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This book examines the intricate relationships between the living and the dead, revealing how these interactions shape group identities and facilitate ongoing negotiations of self and community. Beginning with a rich exploration of bioarchaeological theories, this volume introduces an enriched Poetics model, which deepens our understanding of not just skeletal remains, but the broader contexts that imbue bodies with social significance and how those bodies in turn can produce socially significant changes.
By emphasizing the roles of performance and ritual, the work illustrates how the dead serve as powerful tools in the creation and maintenance of social structures. Through compelling case studies of ancient and modern mortuary practices, it highlights the changing meanings of the body across different historical and cultural landscapes. The volume demonstrates that while our interpretations may shift, the body remains a profound source of meaning and identity. By analyzing patterns of modification and representation, this book provides invaluable insights into social change and how group identity is forged.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Part I: Building a Model of Poetics in Bioarchaeology.- Chapter 2. Poetics and Identity.- Chapter 3. Bioarchaeology and the Bodies.- Chapter 4. Mortuary archaeology: what do we learn from mortuary contexts?.- Chapter 5. The Poetics of Processing: Bodies as Cultural Media.- Part II: Applying the Model.- Chapter 6. Preservation as Processing.- Chapter 7. Inhumation and Cremation.- Chapter 8. A few famous cemeteries.- Chapter 9. The (in)famous Dead.- Part III: Modern Interactions with the Dead.- Chapter 10. Cremation and the disposal of ashes.- Chapter 11. Modern Interactions with the Dead.- Chapter 12. Modern Memorialization.- Part IV: Bodies and Politics.- Chapter 13. Nation Building with Bodies.- Chapter 14. NAGPRA, Sovereignty, and the Ancestors.- Part V: Bodies and Material Culture.- Chapter 15. The Body in Education, Art, and Religion.- Chapter 16. Relics and Reliquaries.- Chapter 17. Wrapping Up: the Poetics of Mortuary Performance and Us.
About the author
Anna Osterholtz is an Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures at Mississippi State University and a Senior Research Associate at the Cobb Institute of Archaeology. Her research expertise is in bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology, with a particular focus on the application of the Poetics model to mortuary contexts. In addition to her work on the Poetics model, Dr. Osterholtz has helped to develop best practices for the analysis and interpretation of commingled human remains, particularly from ossuary and massacre assemblages. In recent years, her research has also expanded to investigate the role of lead consumption, health, and age at death during the Roman period in Croatia, a project for which she received a Wenner-Gren grant in collaboration with Mario Novak at the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb. Dr. Osterholtz has conducted fieldwork and lab-based research across the Americas (US Southwest), Europe (Croatia, Cyprus, and Romania), and the Middle East (UAE), exploring the intricate relationships between the living and the dead. She has edited or co-edited five volumes and authored or co-authored over twenty peer-reviewed articles. Currently, she serves on the editorial board of the Bioarchaeology and Social Theory series published by Springer and is an associate editor for the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.
