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Death and Dichotomy: Exploring Varied Human and Animal Depositional Practices in the Iron Age at Battlesbury Bowl, UK, through Histotaphonomy
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory ( IF 3.2 ) Pub Date : 2025-01-02 , DOI: 10.1007/s10816-024-09674-5
A. Bricking, B. Revell, R. Madgwick

Taphonomic analysis of bone microstructure, commonly known as histotaphonomy, has been used as a proxy for interpreting early post-mortem treatments in archaeological contexts with increasing frequency. This method is especially useful when evidence for varied pre-depositional practices such as disarticulation and taphonomic markers (e.g. fracturing, gnawing, cut marks, weathering) is present in the assemblage, but is rarely used on faunal remains. Iron Age Britain provides the ideal context for comparative study due to the wide range of depositional practices employed for both humans and animals. While human and faunal remains from single sites in Britain have been studied before, such as at Cladh Hallan and Danebury hillfort, they were usually examined separately without substantial synthesis of the data. Thus, this study represents the first single-site comparative histotaphonomic analysis of archaeological human and animal remains from Britain. To this end, this research assesses archaeological human and faunal bone from Battlesbury Bowl, an Iron Age site in Wiltshire England, with 70 samples (46 faunal and 24 human) taken from a range of contexts, and from both articulated and disarticulated deposits. It explores evidence for the mortuary practices afforded to human remains and how they compare to the treatment of fauna from the site. Macroscopic analysis was undertaken prior to thin section microscopy using the Oxford Histological Index (OHI) and the Birefringence Index (BI). Results showed that the faunal samples from Battlesbury Bowl have more varied microstructural preservation with some species treated similarly to humans post-mortem, while others (especially caprines) are generally better preserved. This suggests that humans and animals at Battlesbury Bowl were subject to different early post-mortem processes, thus shedding light on mortuary practices and the complexity of human-animal relations in life and death.



中文翻译:


死亡与二分法:通过组织学探索铁器时代的各种人类和动物沉积实践,英国巴特尔斯伯里碗



骨微观结构的 Taphonomic 分析,通常称为组织解剖学,已越来越频繁地被用作解释考古背景下早期死后治疗的代理。当组合中存在各种沉积前做法的证据,例如离断和交织标记(例如裂缝、啃咬、切割痕迹、风化)时,这种方法特别有用,但很少用于动物遗骸。铁器时代的英国为比较研究提供了理想的背景,因为人类和动物都采用了广泛的沉积实践。虽然以前曾研究过来自英国单个地点的人类和动物遗骸,例如 Cladh Hallan 和 Danebury 山堡,但它们通常是单独检查的,而没有对数据进行实质性的综合。因此,本研究代表了对英国考古人类和动物遗骸的首次单点比较组织语音分析。为此,本研究评估了来自英格兰威尔特郡铁器时代遗址 Battlesbury Bowl 的考古人类和动物骨骼,其中 70 个样本(46 个动物和 24 个人类)取自各种环境,以及铰接和分离的沉积物。它探讨了人类遗骸的殡葬做法的证据,以及它们与该遗址对动物群的处理有何比较。在薄片显微镜检查之前,使用牛津组织学指数 (OHI) 和双折射指数 (BI) 进行宏观分析。结果表明,来自 Battlesbury Bowl 的动物样本具有更多样化的微观结构保存,一些物种的死后处理方式与人类相似,而其他物种(尤其是山羊)通常保存得更好。 这表明 Battlesbury Bowl 的人类和动物经历了不同的早期死后过程,从而揭示了殡葬实践以及生死中人与动物关系的复杂性。

更新日期:2025-01-03
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