Making the Dead Visible: Problems and Solutions for “Big” Picture Approaches to the Past, and Dealing with Large “Mortuary” Datasets

Bradbury, Jennie; Davies, Douglas J.; Jay, Mandy; Gibbons, Philip; Roberts, Charlotte A.; Scarre, Chris

doi:10.1007/s10816-015-9251-1

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 59 publications

(23 reference statements)

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“…The intentions underlying these uses will be difficult to understand, as they are likely to have occurred in the transportation (and maybe redistribution) of the potentially symbolically charged cremated material in social contexts which now leave no archaeological trace (cf. Appleby 2013; Kuijt et al 2014; Bradbury et al 2016). This understanding does not exclude Ellison’s (1980) suggestion that cemeteries or grouping of burials represent kin groups, yet it should be stressed that the evidence above implies that the cremated human bone cannot have been used solely for this purpose, and probably was not in the majority of circumstances.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, there has been an increasing emphasis on: the standardisation of recording (McKinley 2004); the development of new analytical and experimental methods (eg, Marshall 2011; Depierre 2014; Kuijt et al 2014; Snoeck et al 2015; Thompson 2015); as well as an understanding of the highly varied chaîne opératoires in the creation of superficially similar cremation burials (eg, Rebay-Salisbury 2010; Marshall 2011; Appleby 2013; Depierre 2014). There is also now a broader recognition of the importance of analysing this funerary phenomenon which has been far too frequently overlooked in broader mortuary studies due to it being less visible in the archaeological record (see Rebay-Salisbury 2010; Kuijt et al 2014; Barceló et al 2014; Capuzzo & Barceló 2015; Bradbury et al 2016; Cerezo-Román et al 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Reassessing Community Cemeteries: Cremation Burials in Britain during the Middle Bronze Age (c.1600–1150 calbc)

Caswell

Roberts

2018

Proc. Prehist. Soc.

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The Middle Bronze Age (c. 1600–1150 cal bc) in Britain is traditionally understood to represent a major funerary transition. This is a transformation from a heterogeneous funerary rite, largely encompassing inhumations and cremations in burial mounds and often accompanied by grave goods, to a homogeneous and unadorned cremation-based practice. Despite a huge expansion in the number of well excavated, radiocarbon dated, and osteologically analysed sites in the last three decades, current interpretations of Middle Bronze Age cremation burials still rely upon a seminal paper by Ellison (1980), which proposed that they comprise and represent an entire community. This paper analyses 378 cremation sites containing at least 3133 burials which represent all those that can be confidently dated to the Middle Bronze Age in Britain. The new analysis demonstrates that relatively few sites can be characterised as community cemeteries and that there are substantially more contemporary settlement sites, though few contemporary settlements are in close proximity to the cemeteries. The identifiable characteristics of cremation-based funerary practices are consistent across Britain with little evidence for social differentiation at the point of burial. It is also evident that only a minority of the population received a cremation burial. There is a substantial decrease in archaeologically visible funerary activity from the preceding Early Bronze Age (c. 2200–1600 cal bc) and a further decrease in the proceeding Late Bronze Age (c. 1150–800 cal bc) in Britain. This is comparable in form, and partially in sequence, to Bronze Age funerary practices in Ireland and several regions in North-west Europe.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reassessing Community Cemeteries: Cremation Burials in Britain during the Middle Bronze Age (c.1600–1150 calbc)

Caswell

Roberts

2018

Proc. Prehist. Soc.

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“…Remote sensingbased archaeological investigations using CORONA are now being conducted at much larger spatial scales, beyond survey boundaries, across national borders, and in areas that are inaccessible to traditional field-based research (e.g., (B) CORONA is captured in the late afternoon so that topographic features appear clearly, as at the multi-mound cluster of Tell Bokha, northern Iraq (CORONA imagery courtesy United States Geological Survey). Lawrence et al 2016Lawrence et al , 2017Kalayci 2016;Casana 2014, in press;Bradbury et al 2015). With a growing interest in leveraging the potential of CORONA and other imagery for archaeological discovery, scholars are inevitably confronted with the central problem of how to find, document, and analyze the seemingly overwhelming number of potential archaeological features contained within large imagery datasets.…”

Section: Approaches To Large-scale Archaeological Remote Sensingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global-Scale Archaeological Prospection using CORONA Satellite Imagery: Automated, Crowd-Sourced, and Expert-led Approaches

Casana

2020

Journal of Field Archaeology

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Declassified CORONA satellite imagery, collected from 1960-1972 as part of the world's first intelligence satellite program, provides nearly global, high-resolution, stereo imagery that predates many of the land-use changes seen in recent decades, and thus has proven to be an immensely valuable resource for archaeological research. While challenges involved in spatially correcting these unusual panoramic film images has long served as a stumbling block to researchers, an online tool called "Sunspot" now offers a straightforward process for efficient and accurate orthorectification of CORONA, helping to unlock the potential of this historical imagery for globalscale archaeological prospection. With these new opportunities come significant new challenges in how best to search through large imagery datasets like that offered by CORONA. In contrast to currently popular trends in archaeological remote sensing that seek to employ either automated, machine learning-based approaches, or alternatively, crowd-sourced approaches to assist in the identification of ancient sites and features, this paper argues for systematic, intensive, and expertled "brute force" methods. Results from a project that has sought to map all sites and related features across a large study in the northern Fertile Crescent illustrate how an expert-led analysis may be the best means of generating nuanced, contextual understandings of complex archaeological landscapes.

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“…Brogan 1964; 1976–1977; Brogan and Smith 1984). The use and value of archive and legacy data has been addressed elsewhere and is an important aspect of funerary archaeology, see for instance Bradbury et al (2015). The distribution of mausolea in Tripolitania is based on the data collected in the PhD thesis of Julia Nikolaus: Nikolaus (2017); see also Nikolaus (2016).…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Buried in the archives: cemeteries and mausolea in Tripolitania

Ray

Nikolaus

2019

Libyan Stud

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Much extant research on monumental burial structures considers mausolea in isolation from one another, both spatially and temporally, separating them from the more extensive cemeteries that either pre-existed or were built up around them. This paper presents the preliminary results of an ongoing archive-based project studying Tripolitanian Roman-period funerary landscapes, specifically investigating the relations between mausolea and their adjacent cemeteries. These relations start to help us understand the patterns in the burial traditions of the region and demonstrate the importance of the ongoing interaction between the living and the monuments of the dead. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the importance of archival research, especially in areas that are inaccessible due to conflict.

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Making the Dead Visible: Problems and Solutions for “Big” Picture Approaches to the Past, and Dealing with Large “Mortuary” Datasets

Cited by 18 publications

References 59 publications

Reassessing Community Cemeteries: Cremation Burials in Britain during the Middle Bronze Age (c.1600–1150 calbc)

Reassessing Community Cemeteries: Cremation Burials in Britain during the Middle Bronze Age (c.1600–1150 calbc)

Global-Scale Archaeological Prospection using CORONA Satellite Imagery: Automated, Crowd-Sourced, and Expert-led Approaches

Buried in the archives: cemeteries and mausolea in Tripolitania

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