marroquíes in Jaén, Spain. The results indicate that eight per cent of 115 sampled individuals are of non-local origin. These individuals received mortuary treatments indistinguishable from those of locals, suggesting their incorporation into pre-existing social networks in both life and death. This research contributes to our understanding of the extent and patterning of human mobility, which underlies the emergence of late prehistoric mega-sites in Europe.
At 113-ha in size and dating to the 3rd millennium cal BC, the ditched enclosure site of Marroquí... more At 113-ha in size and dating to the 3rd millennium cal BC, the ditched enclosure site of Marroquíes is one of the latest mega-sites in Iberia. The settlement preserves multiple mortuary areas which contain over 450 individuals, allowing for the examination of inter-individual and inter-group variability in diet and health. This study presents the first large-scale palaeodietary assessment of the site through the analysis of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope values from 113 human and 23 faunal samples. It also offers the first comprehensive analysis of dental disease at Marroquíes in a sample of over 4,600 human teeth. Humans at Marroquíes exhibit mean values of 8.4 ± 0.9‰ for δ15N and -19.3 ± 0.3‰ for δ13C, suggesting a diet predominantly based on proteins from terrestrial C3 plant foodwebs, conforming to a broader dietary pattern common throughout Late Prehistoric Iberia. Dental analyses revealed significant differences in the frequency of hypoplasias and calculus between mortuary areas. Overall, the documented variability within mortuary areas is higher than variability between them, suggesting that although differences in consumption patterns did exist, the bonds created by group affinities outweighed the expression of social asymmetries at death.
Within Iberia increasing attention has been paid to the unprecedented emergence of large-scale vi... more Within Iberia increasing attention has been paid to the unprecedented emergence of large-scale villages, or “macro-villages”, during the third millennium cal BC. Bioarchaeology has the potential to make significant contributions to our understanding of macro-village organization through a reconstruction of both demography and mortuary treatment. The 113-ha site of Marroquíes in Jaén, Spain, represents one of the largest villages known for the Copper Age. Here, results of the bioarchaeological analyses of three previously unstudied necropolises are presented, representing a minimum number of individuals (MNI) of 280. This sample includes 201 adults and 79 subadults; assessments of sex were possible for 105/201 (52%) adults, producing a count of 46 females or probable females, 28 individuals of indeterminate sex, and 31 males or probable males. Chi-square tests and Fisher’s exact tests showed no significant differences in age or sex between the three mortuary populations. Instead, mortuary practices were communal, and individuals of both sexes and almost all ages were interred in primary, secondary, or commingled burials. Limited evidence of age-based or sex- based mortuary differentiation, in tandem with the synchronic maintenance of multiple necropolises, suggests that mortuary decisions were focused on the identities of the social groups responsible for burying the dead.
Looting is a significant destructive force at archaeological sites; grave robbing, in particular,... more Looting is a significant destructive force at archaeological sites; grave robbing, in particular, leaves human remains and cultural heritage irreparably damaged. Al-Widay, a necropolis excavated by the Oriental Institute Nubian Expedition near the Fourth Cataract region of the Nile River, is a site with important implications for understanding the taphonomy of archaeological looting. Over 60% of the tumuli excavated at Al-Widay were disturbed in antiquity, making the site an ideal case study for examining the effects of looting on ancient human skeletal remains. Our research applies bioarchaeological methods of quantifying fragmentation to an assessment of “Culturally Significant Anatomical Regions” in order to evaluate the nature and degree of human disturbance activity at this necropolis. At Al-Widay, site reports document looted graves (n = 22), unlooted graves (n = 14), and a sample of graves (n = 42), for which the level of disturbance is unknown. Fisher's exact test showed significant differences in the bioarchaeological patterning of looted versus unlooted contexts, and a cross-validated logistic regression model was used to sort five unknown graves into looted and unlooted categories, providing a quantitative bioarchaeological method for the identification of looting.
Research on the emergence of institutionalized inequality has traditionally maintained an analyti... more Research on the emergence of institutionalized inequality has traditionally maintained an analytical divide between lived institutions that affect daily life and performed institutions materialized in mortuary contexts. Here, we argue that convergence or divergence between lived and performed contexts reveals key aspects of past social organization. When combined, mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology provide a methodological framework well suited to evaluate the coherence or dissonance of such institutions. Three case studies from prehistoric Europe highlight how new insights gained by studying tension between institutions, identities and experiences across social dimensions can transform our understanding of the development of institutionalized inequality.
Recent work has called attention to the significant numbers of subadults recovered from Late Preh... more Recent work has called attention to the significant numbers of subadults recovered from Late Prehistoric burial contexts in western Iberia. However, subadult burials are also documented at some of the well-known, large-scale Copper Age centers of southeastern Spain, where adults and subadults are represented in both commingled and individual inhumations. The importance of the inclusion and mortuary treatment of subadults at such centers of social and economic activity has yet to be sufficiently explored. Here, I discuss the implications of the presence of subadults for the formation and representation of community identity, with particular emphasis on the case of Marroquíes Bajos. At this site, salvage excavations have yielded evidence of five concentric ditches and one adobe wall that encompass an area of approximately 113 ha, making it one of the largest “matrix villages” of the Iberian Copper Age. Marroquíes Bajos is also a particularly relevant case because subadults occur in formally and spatially distinct funerary contexts. Their remains appear in mortuary structures housing only fragmentary and commingled remains, in mortuary structures housing discrete primary and secondary interments, and in a large, commingled interment in an artificial cave. The significance of subadult burials at Marroquíes Bajos is explored relative to theoretical interpretations of childhood in prehistory, in particular relative to ethnographically and archaeologically documented rites of passage.
