Slipped proximal femoral epiphysis in a priest from the medieval period

During the course of a routine analysis of a cemetery burial population associated with the medieval hospital of St Giles, Brough, North Yorkshire, the partially excavated burial (No. 1423) of a priest, as identified through the associated chalice and paten dating to the medieval period, was observed to exhibit osseous changes commensurate with those of an untreated slipped proximal femoral epiphysis. Secondary osseous changes were noted that may indicate habitual positional behaviour subsequent to the injury.     

江苏淮安山头遗址墓地发掘简报

The Shantou sites is one of the typical-sites of the Qingliangang Neolithic Culture and was identified by the senior generation of archaeologists, like Yin Huanzhang and Zhao Qingfang in the Nanjing Museum. Several hundreds of burials in later periods are now suffering from looting activities. This preliminary report introduces the burials dating from the Eastern Hart Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. During each period, burials were laid out regularly, representing as various types of burial furniture. Most of these burials were abundant in free funeral goods with typical eharaeteristies of different periods but styles pointing to complicate origins. The discovery of East Han Dynasty burials in Huai ＇an region, without any doubt, is going to play a siguificant role in the study of burial characteristics, funeral customs, arrangement of burial clusters, and even the local cultural history of this region.     

拊葬墓与古代家庭

在以血缘为纽带的社会组织中,其成员死后的埋葬方式直接与家庭、家族和宗族相联系。“袝葬”现象揭示了以家庭为核心的生产关系和生活方式。拊葬墓是以一人为主,其他人从属,多人共用一墓的墓葬。考古学研究中墓室的多少常常与墓主人的身份、等级联系在一起。但袝葬现象直接表现在墓葬形制特征上,是墓葬类型的一种特殊形式,因袝葬需要出现的多室墓并非是墓主人身份的象征,不能作为判别墓葬等级的标准。汉代的袝葬墓一般不改变流行的墓葬形制,而是改变某些空间的功能,西晋以后袝葬墓影响到墓葬形制的改变。拊葬墓的流行,是因为社会组织中血缘关系密切的家庭的地位增强,土地所有制、生产经营和财产关系发生了变化。     

The girl with the chariot medallion: a well-furnished,Late Iron Age Durotrigian burial from Langton Herring,Dorset

A well-furnished, Late Iron Age Durotrigian burial was found in 2010 by a metal-detectorist at Langton Herring in Dorset. This report examines all aspects of the discovery, paying particular attention to the skeletal remains, a female aged 19–24, providing the most complete, osteobiographical study of an individual buried with a mirror assemblage from the European Iron Age. A combination of artefacts and radiocarbon dating gives a range for the burial of c.AD 25 – cal AD 53. The grave goods themselves are of exceptional interest, representing an accumulation of artefacts acquired from diverse sources, deposited at a time of major cultural and societal change in southern Britain. The results of a geophysical survey are also presented, together with a discussion of additional well-furnished burials in the Durotrigian tribal tradition, which place the burial deposit within a wider social and landscape framework.     

湖北荆门龙王山新石器时代墓地发掘简报

2007年6月至11月,为配合湖北省荆门220千伏南桥输变电站工程建设进行了龙王山新石器时代墓地考占发掘,发掘面积1700平方米,共发掘清理大溪文化至屈家岭文化时期的墓葬203座,出土器物逾万件,质地有陶器、玉器等。这批墓葬的规模及随葬品数量的多寡不一,显示当时的社会分化情况已十分明显,为研究长江中游地区史前时期大溪文化与屈家岭文化之间的关系以及史前文明进程提供了十分宝贵的资料。     

From limestone caves to concrete graves: 3000 years of mortuary practice in the Palauan archipelago,Micronesia

Human skeletal remains have been discovered from a variety of contexts in the Palauan archipelago of western Micronesia. These include caves, rockshelters, earthen mounds, stone platforms, midden burials, crypts, sarcophagi, and historic period gravesites. Recent excavation of a prehistoric cemetery in a rockshelter on Orrak Island dating from ca 1000 BC–AD 200, combined with nearly contemporaneous surface finds in caves on both Orrak and other nearby islands, shed light on the earliest known burial practices in Palau. Interment in limestone caves and rockshelters was then replaced in succession by burial in earthwork terraces, beneath stone platforms, in middens, within limestone slab crypts and at least one known stone sarcophagus, and finally in Western or Asian‐style gravesites with headstones. Here we present the first major synthesis of mortuary patterns in Palau from the earliest periods of known settlement (ca. 1000 BC) to modern times. Understanding how these burial practices change over time provides valuable insight into changing sociocultural practices within Palauan society, including how contact with outsiders during the historical period drastically altered traditional mortuary behaviours. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

