The Dead Tell Tales


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Series: Monographs 76
ISBN: 978-1-931745-68-0
Publication Date: Feb 2013
Price: Hb $84.00, eBook $50.00
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María Cecilia Lozada and Barra O’Donnabhain

Honoring Jane Buikstra’s pioneering work in the development of archaeobiological research, the essays in this volume stem from a symposium held at an annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Buikstra’s redefinition of the term “bioarchaeology” to focus specifically on human skeletal data in historical and anthropological contexts, and the impact of her mentorship on developing scholars in the field, are acknowledged and celebrated by the wide-ranging contributions in The Dead Tell Tales. 

Dead Tell Tales

They highlight the dynamism of bioarchaeology, documenting the degree to which this discipline has become integrated into anthropological research, and has become essential to the interpretation of archaeological data. Sections organized geographically present topics in North America, Central and South America, and the Old World, and discuss such diverse subjects as animal effigies, the archaeology of cemeteries, childhood diets in Copan, an analysis of skeletal trauma in samples from a medieval to early modern Danish cemetery, the social aspects of leprosy, and the role and origins of individuals who labored in a Byzantine prison mining camp in southern Jordan.
Table of Contents

Introduction by María Cecilia Lozada and Barra O’Donnabhain

Part I: Buikstra’s General Contributions to Anthropology

Chapter 1. The Anthropological Praxis of Jane Buikstra by Thomas C. Patterson
Chapter 2. Life in Print: The Publication Record of Jane E. Buikstra by Gordon F. M. Rakita 
Chapter 3. Grave Concerns: The Intersection of Biological and Social Approaches to the Archaeology of Cemeteries by Douglas K. Charles 
Chapter 4. Methodological and Ethical Considerations When Sampling Human Osteological Remains by Cecil Lewis Jr. and Tiffiny A. Tung

Part II: Bioarchaeological Research in North America

Chapter 5. Negotiating the Gateway: Working with Multiple Lines of Evidence to Determine Identity by Lynne Goldstein
Chapter 6. An Ancient Cave Mummy from Kentucky by Patty Jo Watson
Chapter 7. Ossuary III from the Juhle Site, Nanjemoy Maryland: Bioarchaeological Features by Douglas H. Ubelaker
Chapter 8. Interpreting Animal Effigies from Precontact Native American Sites: Applying an Interdisciplinary Method to Illinois Mississippian Artifacts by Dave Aftandilian
Chapter 9. Ethnogenetic Theory and New Directions in Biodistance Research by Christopher Stojanowski

Part III: Bioarchaeological Research in Central and South a America

Chapter 10. What’s on the Bone? Interdisciplinary Approaches in Reconstructing the Posthumous Body Treatments of the Ancient Maya Aristocracy of Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico by Vera Tiesler, Andrea Cucina, Patricia Quintana Owen, Daniel H. Aguilar, Iván Oliva Arias,J. V. Cauich-Rodríguez, William J. Folan, and María del Rosario Domínquez Carrasco
Chapter 11. An Isotope Study of Childhood Diet and Mobility at Copan, Honduras by Lori E. Wright