Since 1998, over 5500 people have died while attempting to cross the U.S.–Mexico border without a... more Since 1998, over 5500 people have died while attempting to cross the U.S.–Mexico border without authorization. These deaths have primarily occured in the Arizona desert. Despite the high volume of deaths, little experimental work has been conducted on Sonoran Desert taphonomy. In this study, pig carcasses were used as proxies for human remains and placed in different depositional contexts (i.e., direct sunlight and shade) that replicate typical sites of migrant death. Decomposition was documented through daily site visits, motion-sensitive cam- eras and GIS mapping, while skeletal preservation was investigated through the collection of the remains and subsequent faunal analysis. Our results suggest that vultures and domestic dogs are underappreciated members of the Sonoran scavenging guild and may disperse skeletal remains and migrant possessions over 25 m from the site of death. The impact of scavengers and the desert environment on the decomposition process has significant implications for estimating death rates and identifying human remains along the Arizona/Mexico border.
In contrast to later periods that show a more strictly circumscribed approach to the location and... more In contrast to later periods that show a more strictly circumscribed approach to the location and treatment of skeletal remains, third millennium Europe was host to a wide variety of human interactions with dead bodies. This variability is particularly noteworthy in Iberia, where over the course of the Copper Age human bones were subject to a wide range of funerary rituals, including interment in commingled deposits in natural and artificial caves and rock shelters, burial in primary and secondary depositions in purpose-built mortuary features, and scattering as fragments in enclosure ditches and other architectural features. Here, I focus on a series of illustrative cases from large-scale Chalcolithic sites in Spain and Portugal to illustrate intra-site variability in mortuary treatment, and to consider what such variability meant for the social and ritual organization of these prehistoric communities. Next, I move to the mountains of southwestern Transylvania, where distinct mortuary tracks are recorded for upland sites in the Apuseni highlands and lowland sites in the Mureș River valley. Here, I describe how my initial bioarchaeological analyses of Early Bronze Age mortuary populations have important implications for understanding the negotiation of community identities and territorial relationships. Overall, evidence from both Iberia and Romania points to the dead being a constant presence in Late Prehistoric societies, with continuous interaction with the human remains, physically and perhaps even socially, an important component of daily life.
Archaeology lends a critical perspective to research on social inequality due to the eld's unique... more Archaeology lends a critical perspective to research on social inequality due to the eld's unique access to deep history, emphasis on materiality, and explicit incorporation of multiple lines of evidence. This paper o ers a concise overview of archaeological approaches aimed at students and scholars in other elds. We develop a categorization of disciplinary strategies, arguing that archaeologists address institutionalized inequality through examining inequalities in the accumulation of goods or resources (economic di erentiation); access to resources or knowledge (social di erentiation), and inequalities in action, the ability to make decisions for oneself or others (political di erentiation). We illustrate these categories with reference to the distinctions between material, relational, and embodied wealth. We draw upon a broad range of geographic, chronological, and cultural case studies to illustrate the exibility and utility of archaeological methods for answering questions about inequality in human societies.
Success in academic archaeology is strongly influenced by the publication of peer-reviewed articl... more Success in academic archaeology is strongly influenced by the publication of peer-reviewed articles. Despite the importance of such articles, minimal research has explicitly examined the factors influencing publishing decisions in archaeology. In order to better understand the landscape of archaeological publishing, we distributed a short survey that solicited basic professional and demographic information before asking respondents to (1) identify journals that publish important archaeological research, (2) identify journals that people who read archaeological academic CVs value most highly, and (3) rank the factors that affected their decisions about where to submit an article for publication. Our results from 274 respondents generated a list of 167 individual journal titles. Prestige was viewed as the most important factor that affected publishing decisions, followed by audience and open access considerations. There was no relationship between respondent-generated journal rankings and SCImago Journal Ranks (SJR), but there were significant differences in average SJR by gender and career stage. Responses showed consensus on only a small number of highly ranked archaeology and science-subject journals, with little agreement on the importance of most other journals. We conclude by highlighting the areas of disciplinary consensus and divergence revealed by the survey and by discussing how implicit prestige hierarchies permeate academic archaeology.
