The Mesolithic Body: Articulating Science and Theory
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-08-07

Across north-west Europe, Mesolithic human bodies were treated and deposited in a number of different ways after death; as well as inhumed in formal cemeteries bodies were also disarticulated, fragmented, and deposited in a variety of contexts, including occupation layers, middens, caves, and pits. Recent analysis of this disarticulated material has shown the varied forms of funerary practice through which it was generated. However, theoretical approaches to the body in the Mesolithic have generally focused on evidence from inhumations, seemingly struggling to address the implications of practices that involve the manipulation of the body after death. This paper aims to show that approaches that combine a 
theoretical framework grounded in body theory and methodological approaches based on taphonomic analysis can reveal the diverse nature of beliefs surrounding the Mesolithic body.

Amy Gray Jones (University of Chester)

TAG Deva 2018
Session: Integrating Theory and Science in Archaeology