ANT201H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Ascribed Status, Tutankhamun, Big Pit National Coal Museum
Document Summary
Social inequality, burial goods + treatment + funerary structure. Treatment of dead can tell us what the society valued + the relationship between the deceased and the community that buried them. Social status can be represented in type of burial + items buried with the person. In chiefdom and state we can see grave goods + elaborate burial structures for those who were elites. La ferrassie family burial": shows sexual dimorphism, male showed illness and subsequent care. Shanidar iv iraq flower burial: clumps of pollen found around body indicating flowers were buried with him, most plants were medicinal suggesting the person was a healer, but studies suggest pollen were blown in there. Cahokia (ad1000-1250: high status burials with grave goods and human sacrifices, mound with birdman burial, buried on top many beads, may be a chiefly-type burial. Secondary burial community burial complex, ossuary (big pit lined with beaver pelts as a temporary burial site for bodies)