The Matter of Prehistory: Papers in Honor of Antonio Gilman Guillén, 2020
Traditional studies of prehistoric inequality have focused on its material traces in the archaeol... more Traditional studies of prehistoric inequality have focused on its material traces in the archaeological record, examining evidence such as architecture, patterns of long-distance exchange, craft specialization, settlement hierarchies, and mortuary treatment. Bioarchaeological data from human skeletons provide a unique and complementary line of evidence with which to augment existing archaeo- logical approaches, as embodied inequalities in the lived experience of diet, mobility, trauma, disease, physiological stress, and activity patterns can lead to differences that are osteologically measurable. Bioarchaeological investigations of inequality are particularly important for the Iberian Copper Age (circa 3250–2200 BC), a period marked by significant social transformations, including the emergence of complex sites. This chapter focuses on the available osteological evidence for patterning in diet, mobility, and violence at complex Chalcolithic sites such as La Pijotilla, Los Millares, Marro- quíes, Perdigões, Valencina-Castilleja, and Zambujal to explore the biocultural impact of Copper Age social transformations. The chapter concludes with recommendations for continuing to develop a regional bioarchaeology of the Iberian Copper Age while embedding bioarchaeological data within the larger context of archaeological investigations of inequality within Iberian late prehistory.
The Apuseni Mountains of southwestern Transylvania (Romania) are home to the richest gold and cop... more The Apuseni Mountains of southwestern Transylvania (Romania) are home to the richest gold and copper deposits in Europe, key resources that fueled the development of social complexity during the Bronze Age (ca. 2700-800 B.C.E.). This landscape encompasses a significant amount of topographic and ecological diversity , with upland landscapes incorporating major mineral deposits, forests, pastures, and salt springs, and low-land agropastoral landscapes abutting the major interregional Mureș River corridor. Local Early Bronze Age (ca. 2700-2000 B.C.E.) communities typically buried their dead in stone-covered tumuli in the uplands, though there are also examples of burial in lowland settlements. The relationship between upland and lowland mortuary contexts is an enduring question within the regional archaeological record. In this paper we present a case study that compares individuals from two sites: the lowland settlement of Alba Iulia-Pârâul Iovului and the upland cemetery of Meteș-La Meteșel. We ask whether there were differences between the uplands and the low-lands in terms of mortuary practices and eligibility for burial, or differences in the lived experience of pathology or trauma. Our results show that there are few significant differences between the two samples. Adults and subadults, as well as males and females, are represented at both sites, and levels of skeletal pathology are low, while dental insults are more frequent. We conclude by outlining a strategy for developing a regional bioarchae-ology that will incorporate multiple lines of archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence and enhance our understanding of the biocultural dynamics of the region.
In this introduction to the thematic issue Living and Dying in Mountain Landscapes, we develop an... more In this introduction to the thematic issue Living and Dying in Mountain Landscapes, we develop an analytical framework for the bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology of highland landscapes. We highlight new theoretical , methodological, and comparative contributions to the anthropological study of upland spaces. Theoretical contributions include examining identity, connectivity, and adaptation from an explicitly biocultural perspective. By bridging the biological anthropological focus on the somatic with an archaeological focus on the long term, bioarchaeology allows for the development of an embodied understanding of "marginal" highland environments, investigating how such landscapes shape and are shaped by human action over time. Recent advances in bioarchaeological methods, including isotopic analyses of mobility and diet and ancient DNA studies of kinship and relatedness, are combined with traditional osteological examinations of age, sex, ancestry, and disease to reconstruct the lifeways of mountain communities. These methodological advances take advantage of the topographical, geological, and ecological diversity of mountain landscapes. Finally, a comparative bioarchaeology of upland and lowland communities across space and time provides a deeper understanding of highland adaptations and identities. The papers share a number of unifying themes, including the impact of mountain landscapes on channeling resource control, creating or mediating diverse identities, and the importance of interdisciplinary investigations for developing an understanding of the relationship between people and place. As this issue demonstrates, the study of human remains must be situated within a holistic bioarchae-ological approach to life and death in order to understand the dynamic relationships between people and the highland environments they occupy.
Where people bury their dead is a critical part of mortuary rituals. This paper examines the rela... more Where people bury their dead is a critical part of mortuary rituals. This paper examines the relationship between the placement of the dead within a landscape and the social roles of the dead in the lives of the living. We examine the distribution of mortuary sites in southwest Transylvania during the Early and Middle Bronze Age (2700-1500 BCE), a period of significant socioeconomic transformation. We document a shift in the locations of cemeteries that is linked to the changing roles of the dead within society. During the Early Bronze Age, people placed their dead in highly visible tomb cemeteries in upland landscapes with access to metal and highland pasture. We argue that the living used mortuary practices to contest access to resources. During the Middle Bronze Age, however, people were primarily cremated and buried in flat urn cemeteries in similar contexts as settlements. We argue that this transition signifies changing institutions of metal procurement as well as a shift in the roles of the dead in the lives of the living. The analysis of cemetery placement has significant potential for revealing the organization and evolution of how bodies are used for political purposes in a broad range of geographic and chronological contexts.
In the last few decades, the discovery of large ditched enclosures in Iberia has revealed the div... more In the last few decades, the discovery of large ditched enclosures in Iberia has revealed the diversity and complexity of deposition and manipulation of human bone remains. Alongside traditional ritual burials (mainly megalithic tombs and hypogea), fragmented and scattered human bones mixed with other kinds of material culture began to appear in many features. This is the case for Ditch 5 at Marroquíes, which offers an excellent opportunity to explore this ritual behaviour. Based on a multi-proxy approach, three main conclusions can be drawn: 1) the skeletal elements present show deliberate selection of particular categories of bones; 2) depositional episodes included the remains of people who died at different points in time and were subject to different taphonomic processes, and 3) mobility patterns indicate that all individuals, with one possible exception, were local. The movement and manipulations of body parts may reflect the active role of people after death as social and symbolic elements that retain agency and capacity for action.
