About Me

I'm a PhD student researching the role of the archaeological dead in contemporary British society. Think of this as a scrapbook of all the interesting links, snippets of information and random bits and bobs I come across pertaining to death, dying and the dead. Enjoy?!

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    Average Archaeologist: Decoding the Black Death: Anthropologist Finds Clues in Medieval Skeletons

    archaeologicalnews:

    Each time Sharon DeWitte takes a 3-foot by 1-foot archival box off the shelf at the Museum of London she hopes it will be heavy.

    “Heavy means you know you have a relatively complete skeleton,” said DeWitte, an anthropologist at the University of South Carolina who…

    (via dead-men-talking)

    Dancing With The Dead

    by  

    Winter in Madagascar is a season that sees two traditional rituals of passage – famadihana (the ‘turning of the bones’), and rites of circumcision.

    Every five to ten years, it is the custom for many Malagasy families to exhume their deceased relatives, wrap them in new shrouds, and dance with their bodies before returning them to ancestral crypts. The ceremonies of famadihana take place in winter as some believe that the dead are cold, so need new shrouds. Deceased ancestors are gone but are always resting close by. Their tombs lie in the backyards of family homes. Famadihana involves huge family festivity and sumptuous banquets of meat and rice. It is a time for the living to meet the dead, to show respect to ancestors and ask for their blessing.

    Also at wintertime, Malagasy boys undergo circumcision to mark their transition to manhood. By marking the moment with the physical transformation of circumcision, the point of crossing over is made an event. Originally, the ritual took place in winter as it less likely to get sick then in the heat of summer. These days, circumcision ceremonies are often held when boys reach school-going age, rather than at puberty. The ceremony starts in the early morning before the sun comes up, and once the boys have returned home they are lavished with toys and sweets.

    This story is about the persistence of life. About transitions and tributes that despite their routine nature, bring forth profound and genuine emotion. Photographing the story allowed me to study the power of ritual to help people feel and remember. Traditions endure, and they indicate a continuance of life. Circumcision marks a transition for boys to the next stage of life. Similarly, death is not finality. Life and memory persist despite death. Celebrating lives posthumously questions the significance of death. When graves are opened during famadihana, family members hug, kiss and dance with the bodies. There is no sense of fear or disgust, death becomes meaningless and families are made whole again.

    How has the human skull evolved?

    Genetically determined morphological integration directs the evolution of skull shape in humans. The study is based on the analysis of 390 skulls, decorated according to local tradition, from the ossuary in Hallstatt, Austria which houses an exceptionally valuable collection for anthropological research.

    The more than 700 items of skeletal remains are famous for their painted decoration, depicting flowers, leaves and crosses, with the name of the deceased printed on the forehead of most of the skulls. By cross-referencing with local registers of births, deaths and marriages, experts have been able to use the collection to reconstruct the genealogical relationships of the population from as far back as the 17th century and make informed estimates of the influence of genes on skull shape.

    Fascinating stuff! Click the link to read more…

    alphacaeli: eudaimonist: Why are most people right-handed? A pretty interesting look into the possible reasons, evolutionarily and anthropologically speaking, that most people are right-handed. I seem to be split more or less evenly between left- and right-handedness: I am left-handed in terms of handwriting, but I draw equally well with both hands and favour my right hand in almost all other fine motor activities. The organisation of my brain must be fairly symmetrical. Hmm…

    alphacaeli:

    eudaimonist:

    Why are most people right-handed?

    A pretty interesting look into the possible reasons, evolutionarily and anthropologically speaking, that most people are right-handed.

    I seem to be split more or less evenly between left- and right-handedness: I am left-handed in terms of handwriting, but I draw equally well with both hands and favour my right hand in almost all other fine motor activities. The organisation of my brain must be fairly symmetrical. Hmm…

    Last member of 65,000-year-old tribe dies, taking one of world's earliest languages to the grave.

    solutreantoolkit:

    jalwhite:

    fyeahblackhistory:

    The last member of a 65,000-year-old tribe has died, taking one of the world’s earliest languages to the grave.
    Boa Sr, who died last week aged about 85, was the last native of the Andaman Islands who was fluent in Bo.
    Named after the tribe, Bo is one of the 10 Great Andamanese languages, which are thought to date back to the pre-Neolithic period when the earliest humans walked out of Africa.

    (Source: diasporicroots, via jujukitty)

    luna0abbi:

    In 1976, Mary Leaky, British anthropologist unearthed some of the earliest footprints of a distant Hominid ever to be found. The footprints were preserved as volcanic ash rained down after the eruption of the Sadiman Volcano 3.5 million years ago.
    “There is so much we do not know, and the more we do know, the more we realize that early interpretations were completely wrong.” 

