Step 1. Read Introduction Guidelines
According to Chapter 6, richly adorned burial sites can provide information on religious beliefs as well as social status, where the major source of such information comes from art and artifacts. In this week’s discussion
Step 2. Select a burial site
Choose an example burial site from any chapter in your textbook or from one of the E-books listed below from our LIBRARY. I have listed the title of each e-book below and embedded a link to each book. You can also search the library catalog using these titles to find each e-book.
I chose:
Children, Death and Burial : Archaeological Discourses
· Author:
Eileen Murphy, Mélie Le Roy
· Date:
2017
- Detailed Record
o Publisher Permissions:
- Print/E-mail/Save 78 Pages
- Unlimited Copy/Paste
- Unrestricted Download
o eBook Availability:
- Unlimited copies available
The chapter I have chosen is
Chapter 15 (attached)
Atypical Burial Practice and Juvenile Age-at-death
in Later Medieval Gaelic Ireland: The Evidence
from Ballyhanna, Co. Donegal
Please cite which chapter and book you used for your example in your answer and ONLY use one of the books listed here or your textbook. If you are finding that the burial site you selected does not have enough information provided to answer the questions below, please select a new one from the many books listed. Answers such as “the source did not provide enough information to answer the questions” will not receive full points.
Step 3. Answer these questions in your own words
After selecting your site, describe the culture, time period, and geographical location of the burials to provide the site context for our class.
Did these burials provide information on religious beliefs and/or social ranking, and if so, how?
Did the burials provide any information about gender roles, and if so, how?
What about religious practices (actions, behaviors)? If so, what and how do we know about such practices?
Did the human remains themselves provide any important information?
Lastly, the context of artifacts in time and space is of vital importance, as context can reveal more information than the objects themselves. Did the context of the burials reveal any additional important information to archaeologists?
Was any information provided on the relationship between the local people and the archaeologists excavating the burials?
Were the burials excavated with the permission of local people or relatives?
Overall, was the excavation of these burials handled in an ethical* way?
*If you’re unsure how to judge whether or not excavations were handled ethically, I have posted a link in the module to an online interview on Youtube titled “Ethical Approaches to Human Remains”
Fagan & Durrani, 2021. Ancient Lives: An Introduction to Archaeology and Prehistory, 7h ed.
Taylor and Francis. Supplemental readings and films when required will be posted online via
Canvas in each weekly module