Commingled assemblages of fragmentary human skeletal remains are a common feature of many archaeo... more Commingled assemblages of fragmentary human skeletal remains are a common feature of many archaeological sites and pose significant analytical problems for bioarchaeologists. Such deposits often contain a high volume of the teeth of sub-adults for which it is challenging to estimate age, including developing permanent teeth with damaged roots, articulated teeth with roots obscured by alveolar bone, and deciduous teeth with completed root apices. Here, we present a new method for more precisely estimating age for the developmentally ambiguous teeth of subadults from archaeological contexts. We used a sample of articulated subadult dentition from the Copper Age site of Marroquíes in Jaén, Spain, to build linear models of the relationship between dental age and tooth wear for deciduous and permanent molars. We tested three different strategies for identifying and removing outliers to build a linear model with the strongest relationship between age and wear. The Adjusted Residual strategy, which used diagnostic plots of linear regression residuals in the statistical package R to identify and remove out-liers, was found to produce the strongest linear model. The linear model developed using the Adjusted Residual strategy was then used to provide estimated midpoint ages and upper and lower age bounds based on the wear scores from the sample of developmentally ambiguous teeth. This study demonstrates that it is possible to estimate the age of developmentally ambiguous deciduous and permanent molars with reference to an adequate sample of subadult dentition with estimated ages from the same population. This new method is valuable as it extracts information from developmentally ambiguous teeth that would otherwise be inaccessible, allows for rapid data collection, employs standard macroscopic dental scoring methods, and can be used for sites from other regions and periods. We conclude by discussing the applications of this new method within bioarchaeology and identify directions for future research on subadult dental wear.
Settlements incorporating large-scale human aggregations are a well-documented but poorly underst... more Settlements incorporating large-scale human aggregations are a well-documented but poorly understood phenomenon across late prehistoric Europe. The authors’ research examines the origins and trajectory of such aggregations through isotope analysis of human skeletal remains from the mega-site of Marroquíes in Jaén, Spain. The results indicate that eight per cent of 115 sampled individuals are of non-local origin. These individuals received mortuary treatments indistinguishable from those of locals, suggesting their incorporation into pre-existing social networks in both life and death. This research contributes to our understanding of the extent and patterning of human mobility, which underlies the emergence of late prehistoric mega-sites in Europe.
At 113-ha in size and dating to the 3rd millennium cal BC, the ditched enclosure site of Marroquí... more At 113-ha in size and dating to the 3rd millennium cal BC, the ditched enclosure site of Marroquíes is one of the latest mega-sites in Iberia. The settlement preserves multiple mortuary areas which contain over 450 individuals, allowing for the examination of inter-individual and inter-group variability in diet and health. This study presents the first large-scale palaeodietary assessment of the site through the analysis of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope values from 113 human and 23 faunal samples. It also offers the first comprehensive analysis of dental disease at Marroquíes in a sample of over 4,600 human teeth. Humans at Marroquíes exhibit mean values of 8.4 ± 0.9‰ for δ15N and -19.3 ± 0.3‰ for δ13C, suggesting a diet predominantly based on proteins from terrestrial C3 plant foodwebs, conforming to a broader dietary pattern common throughout Late Prehistoric Iberia. Dental analyses revealed significant differences in the frequency of hypoplasias and calculus between mortuary areas. Overall, the documented variability within mortuary areas is higher than variability between them, suggesting that although differences in consumption patterns did exist, the bonds created by group affinities outweighed the expression of social asymmetries at death.
Within Iberia increasing attention has been paid to the unprecedented emergence of large-scale vi... more Within Iberia increasing attention has been paid to the unprecedented emergence of large-scale villages, or “macro-villages”, during the third millennium cal BC. Bioarchaeology has the potential to make significant contributions to our understanding of macro-village organization through a reconstruction of both demography and mortuary treatment. The 113-ha site of Marroquíes in Jaén, Spain, represents one of the largest villages known for the Copper Age. Here, results of the bioarchaeological analyses of three previously unstudied necropolises are presented, representing a minimum number of individuals (MNI) of 280. This sample includes 201 adults and 79 subadults; assessments of sex were possible for 105/201 (52%) adults, producing a count of 46 females or probable females, 28 individuals of indeterminate sex, and 31 males or probable males. Chi-square tests and Fisher’s exact tests showed no significant differences in age or sex between the three mortuary populations. Instead, mortuary practices were communal, and individuals of both sexes and almost all ages were interred in primary, secondary, or commingled burials. Limited evidence of age-based or sex- based mortuary differentiation, in tandem with the synchronic maintenance of multiple necropolises, suggests that mortuary decisions were focused on the identities of the social groups responsible for burying the dead.
