Ageing and the Body in Archaeology

Appleby, Jo

doi:10.1017/s0959774317000610

Cited by 19 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 109 publications

(175 reference statements)

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“…Hence, in response to Grete Lillehammer's (1989) initial challenge, the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of an ‘Archaeology of Childhood’ have developed, and a wider ‘Archaeology of Age’ is now on the horizon (e.g. Appleby 2010; 2018). However, childhood studies are still poorly integrated with the mainstream discipline (Lillehammer 2015) and often appear in specialist journals or edited volumes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing Children in Prehistory: A View from Bronze Age Ireland

Haughton

2021

CAJ

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Despite growing strength in recent decades, an archaeology of childhood has often been overlooked by those studying prehistory. This is concerning because communities are enlivened by their children, and conversations with and about children often provide a critical arena for the discussion of aspects of societies which prehistorians are comfortable addressing, such as social structure, identity and personhood. Through an exploration of childhood as expressed in the Earlier Bronze Age burials from Ireland, this article demonstrates that neither written sources, artistic depictions nor toys are necessary to speak of children in the past. Indeed, an approach which tacks between scales reveals subtle trends in the treatment of children which speak to wider shared concerns and allows a reflection on the role of children in prehistory.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing Children in Prehistory: A View from Bronze Age Ireland

Haughton

2021

CAJ

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“…44 Overall, a combination of methodological, preservational, and cultural factors best explain the apparent lack of older individuals in prehistoric skeletal assemblages, especially those of H. sapiens. The persistence of this pattern into later prehistorical periods (e.g.,, the famous Libben Site, OH, 800-1100 AD) 43 provides further support for this position; being too recent (in evolutionary terms) to accommodate such substantial biological changes within the human lineage as is implied by these age-at-death distributions. 58 cultural analyses 50 collectively indicate that many hunter-gatherers live into their sixth decade and longer.…”

Section: Box 2 An Issue Of Aging In Hunter-gatherersmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…One notable example is the assumption that very few (if any) prehistoric people lived to be old 40,43 . The frequent lack of older (aged 40+) individuals in skeletal assemblages, particularly, although not exclusively, 44 those of archaic hominins 45,46 lends some support to this position.…”

Section: Pitfall Two: the Incorrect Interpretation Of Demographic Parmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstructing prehistoric demography: What role for extant hunter‐gatherers?

Page

French

2020

Evolutionary Anthropology

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Demography is central to biological, behavioral, and cultural evolution. Knowledge of the demography of prehistoric populations of both Homo sapiens and earlier members of the genus Homo is, therefore, key to the study of human evolution. Unfortunately, demographic processes (fertility, mortality, migration) leave little mark on the archeological and paleoanthropological records. One common solution to this issue is the application of demographic data from extant hunter‐gatherers to prehistory. With the aim of strengthening this line of enquiry, here we outline some pitfalls and their interpretative implications. In doing so, we provide recommendations about the application of hunter‐gatherer data to the study of demographic trends throughout human evolution. We use published demographic data from extant hunter‐gatherers to show that it is the diversity seen among extant hunter‐gatherers—both intra‐ and inter‐population variability—that is most relevant and useful for understanding past hunter‐gatherer demography.

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“…They suggest a move beyond expectations of binary gender categories to appreciate the complicated, fluid, and multiple gender categories that characterized the Neolithic. In similar ways, archaeologists are recrafting the lenses through which they see subjectivity, most often by not reducing people in the past to singular types and instead seeking to understand how people constructed and perceived social differences regarding age, gender, and ethnicity (e.g., Appleby ; Hagerman ; Oras et al. ; Velasco ).…”

Section: Situated Learning Things and Assemblagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Digs: Networks, Assemblages, and the Dissolution of Binary Categories in Anthropological Archaeology

Kosiba

2019

American Anthropologist

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Anthropological archaeology has long been a process of categorization. The history of the subdiscipline could be rendered in terms of an ongoing project to create, critique, and then refashion the categories by which archaeologists understand and explain social and ecological processes. Despite ever-changing theoretical tides, many archaeologists have continued to adhere to a lingua franca that demarcates their object of study, whether "the past," "nature," complexity, material culture, or historical knowledge. In 2018, strong currents in archaeological scholarship have both challenged and washed out the boundaries of many of these epistemological mainstays. This was more than a postmodern exercise to question metanarratives of history or to destabilize supposed social universals. The recent scholarship develops innovative theoretical perspectives and sophisticated methodological tools to shed light on the varied human interactions, practices, and projects that were previously occluded by research too sharply focused on bounded categories such as periods, polities, adaptations, and meanings. Furthermore, archaeologists are now more than ever critically examining the colonial institutions that they perpetuate and seeking to establish new common ground with Indigenous communities. A decidedly archaeological perspective seems to be taking shape.This is a view that sees social life from the ground up in terms of complicated relationships between people, things, and other organisms that cannot be reduced to catchall categories. [year in review, archaeology, archaeological theory, current issues, Indigenous archaeology, environmental anthropology] RESUMEN La arqueología antropológica ha sido durante mucho tiempo un proceso de categorización. La historia de la subdisciplina podría ser descrita en términos de un proyecto continuo de crear, criticar y luego rehacer las categorías a través de las cuales los arqueólogos entienden y explican los procesos sociales y ecológicos. A pesar de las mareas teóricas siempre cambiantes, muchos arqueólogos han continuado adhiriéndose a una lengua franca que demarca su objeto de estudio, ya sea "el pasado", "naturaleza", complejidad, cultura material o conocimiento histórico.En 2018, corrientes fuertes en la investigación arqueológica han tanto retado como difuminado los límites de muchos de los pilares epistemológicos. Esto fue más que un ejercicio posmoderno para cuestionar metanarrativas de la historia o para desestabilizar supuestos universales sociales. La reciente investigación desarrolla perspectivas teóricas innovadoras y herramientas metodológicas sofisticadas para arrojar luz sobre las variadas interacciones humanas, prácticas y proyectos que estuvieron previamente ocluidos por investigación excesivamente enfocada en categorías delimitadas tales como períodos, unidades políticas, adaptaciones y significados. Además, los arqueólogos ahora están más que nunca examinando críticamente las instituciones coloniales que perpetúan y buscando establecer un nuevo terreno común con las c...

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Ageing and the Body in Archaeology

Cited by 19 publications

References 109 publications

Seeing Children in Prehistory: A View from Bronze Age Ireland

Seeing Children in Prehistory: A View from Bronze Age Ireland

Reconstructing prehistoric demography: What role for extant hunter‐gatherers?

New Digs: Networks, Assemblages, and the Dissolution of Binary Categories in Anthropological Archaeology

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