    (via alphacaeli)

    Australian Palaeoanthropology

    alphacaeli:

    I recently came across a few people who were under the impression that nothing palaeoanthropologically interesting has occurred in Australia. I was appalled! In an effort to enlighten them I’m posting a link. This exhaustive website was created by Dr. Peter Brown, senior lecturer in Palaeoanth. at the University of New England. It details the palaeoanthropology of not only Australia, but of East Asia and South-East Asia.

    Study finds humans still evolving, and quickly

    The pace of human evolution has been increasing at a stunning rate since our ancestors began spreading through Europe, Asia and Africa 40,000 years ago, quickening to 100 times historical levels after agriculture became widespread, according to a study published today.

    …

    They found that the more the population grew, the faster human genes evolved. That’s because more people created more opportunities for a beneficial mutation to arise, Hawks said.

    (Source: alphacaeli)

    skepttv:

    Laetoli Footprints

    The Laetoli footprints were formed and preserved by a chance combination of events — a volcanic eruption, a rainstorm, and another ashfall. When they were found in 1976, these hominid tracks, at least 3.6 million years old, were some of the oldest evidence then known for upright bipedal walking, a major milestone in human evolution. Paleoanthropologist and consultant forensic scientist Owen Lovejoy compares the ancient biped prints with those of modern humans and chimpanzees.

    Thank goodness for the irrepressible urge of humans (and other animals) to joke and play around in nearly any situation. Sometimes, it pays big dividends. It certainly did in 1976, when paleoanthropologist Andrew Hill and a colleague were tossing elephant dung at each other in Laetoli, a hominid archeological site in Tanzania. As Hill dived out of the way, he stumbled on what turned out to be one of the wonders of prehistoric finds: a trail of hominid footprints about 3.6 million years old.

    The majority of the Laetoli footprint site was excavated in 1978. Until then, the oldest known footprints of human ancestors were tens of thousands of years old. But this trail, some 80 feet long and preserved in cementlike volcanic ash, had been made by some of the first upright-walking hominids. An almost unimaginable sequence of events preserved what paleontologist Ian Tattersall calls a fossil of human behavior — prehistoric walking.

    Initially, a nearby volcano called Sadiman erupted a cloud of fine ash, like beach sand, that left a layer on the landscape. Then a light rain fell onto the ash to create something like wet cement — an ideal material for trapping footprints. Birds and mammals left a great number of prints, but, spectacularly, so did a pair of hominids, one large and one small, trekking across the ash. (Some analysts conclude that it is possible to detect the trail of a third, smaller individual whose tracks overlap the footprints left by one of the others.) A subsequent eruption from Sadiman dropped more ash, sealing the footprints like a laminated driver’s license. Finally, erosion over millions of years unveiled the prints for Hill and other researchers in Mary Leakey’s group to discover.

    The prints, say experts on hominid body structure, are strikingly different from those of a chimpanzee, and in fact are hardly distinguishable from those of modern humans. The only known hominid fossils of that age in that location are those of Lucy and her kind, the small-brained but upright-walking hominids classified as Australopithecus afarensis. Some analysts have noted that the smaller of the two clearest trails bears telltale signs that suggest whoever left the prints was burdened on one side — perhaps a female carrying an infant on her hip. While the detailed interpretation of the prints remains a matter of debate, they remain an extraordinary and fascinating fossil find, preserving a moment in prehistoric time.

    (Source: youtube.com, via alphacaeli)

    Skulls in the 21st Century… The University of Michigan’s Museum of Anthropology has digitised their collection of skulls - some 160 in total. You can now search through 1360 cranial images from the Ford Collection and browse by pathology and trauma - a great resource! Image: Specimen 96-11-002, Ford Collection, UM Museum of Anthropology

    Skulls in the 21st Century…

    The University of Michigan’s Museum of Anthropology has digitised their collection of skulls - some 160 in total. You can now search through 1360 cranial images from the Ford Collection and browse by pathology and trauma - a great resource!

    Image: Specimen 96-11-002, Ford Collection, UM Museum of Anthropology

    (Source: poweredbyosteons.org)

    Have you ever been curious as to where in the world you can gaze upon a shrunken head?!? Er…well, wonder no more! Sean McLachlan from the AOL travel blog Gadling does the leg work for you in this interesting article that also provides links to a dedicated Flickr group and Doc Bwana’s online shrunken head museum. Enjoy!

    Have you ever been curious as to where in the world you can gaze upon a shrunken head?!? Er…well, wonder no more! Sean McLachlan from the AOL travel blog Gadling does the leg work for you in this interesting article that also provides links to a dedicated Flickr group and Doc Bwana’s online shrunken head museum. Enjoy!