Looting is a significant destructive force at archaeological sites; grave robbing, in particular,... more Looting is a significant destructive force at archaeological sites; grave robbing, in particular, leaves human remains and cultural heritage irreparably damaged. Al-Widay, a necropolis excavated by the Oriental Institute Nubian Expedition near the Fourth Cataract region of the Nile River, is a site with important implications for understanding the taphonomy of archaeological looting. Over 60% of the tumuli excavated at Al-Widay were disturbed in antiquity, making the site an ideal case study for examining the effects of looting on ancient human skeletal remains. Our research applies bioarchaeological methods of quantifying fragmentation to an assessment of “Culturally Significant Anatomical Regions” in order to evaluate the nature and degree of human disturbance activity at this necropolis. At Al-Widay, site reports document looted graves (n = 22), unlooted graves (n = 14), and a sample of graves (n = 42), for which the level of disturbance is unknown. Fisher's exact test showed significant differences in the bioarchaeological patterning of looted versus unlooted contexts, and a cross-validated logistic regression model was used to sort five unknown graves into looted and unlooted categories, providing a quantitative bioarchaeological method for the identification of looting.
Research on the emergence of institutionalized inequality has traditionally maintained an analyti... more Research on the emergence of institutionalized inequality has traditionally maintained an analytical divide between lived institutions that affect daily life and performed institutions materialized in mortuary contexts. Here, we argue that convergence or divergence between lived and performed contexts reveals key aspects of past social organization. When combined, mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology provide a methodological framework well suited to evaluate the coherence or dissonance of such institutions. Three case studies from prehistoric Europe highlight how new insights gained by studying tension between institutions, identities and experiences across social dimensions can transform our understanding of the development of institutionalized inequality.
Recent work has called attention to the significant numbers of subadults recovered from Late Preh... more Recent work has called attention to the significant numbers of subadults recovered from Late Prehistoric burial contexts in western Iberia. However, subadult burials are also documented at some of the well-known, large-scale Copper Age centers of southeastern Spain, where adults and subadults are represented in both commingled and individual inhumations. The importance of the inclusion and mortuary treatment of subadults at such centers of social and economic activity has yet to be sufficiently explored. Here, I discuss the implications of the presence of subadults for the formation and representation of community identity, with particular emphasis on the case of Marroquíes Bajos. At this site, salvage excavations have yielded evidence of five concentric ditches and one adobe wall that encompass an area of approximately 113 ha, making it one of the largest “matrix villages” of the Iberian Copper Age. Marroquíes Bajos is also a particularly relevant case because subadults occur in formally and spatially distinct funerary contexts. Their remains appear in mortuary structures housing only fragmentary and commingled remains, in mortuary structures housing discrete primary and secondary interments, and in a large, commingled interment in an artificial cave. The significance of subadult burials at Marroquíes Bajos is explored relative to theoretical interpretations of childhood in prehistory, in particular relative to ethnographically and archaeologically documented rites of passage.
Since 1998, over 5500 people have died while attempting to cross the U.S.–Mexico border without a... more Since 1998, over 5500 people have died while attempting to cross the U.S.–Mexico border without authorization. These deaths have primarily occured in the Arizona desert. Despite the high volume of deaths, little experimental work has been conducted on Sonoran Desert taphonomy. In this study, pig carcasses were used as proxies for human remains and placed in different depositional contexts (i.e., direct sunlight and shade) that replicate typical sites of migrant death. Decomposition was documented through daily site visits, motion-sensitive cam- eras and GIS mapping, while skeletal preservation was investigated through the collection of the remains and subsequent faunal analysis. Our results suggest that vultures and domestic dogs are underappreciated members of the Sonoran scavenging guild and may disperse skeletal remains and migrant possessions over 25 m from the site of death. The impact of scavengers and the desert environment on the decomposition process has significant implications for estimating death rates and identifying human remains along the Arizona/Mexico border.
In contrast to later periods that show a more strictly circumscribed approach to the location and... more In contrast to later periods that show a more strictly circumscribed approach to the location and treatment of skeletal remains, third millennium Europe was host to a wide variety of human interactions with dead bodies. This variability is particularly noteworthy in Iberia, where over the course of the Copper Age human bones were subject to a wide range of funerary rituals, including interment in commingled deposits in natural and artificial caves and rock shelters, burial in primary and secondary depositions in purpose-built mortuary features, and scattering as fragments in enclosure ditches and other architectural features. Here, I focus on a series of illustrative cases from large-scale Chalcolithic sites in Spain and Portugal to illustrate intra-site variability in mortuary treatment, and to consider what such variability meant for the social and ritual organization of these prehistoric communities. Next, I move to the mountains of southwestern Transylvania, where distinct mortuary tracks are recorded for upland sites in the Apuseni highlands and lowland sites in the Mureș River valley. Here, I describe how my initial bioarchaeological analyses of Early Bronze Age mortuary populations have important implications for understanding the negotiation of community identities and territorial relationships. Overall, evidence from both Iberia and Romania points to the dead being a constant presence in Late Prehistoric societies, with continuous interaction with the human remains, physically and perhaps even socially, an important component of daily life.