山西翼城县大河口西周墓地

2007年以来,对山西翼城县大河口墓地进行了发掘,已清理00多座墓葬,均为长方形竖穴土坑墓,有棺椁,墓主多为仰身直肢。大中型墓以随葬青铜器为主,小墓以随葬陶器为主。这处墓地墓主的国族名为霸,霸伯是最高权力拥有者。大河口墓地的发掘对于研究西周分封制度、器用制度和族群融合等具有重要意义。     

陕西宝鸡苟家岭西汉墓葬发掘简报

为配合国道主干线连霍高速宝鸡至牛背梁段高速公路建设,陕西省考古研究院与宝鸡市考古研究所对宝鸡市西郊的苟家岭村西汉墓葬进行了抢救性考古发掘。共发掘清理出10座墓葬,其中部分墓葬保存完整,随葬器物丰富。这也是首次在该地发掘的西汉时期墓葬,为进一步研究关中西部西汉时期聚落分布及丧葬制度增添了新的考古资料。     

黄河中下游地区史前二层台墓研究

黄河中下游地区40余处遗址的400多座二层台墓资料显示,生土二层台墓的数量在仰韶中晚期以前较熟土台墓多,龙山时代式微。该变化的背后是棺椁的逐渐成熟,生土台墓中小部分带有盖板或原始棺椁,同时熟土台并非判断墓葬带有棺椁的充要条件。通过生土台高度和墓葬深度的二元变量分析,墓葬开挖时预留生土台并未考虑稳固墓室,而应该与构建殓尸空间(或椁室)、进行一系列丧葬活动有关,在台面上放置随葬品的情况存在一定的时空差异。二层台墓的分布具有集中埋葬的倾向,采用二层台墓的群体并无明显的性别和死亡年龄指向,从仰韶中期以来,其所代表的社会群体占据着更为优越的社会财富。     

Stable Isotope Analysis of Diet‐based Social Differentiation at Late Prehistoric Collective Burials in South‐Western Portugal

In the Neolithic and Copper Age collective burials of the Portuguese Estremadura, the majority of material culture and skeletal remains are highly commingled, making it difficult for archaeologists to evaluate social status by linking individuals with specific grave goods. In these circumstances, bio‐anthropological data about individual life histories offer an additional avenue of investigation into social complexity among prehistoric communities practising collective burial. In this study, stable isotope data were gathered from 81 individuals from seven collective burial sites and one settlement, the fortified site of Zambujal, in order to determine if significant dietary differences exist within or between burials that may point to patterns of social differentiation, both at individual sites and across the region. While in general all of the sampled individuals consumed fairly homogeneous diets based on terrestrial animal proteins and C₃ plants, this study found that statistically significant differences in δ¹³C_ap and δ¹⁵N values exist between several sites, which may indicate socially differentiated consumption of meat and plants. Additionally, statistically significant differences were found in δ¹⁵N values between adults and juveniles, which may either be attributable to protein‐restrictive child‐feeding practices or physiological processes related to skeletal growth and development.     

Tooth Ablation in Prehistoric Southeast Asia

A sample of skeletons excavated from an undisturbed prehistoric (4000–3500 years BP) burial site in Thailand included a high proportion of individuals with anterior teeth missing in distinctive, mostly symmetrical, patterns. The patterns, types and numbers of teeth missing have been compared between males and females, with age at death, with depth of burial and among spatially distinct groups within the cemetery. The patterns of missing teeth changed over time. In early burials, lateral maxillary incisors were most commonly missing. Two-thirds of the adults had missing teeth. There were no significant differences between the sexes or with age. In later burials, central maxillary incisors and mandibular incisors were most commonly missing. All adults and some children as young as 11 years had missing teeth. There were no significant changes with age but females had more missing teeth than males. Loss as a result of extreme wear inflicted through the use of teeth as tools, congenital absence and ritual ablation are discussed as explanations for the absence of the teeth. The evidence suggests that ritual ablation is the most likely explanation, although the loss of mandibular incisors in some early burials may be as a result of industrial use of the teeth. The ablation of maxillary lateral incisors, found in the early burials, has been recorded at another prehistoric site in the west of Thailand and at sites in southern China.     

