No abstract

The term bodyscape encourages thinking about representation of bodies at multiple scales—from different bodies as they move through space to the microlandscape of individual bodily differences. A hegemonic bodyscape's representations tend to idealize and essentialize bodies’ differences to reinforce normative ideas about a society's socioeconomic organization. But, a dominant bodyscape is never absolute. Bodyscapes that depart from or subvert hegemonic representations may simultaneously exist. In Western society, the biomedical bodyscape predominates in scientific understandings of bodily difference. Its representation of sex differences conveys heteronormative notions about gender and sexuality. Because the biomedical bodyscape frames studies of ancient bodies, investigators need recognize how their considerations of labor divisions, familial organization, and reproduction may situate modern (hetero)sexist representations deep within antiquity. To innovate analyses of socioeconomic relations, queer theory allows scholars to interrogate human nature. Doing so produces alternative bodyscapes that represent the diversity of past peoples’ social and sexual lives. [Keywords: bodyscape, heteronormativity, queer theory, bioarchaeology, paleoanthropology]

From its inception, the archaeology of gender was entwined with feminism. Engagement has engendered reconstructions of complex, diverse peoples and practices that are more equitable, relevant, and sound. Yet, for many archaeologists, the connection with feminist perspectives has frayed in recent years. Their studies of gender articulate dated ideas about women and epistemological frames that highlight duality and universality. Examinations of labor divisions typify shortcomings. To advance gender's study and archaeology, practitioners need to consider several concerns about identity and difference emerging from thirdwave feminism. Gender is envisioned as intersection. Bioarchaeology, especially, will benefit from feminist approaches that reflect critically and regard gender in nonnormative and multiscalar terms. To this end, resistance to feminism must fade. Opposition stems from its imagined relationship with postmodernism, but conflation misconstrues feminism's sociopolitical commitment to emancipatory change. For their part, archaeologists can utilize feminist perspectives to diversify the field, explore difference, and tackle archaeological issues with sociopolitical resonance. 65 Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2009.38:65-81. downloaded from www.annualreviews.org by University of Alabama -Birmingham on 12/29/12. For personal use only.

AbstractAs a complement to life histories authored by many researchers of Maya bones, this study narrates death histories. The latter entails detection of perimortem and postmortem changes to decedents' bodies, followed by translation of these changes' encoded meanings. Biographical analysis of body parts and the buildings in which they are situated facilitates such an endeavor. Past investigations of partibility have focused on protracted processing of noble and royal bodies as a means to reconstitute decedents' identities. Commoners' burials, however, have received far less attention. Consequently, it is difficult to determine if partible practices differ according to or transcend social class. To address this lacuna, a multiscalar frame is applied to a burial sample comprised of decedents from varied social settings in the Three Rivers region, northwestern Belize. Identification of widely shared practices related to the becoming and venerating of ancestors offers a springboard for examining particulars within patterns. Scaling down, commoner burials unearthed at the minor center RB-11 are summarized and special attention is paid to the death history of Individual 71. This decedent's intentionally fragmented body reflects general thinking about ancestors as partible and dividual persons. Yet, certain attributes of Individual 71's burial are unique to the sample as a whole, which demonstrates how social class, circumstance, and individual life history are also instrumental in the reformation of ancestorhood.