ROLE AND IMPACT OF DECAY PROCESS IN BURIAL PRACTICES ANALYSIS
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2021-02-27

The skeleton is a consequence of the decay process, which is a complex and multiparametric phenomenon. In archaeological contexts, the reconstruction of burial practices is essentially based on the detailed examination of the position of the bones. Nevertheless, the way a corpse decays is not really understood by archaeologists (especially in soil) and so, its impact is underestimated. In order to overcome this problem, the author studied 50 corpses from recent burials (19th-20th centuries) as a part of his PhD research to understand how the decay process can influence the final spatial organization of bones. Thus, this paper deals with the decay process, the degradation of clothing and skeletal disarticulation process. The aim of this paper is to show how the variability of that biological phenomenon can significantly influence the archaeological image of the burial (putrefaction, mummification, saponification), but also the necessity to integrate that dimension of death in our reasoning to better reconstruct burial practices.


Author(s): Bouquin, Denis (Service archéologique du Grand Reims; LABO Université Libre de Bruxelles)