Traditionally, studies of prehistoric inequality focus on its material traces in the archaeologic... more Traditionally, studies of prehistoric inequality focus on its material traces in the archaeological record, examining evidence such as architecture, patterns of long-distance exchange, craft specialization, settlement hierarchies, and mortuary treatment. Bioarchaeological evidence from the human skeleton provides a unique and complementary counterpoint to such work by examining the embodied dimensions of differences in social status. Osteoarchaeological assessments of age, sex, and skeletal completion can be used to assess the relationship between identity and mortuary treatment, while the paleopathology of ancient bones and teeth provides insight into the intersection of disease and social status. Isotopic analyses of carbon, nitrogen, strontium, and oxygen reveal inter-individual and inter-group differences in diet and mobility. Finally, radiocarbon dating of human bone allows us to examine diachronic changes in social organization and economic, political, and ideological inequalities. Here, I focus on the site of Marroquíes, a 113-hectare Chalcolithic enclosure settlement in Jaén, Spain, to explore how bioarchaeological analyses contribute to contemporary debates about social complexity. The trajectory of the site of Marroquíes and evidence for the lived experiences of the people who inhabited this settlement is contextualized with reference to other large-scale Chalcolithic sites such as Los Millares and Valencina de la Concepción. This paper concludes with recommendations for embedding new bioarchaeological data within the larger context of archaeological investigations of inequality within Iberian Late Prehistory.
Copper and gold resources from Southwestern Transylvania played a critical role in the emergence ... more Copper and gold resources from Southwestern Transylvania played a critical role in the emergence of inequality in European Late Prehistory. Communities in this metal-rich landscape, however, remain poorly understood. Though the highly visible tombs in the Apuseni Mountains where these communities buried some of their dead have been known to local archaeologists for decades, very little is known about the backdrop of health and disease in the region. Here, we present one of the first bioarchaeological analyses of skeletal and dental health for the Apuseni Early Bronze Age, focusing on a sample of human remains that incorporates individuals of both sexes and a range of ages, from very young children to older adults. Our results show relatively low levels of skeletal pathology, with age-related insults such as osteoarthritis predominating. In contrast, dental insults were more common and included caries, calculus, alveolar resorption, and abscesses. We present several case-studies of older individuals affected with particularly severe combinations of dental insults, and discuss the dietary and behavioral implications of handling such pathologies, at both the level of the individual and the community.
The Apuseni Mountains of southwest Transylvania, Romania, are amongst the richest gold and copper... more The Apuseni Mountains of southwest Transylvania, Romania, are amongst the richest gold and copper procurement zones in the world. Metals from this region helped fuel the rise of inequality across Europe during Late Prehistory, and the area is also home to a rich mortuary record, with archaeological survey identifying over one hundred mounded tomb cemeteries belonging to Bronze Age communities. However, none of these cemeteries have been fully excavated and only a small sample of skeletons have been studied. Here, we describe the results of bioarchaeological analysis of human skeletal remains from a sample of previously unanalyzed Early Bronze Age sites that encompass a significant degree of environmental and cultural variability, including upland cemeteries with stone-covered cairns, as well as lowland cemeteries with earthen cairns. These cemeteries show evidence of diverse mortuary treatments, including primary burials, secondary burials, and commingled interments. Our analyses assess age, sex, health, and funerary treatment, providing preliminary information about how mortuary treatment intersected with aspects of identity and lived experience. This study builds a foundation for future bioarchaeology in the Apuseni region and emphasizes the need to supplement osteological analysis of the scant museum collections with larger-scale excavation of cemeteries.
Teeth are well represented in the prehistoric record, and bioarchaeologists have developed many t... more Teeth are well represented in the prehistoric record, and bioarchaeologists have developed many techniques to obtain demographic information from human dentition. Existing methods, such as modifications of the Miles method, are used to estimate adult age, and use of developmental standards like the London Atlas can estimate subadult age based on patterns of dental development and eruption. However, to date there is no method that allows for the estimation of age for loose, apex complete deciduous teeth. Here, I describe a newly developed method that regresses estimated midpoint ages (calculated using level of development of the developing sample) against wear in order to estimate the age of loose apex complete deciduous teeth. This method was developed for a sample of over 200 loose deciduous teeth from Necropolis 4 at the Copper Age (c.3250-2200 cal BC) site of Marroquíes Bajos, in Jaén Spain. Results from the subadult regression model showed that an approach which removed high leverage observations produced the strongest predictive equation, making it possible to estimate age from loose deciduous teeth that have finished development and are apex complete. When combined with a modified Miles method and a sample-specific odontometric approach, it was possible to estimate age and assess sex of both adult and subadult individuals at Necropolis 4. This new method makes it possible to obtain important demographic information about a bioarchaeological sample even when a portion of the sample is composed of fully developed loose deciduous teeth.