Timing the Neolithic transition: the application of fluoride dating at Tell Halula,Syria

The study of Near Eastern Neolithic villages provides a unique means of tracing subsistence strategy, population growth, health, and emerging social inequality associated with agricultural origins. However, disentangling these patterns requires a detailed comprehension of the chronological placement of individual households in the site. In this paper, we present a test to determine the reliability and applicability of the fluoride dating method (a relative dating method) on human dentition of 40 samples from 28 Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (or PPNB) burials from the site of Tell Halula, in Syria. This method, applied here for the first time on a Neolithic Near East case study, is an alternative when other dating methods, like radiocarbon dates, do not provide the required temporal resolution to address particular research problems. Nonetheless, the results obtained in the fluoride analysis show how both the age at death of individuals, and the integrity of the burial plug enormously affect the amount of fluoride absorbed by teeth, so that only a small subset of the full dataset was suitable for fluoride dating. Although the distribution of fluoride values of dentine from the small sample of burials from suitable contexts matches the expected chronology, and corroborates the hypothesis that the occupation at Halula extends from the Middle to the Late PPNB, our analysis illustrates the need for a better understanding of the different sources of error in fluoride dating to improve the method itself, and to obtain more reliable fluoride chronologies.     

论黄河流域先秦时期腰坑墓葬俗文化——兼说与长江流域同类墓葬俗的关系

腰坑墓流行于黄河流域中原地区的墓葬中,学者们多把对其研究的焦点集中在对这一葬俗文化起源问题的讨论上,并较一致地认为该葬俗最早起源于河南地区。本文对发现的有关材料进行梳理,围绕中原地区先秦时期腰坑墓的起源、用途、性质、发展演变等进行了分析,以澄清过去研究中存在的一些模糊认识。认为,腰坑墓的葬俗最早可以追溯到新石器时代,而其起源亦非河南地区。     

Familienanalyse in kupferzeitlichen Kollektivgräbern aus Umm an-Nar; Abu Dhabi

Skeletal material from three collective burials from the island of Umm an-Nar (Arabian peninsula) dating to the 3rd millennium B.C. was submitted to a kinship analysis with the aid of a set of genetically determined odontologic traits. The analysis yielded the following results: a) phenotype and frequency of odontological traits in the skeletal sample suggest a relatively homogeneous population; and b) there are distinct indications for genetically determined relationships within the individual burial mounds. In spite of the poor state of preservation of the skeletons, the analysis permitted conclusions about the social structure of the local population.     

汉代非单棺墓葬的考古学意义观察——以中小型墓葬为观察对象

汉代的非单棺墓,即同穴多人葬,包括有亲缘关系的合葬墓和非亲缘关系的主仆同葬墓。本文所论非单棺墓,为有亲缘关系的合葬墓。这类墓葬的考古年代学类型有同时合葬和异时合葬两种形式。同时合葬因迁葬或同时丧亡而形成,异时合葬则由于先后丧亡因而先后入葬形成。异时而葬的合葬墓,墓主葬入的时间虽有绝对的先后,但因考古学研究方法的特性,对先后葬入的随葬品的考古年代学分期,会有同一时间段或不同时间段两种结论。对于非单棺墓葬的研究,我们首先要重视资料报道的准确件,其次要以对单棺墓葬的分析作为研究的前提,此外要注意辨析同一墓葬内和不同墓葬间不同器物群组之间的关系。     

Middle Bronze Age Burials in the Southern Levant: Spartan Warriors or Ordinary People?

