Death and the family

Developing generational chronologies

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2405296
AutoresDuncan Sayer (0000-0002-2769-1281, University of Lancashire, autor de correspondencia)
Año2010
Volumen10
Número1
Páginas59-91
Fecha de publicación2010-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Social Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1469-6053 • E-ISSN: 1741-2951
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1469605309354398
OpenAlexW2033048219
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas14
Referencias citadas31

Who buried the dead? Cemeteries contain the graves of people from local communities but the individual dead were buried by only a few members of that community, those that survived them. This article seeks to use detailed chronological information to analyse funerary data and proposes a system for establishing a generation-based dating scheme. Such a scheme advances studies of archaeological cemeteries by the discussion of life-time rather than end-of-life chronologies. This will enhance studies of social relationships, memory and the transmission of specific social identities by moving towards a more experiential archaeology. Specifically, I use a detailed study of three Anglo-Saxon cemeteries to investigate notions of social time. This article uses generational information in conjunction with other mortuary differentiations such as spatial location, age, life course, gender and grave-good wealth to show that Anglo-Saxon social status was determined by who was alive at any one time, and that the status of head of the household was not entirely determined by gender, but by who was able to fill the role

Archaeology · Ethnology · Experiential learning · Genealogy · Social life · Social memory · Sociology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History · Paleopathology and ancient diseases · Psychology