Post-mortem manipulation of human remains played a critical role in mortuary practices in Copper ... more Post-mortem manipulation of human remains played a critical role in mortuary practices in Copper Age Iberia (c. 3250-2200 BC). During this period in Spain and Portugal, individuals were buried communally in tholos-type tombs, as well as natural or artificial caves and rock shelters. Evidence from across Iberia suggests that mortuary practices included the manipulation and movement of previously interred bodies, either in order to clear space for new individuals, or to facilitate secondary reburial in new locations. I focus on evidence from the site of Marroquíes Bajos (Jaén, Spain), which at 113 ha is one of the largest villages known for the Iberian Copper Age. Marroquíes contained at least seven different mortuary areas, and shows evidence of multiple funerary processes, including secondary burials and communal burial in mortuary structures or artificial caves. The latter two treatments suggest that at specific points in time, members of the community came into repeated and deliberate contact with human remains. By contextualizing Marroquíes Bajos mortuary practices within a broader regional pattern of post-mortem manipulation across the Iberian Peninsula, it is possible to explore the ways in which these mortuary practices influence the construction of communal and individual identities in Copper Age societies.
At 113 hectares in size, Marroquíes Bajos represents one of the largest early villages in Iberia.... more At 113 hectares in size, Marroquíes Bajos represents one of the largest early villages in Iberia. This third millennium Copper Age settlement is located in the Upper Guadalquivir river basin in Jaén, Spain. Its spatial organization is demarcated by five concentric ditches and a 2km long adobe wall surrounding the fourth ditch. The available radiocarbon chronology suggests an initial foundation in the first half of the third millennium, extensive investments of communal labor in a ditch and wall system starting circa 2450 BC, and a dramatic decrease in human activity at around 2000 BC. As at other matrix villages, life at Marroquíes was characterized by increasing archaeological evidence for managerial hierarchies, and brought with it difficult new demands like navigating complex interpersonal relationships, establishing property ownership, and organizing labor. Previous analyses of the dynamics of such sites have largely relied on archaeological proxies such as shifts in settlement patterns or internal organization and architecture. In contrast, our project takes a bioarchaeological approach and evaluates human mobility and diet at an early matrix village through isotopic analyses of human skeleton remains. We examine one of the largest prehistoric populations in Iberia, sampling 120 human and faunal individuals using strontium (87Sr/86Sr) oxygen (δ18O), carbon (δ13C), and nitrogen (δ15N) isotopic analysis. Preliminary ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis test results show significant inter-individual and inter-necropolis differences in mobility and diet, providing important information about variability in lived experience in the first complex societies in Iberia.
At 113 ha, Marroquíes Bajos (Jaén, Spain) is one of the largest villages known for the Iberian Co... more At 113 ha, Marroquíes Bajos (Jaén, Spain) is one of the largest villages known for the Iberian Copper Age. Attention was first focused on the site in the 1960s, after construction work underneath the modern city of Jaén unearthed a series of elaborate artificial burial caves. However, over the past several decades, salvage excavations revealed even more mortuary areas at the site, including commingled depositions in enclosure ditches, primary and secondary inhumations in discrete subterranean mortuary areas, and clusters of poorly defined, fragmentary, and commingled deposits. Bioarchaeological analysis of this variability are in mortuary treatment is key for understanding the social organization and historical trajectory of this early matrix village, particularly for understanding any social inequalities that may have contributed to the settlement’s eventual decline. Here, I discuss the multiple lines of evidence that can be used to unpack the variability of mortuary behavior at this Late Prehistoric village, ranging from quantitative dental and skeletal approaches, assessments of age and MNI, careful consideration of evidence from the Spanish gray literature, biochemical approaches to diet and mobility, and radiocarbon dating of remains.
Fragmentary and commingled human remains recovered from salvage excavations present bioarchaeolo... more Fragmentary and commingled human remains recovered from salvage excavations present bioarchaeologists with a number of interpretative challenges, including calculating MNI in the absence of detailed provenience information, untangling post-excavation commingling of remains, and analyzing high volumes of recovered material. Importantly, analytical techniques developed in recent research on forensic and archaeological taphonomy can help overcome some of these difficulties. Here I focus on the case of Marroquíes Bajos, a 113 hectare Copper Age enclosure site in Andalusia that was salvage-excavated in advance of urban expansion of the city of Jaén. Excavations revealed seven discrete mortuary areas, ranging from commingled deposits in wall trenches to richly accoutered interments in artificial caves. Using the lens of forensic taphonomy to assess the preservational patterning of skeletal and dental remains from three previously unstudied necropolises allows me to identify the types of burial practices likely used at each necropolis. In addition to unpacking Late Prehistoric funerary practices, investigating the demographic composition of these three mortuary populations through an analysis of dental development and wear provides insight as to how Copper Age communities at such large-scale centers were organized socially, illuminating the ways in which community identity was formed and maintained during the Iberian Chalcolithic.