Intermediate and Middle Bronze Age tombs with weapons (mainly daggers) in the southern Levant were often interpreted as ‘warrior graves’. Taking into consideration new data from Rishon Le‐Zion (Israel), recent work on early warfare and warriors, and a study of so‐called ‘warrior graves’ in Mesopotamia (Rehm 2003), we suggest that most of these graves are not graves of elite warriors, but typical male burials. We also discuss the assumed ‘burial kit’ and the decline in numbers of weapons per burial, which is in our view related to the shift from individual burials (in the Intermediate Bronze and Middle Bronze IIA periods) to multiple shaft burials (in the Middle Bronze IIB period).     

A palaeodietary investigation of carbon (C/C) and nitrogen (N/N) in human and faunal bones from the Copper Age cemeteries of Varna I and Durankulak,Bulgaria

Stable isotope analyses have been applied to human and faunal bone collagen from the Varna I and Durankulak cemeteries to explore palaeodietary adaptations in the Neolithic and Eneolithic (Copper Age). The results suggest both populations primarily utilised terrestrial, C₃-based diets, despite their proximity to the Black Sea. The wider δ¹⁵N range of the Durankulak humans likely indicates the differential utilisation of terrestrial meat sources, which is probably related to the degree to which primary and/or secondary ovicaprid products were consumed, particularly since ovicaprid δ¹⁵N values differ from other herbivores. The isotopic distribution of Varna I reflects a linear relationship between δ¹⁵N and δ¹³C, suggesting that a minority of individuals enriched in both isotopic parameters supplemented their diets with marine resources. These burials include the well known ‘chieftain’ (burial 43) and show notable material wealth by way of grave goods. At the population level, however, there is no significant correlation between stable isotope values and material wealth at Varna I, a fact with implications for theories regarding emergent social/economic hierarchies in Balkan prehistory. Five burials at Durankulak were found to have relatively enriched δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values with respect to the rest of the population. These burials reflect a prominently marine-based or mixed terrestrial C₃-based diet that included C₄ inputs, possibly from millet, for which the limitations of stable isotope analysis on bulk collagen are not able to differentiate. AMS dating has shown that these burials belong to a much later period.     

Experiencing gloomy Dis: Tombs,tunnels and the phenomenology of the Roman Underworld in the Phlegraean Fields

Recent work in landscape archaeology has emphasized the importance of considering the experience of moving through landscapes and examining the place of burials within wider landscape contexts. This work recognizes that burial placement was often intended to create and curate experiences and meaning. While burials near roads and waterways have been discussed at length, burials near tunnels, which are an important feature of the road network of Roman central Italy, have not yet featured in discussions of the experience of Roman landscapes or the visibility of graves. This article explores these twin themes in the Phlegraean Fields west of Naples, where burials appear next to the entrances of two monumental tunnels. This placement appears to make an experiential play on the perceptions of the descent into the Underworld as described in Classical literature.     

Notices of Certain Bronze Relics,of a Peculiar Type Assigned to the Late Celtic Period

The excavation of four hundred complete and partial in situ burials from the Hospital of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge, represented one of the largest medieval hospital osteoarchaeological assemblages from the British Isles. The significance of the group is enhanced by the detailed investigation of a carefully maintained network of pathways associated with the cemetery, the archaeological sequence that pre- and post-dated its use and a number of contemporary properties that were situated immediately outside its bounds. This evidence allows the cemetery to be placed within its urban context in a way that is rarely possible. The overwhelming majority of the burials were extended west-east aligned supine inhumations without grave-goods. Atypical burials included examples aligned east-west and south-north, a double burial, a prone burial and individuals buried with a jet crucifix and a brooch. Other significant finds included a nearby pit with four bodies in it, an anthropomorphic bone handle and a reused cruciform horse harness pendant. The proportion of males and females in the burial population is similar, whilst individuals who died under the age of sixteen are relatively uncommon and individuals aged under five are completely absent.     

Notes on Certain Objects of Stag–s Horn Used for Hafting Stone Implements or Weapons

Part of a cemetery of uncertain extent was excavated following its discovery during work upon a late prehistoric and Roman rural settlement. At least four of the inhumations appeared to lie within square-ditched enclosures with entrances on the east. Bone survival was very poor but one skeleton, from a double burial, was dated to the mid-seventh century and was probably female. The practice of square-ditched burial is discussed and it is suggested that the burials are a widespread but uncommon form of secular elite burial in areas outside Saxon control.