Disturbing the dead has been considered a criminal activity in the Nile Valley since the trial of... more Disturbing the dead has been considered a criminal activity in the Nile Valley since the trial of Egyptian tomb robbers in 1100 B.C.E. Looting is one of the most destructive forces at archaeological sites; grave robbing, in particular, leaves human remains and cultural heritage irreparably damaged. During 2007-2008, the Oriental Institute Nubian Expedition (OINE) worked to identify, record, and preserve important archaeological sites that have since been destroyed by the Merowe Dam. AlWiday, a cemetery that was excavated by the OINE near the Fourth Cataract region of the Nile River in northern Sudan, is a site with important implications for understanding the taphonomy of archaeological looting. Over 60% of the tumuli excavated at Al-Widay were disturbed in antiquity, making it an ideal case study for examining the effects of looting on the recovered human skeletal remains. Our research applies bioarchaeological methods of quantifying fragmentation to an assessment of culturally significant anatomical regions in order to evaluate the nature and degree of human disturbance activity at Al-Widay. Studying the preservational patterning of looting makes it possible to access aspects of looting behavior in the past, as well as to reconstruct the original
archaeological context of disturbed remains.
Bioarchaeologists working with salvage-excavated collections are faced with a unique suite of iss... more Bioarchaeologists working with salvage-excavated collections are faced with a unique suite of issues that include limited provenience information, poor spatial control, and post-excavation commingling of remains. Because human teeth survive the rigors of the archaeological record and provide data about MNI, age, diet, and health, dental analysis offers one method of untangling the tortuous history of a salvage-excavated collection. Marroquíes Bajos, a 113-hectare Copper Age enclosure site, is well known within Iberian archaeology due to the rich grave furnishings recovered from the necropolis of Marroquíes Altos in the 1950s. However, this artificial cave burial has been excavated multiple times since that decade, and due to the extreme commingling of remains has not been subject to previous bioarchaeological analysis. To untangle the mortuary practices in use at Marroquíes Altos, I (1) use models drawn from forensic taphonomy to outline expected patterns of dental preservation for different burial practices, and (2) compare the new data from Marroquíes Altos to data collected from two other well-documented and previously unstudied mortuary areas at Marroquíes Bajos, one of primary burial (Necropolis 1) and one of secondary burial (Necropolis 2). Chi-square tests and ANOVA reveal significant differences in the categories of teeth preserved in each area, as well as differences in the ratio of adult to non-adult dentition recovered from each locale. This study also explores variability in the frequency of hypoplasias, caries, and calculus severity over these three mortuary areas, highlighting variation in dental health between individuals buried in this Copper Age community.
Subadult burials during European late prehistory have the potential to shed light on issues of ... more Subadult burials during European late prehistory have the potential to shed light on issues of ancient demography, identity formation, social organization and lived experience in the past. However, they remain relatively under-explored in the literature. Here, I focus on the case of Marroquíes Bajos, a 113 hectare Copper Age enclosure site in Andalusia that was salvage-excavated in advance of urban expansion of the city of Jaén during the last two decades. The internal organization of the site, with a series of concentric ditches as well as an adobe wall around the fifth ditch, is evidence for the investment of a great amount of communal labor in site construction and maintenance. Importantly, excavations of Marroquíes Bajos have revealed seven discrete mortuary areas, including individual or communal burial in subterranean domes, tombs located in artificial caves, and inhumation in the concentric ditches themselves. Here, I compare the proportion, categorical age and formal treatment of subadults from Necropolis 3 and Communal Burial 5 to my recent investigation of an additional two necropolises from the site. My bioarchaeological analysis of Necropolis 1 and Necropolis 2 provides a more extensive formal, spatial and temporal backdrop against which to examine variation in the treatment of subadults at the site. Results suggest significant intrasite variability in the form and practice of subadult burial in Copper Age Iberia This variability has important implications for social organization and the construction of community identity at large-scale centers during the Chalcolithic in southern Spain.
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Papers by Jess Beck
of 46 females or probable females, 28 individuals of indeterminate sex, and 31 males or probable males. Chi-square tests and Fisher’s exact tests showed no significant differences in age or sex between the three mortuary populations. Instead, mortuary practices were communal, and individuals of both sexes and almost all ages were interred in primary, secondary, or commingled burials. Limited evidence of age-based or sex- based mortuary differentiation, in tandem with the synchronic maintenance of multiple necropolises, suggests that mortuary decisions were focused on the identities of the social groups responsible for burying the dead.
Conference Presentations by Jess Beck
of 46 females or probable females, 28 individuals of indeterminate sex, and 31 males or probable males. Chi-square tests and Fisher’s exact tests showed no significant differences in age or sex between the three mortuary populations. Instead, mortuary practices were communal, and individuals of both sexes and almost all ages were interred in primary, secondary, or commingled burials. Limited evidence of age-based or sex- based mortuary differentiation, in tandem with the synchronic maintenance of multiple necropolises, suggests that mortuary decisions were focused on the identities of the social groups responsible for burying the dead.
This method was developed for a sample of over 200 loose deciduous teeth from Necropolis 4 at the Copper Age (c.3250-2200 cal BC) site of Marroquíes Bajos, in Jaén Spain. Results from the subadult regression model showed that an approach which removed high leverage observations produced the strongest predictive equation, making it possible to estimate age from loose deciduous teeth that have finished development and are apex complete. When combined with a modified Miles method and a sample-specific odontometric approach, it was possible to estimate age and assess sex of both adult and subadult individuals at Necropolis 4. This new method makes it possible to obtain important demographic information about a bioarchaeological sample even when a portion of the sample is composed of fully developed loose deciduous teeth.
archaeological context of disturbed remains.