Jess Beck
Biographic Data
| ID | 3618483 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jess Beck |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jess |
| FAMILY NAME | Beck |
| SIGNATURE | BECK J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College Dublin |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7387-2307 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 77 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
A histological approach to mortuary variability in Early Bronze Age Transylvania
The shift from the Copper Age (c. 3600–2700 BCE) to the Early Bronze Age (c. 2700–2000 BCE) in Transylvania (Romania) was a period of significant changes in mortuary practices. We combine bone histology with bioarchaeological and archaeological assessments of mortuary variability to better understand the organization and diversity of funerary practices in the region. Bone histology, the study of microscopic structures of connective tissues in bon…
Changing the Landscape of Archaeological Publishing
Disseminating research is a key component of scholarly labor, but the costs and benefits of the current structure of academic publishing are underexamined within anthropology. This paper brings together a range of authors from across archaeology and cultural anthropology to summarize current issues in archaeological publishing and offer potential interventions at multiple scales. The paper is divided into five core topics. “Ideology” discusses th…
We Hear, for You
In his “modest proposal for university reform”, Scroggins (this issue) makes the case that faculty must adapt to the neoliberal reality of higher education by revising their approaches to public scholarship and to pedagogy. I expand on his arguments, focusing on the key role played by university administrators in perfecting the modern university. I also provide a number of suggestions for administrators to more effectively promote the central ins…
Integrating Bioarchaeology and Chronology at Los Melgarejos to Understand Ditched Enclosures in Copper Age Iberia
In Iberia, ditched enclosures appeared during the Copper Age (late fourth to third millennium bc ). These sites are linked by their circular organization, communal labour investment, and complex temporality, but vary markedly in their distribution, function, and scale. Though archaeological attention has focused on ‘mega-sites’, an assessment of small-scale enclosures in marginal environments is key to understanding the social dynamics that facil…
Balancing the scales
Archaeology lends a critical perspective to research on social inequality due to the field's unique access to deep history, emphasis on materiality, and explicit incorporation of multiple lines of evidence. This paper offers a concise overview of archaeological approaches aimed at students and scholars in other fields. We develop a categorization of disciplinary strategies, arguing that archaeologists address institutionalized inequality through …
Bioarchaeology and Mountain Landscapes in Transylvania's Golden Quadrangle
The Apuseni Mountains of southwestern Transylvania (Romania) are home to the richest gold and copper deposits in Europe, key resources that fueled the development of social complexity during the Bronze Age (ca. 2700–800 B.C.E.). This landscape encompasses a significant amount of topographic and ecological diversity, with upland landscapes incorporating major mineral deposits, forests, pastures, and salt springs, and lowland agropastoral landscape…
Living and Dying in Mountain Landscapes
In this introduction to the thematic issue Living and Dying in Mountain Landscapes, we develop an analytical framework for the bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology of highland landscapes. We highlight new theoretical, methodological, and comparative contributions to the anthropological study of upland spaces. Theoretical contributions include examining identity, connectivity, and adaptation from an explicitly biocultural perspective. By bridgi…
Prestige or Perish
Success in academic archaeology is strongly influenced by the publication of peer-reviewed articles. Despite the importance of such articles, minimal research has explicitly examined the factors influencing publishing decisions in archaeology. In order to better understand the landscape of archaeological publishing, we distributed a short survey that solicited basic professional and demographic information before asking respondents to (1) identif…
The politics of placing the dead in Bronze Age Transylvania
The Deposition of Human Remains Inside Chalcolithic Ditched Enclosures
In the last few decades, the discovery of large ditched enclosures in Iberia has revealed the diversity and complexity of deposition and manipulation of human bone remains. Alongside traditional ritual burials (mainly megalithic tombs and hypogea), fragmented and scattered human bones mixed with other kinds of material culture began to appear in many features. This is the case for Ditch 5 at Marroquíes, which offers an excellent opportunity to ex…
The Labor of Building a Community
Jess Beck University of Cambridge and Vassar College A growing body of literature in public health and epidemiology is focused on the concept of "embodiment": "how we literally incorporate biologically-from conception to death-our social experience and express this embodiment in population patterns of health, disease, and well-being" (Krieger 1999, 296). Today, the majority of embodied inequalities are linked to living in a globalized economy dee…
Don't throw the baby teeth out with the bathwater
Commingled assemblages of fragmentary human skeletal remains are a common feature of many archaeological sites and pose significant analytical problems for bioarchaeologists. Such deposits often contain a high volume of the teeth of subadults for which it is challenging to estimate age, including developing permanent teeth with damaged roots, articulated teeth with roots obscured by alveolar bone, and deciduous teeth with completed root apices.He…
Feeding a third millennium BC mega-site
Isotopic evidence for mobility at large-scale human aggregations in Copper Age Iberia
Settlements incorporating large-scale human aggregations are a well-documented but poorly understood phenomenon across late prehistoric Europe. The authors’ research examines the origins and trajectory of such aggregations through isotope analysis of human skeletal remains from the mega-site of Marroquíes in Jaén, Spain. The results indicate that eight per cent of 115 sampled individuals are of non-local origin. These individuals received mortuar…
Cremation and the Archaeology of Death
The fiery transformation of the dead is replete in our popular culture and Western modernity's death ways, and yet it is increasingly evident how little this disposal method is understood by archaeologists and students of cognate disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. In this regard, the archaeological study of cremation has much to offer. Cremation is a fascinating and widespread theme and entry-point in the exploration of the variab…
Part of the Family
Bioarchaeological approaches to looting
Essential Tensions
Research on the emergence of institutionalized inequality has traditionally maintained an analytical divide between lived institutions that affect daily life and performed institutions materialized in mortuary contexts. Here, we argue that convergence or divergence between lived and performed contexts reveals key aspects of past social organization. When combined, mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology provide a methodological framework well sui…
Minding the Gaps
In order to ensure sufficient sample sizes, bioarchaelogical studies of individual health in prehistory must often rely on assemblages that demonstrate high inter-individual variability in skeletal completion. Determining whether higher insult frequencies in particular individuals result from their greater skeletal preservation is a key step in understanding ancient health and disease. This study uses a simple new z-score residual approach to con…
Landscape Archaeology, Paganism, and the Interpretation of Megaliths
Many varieties of contemporary Paganism share common methodologies and interests with the academic subfield of landscape archaeology, in particular with regard to their interpretation of megalithic architecture. While there are differences in the range of evidence considered, and the relative value placed on certain methodologies, there are more parallels than dissimilarities. In particular, reliance on intuition as a source of knowledge and a co…
Essential Tensions
Research on the emergence of institutionalized inequality has traditionally maintained an analytical divide between lived institutions that affect daily life and performed institutions materialized in mortuary contexts. Here, we argue that convergence or divergence between lived and performed contexts reveals key aspects of past social organization. When combined, mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology provide a methodological framework well sui…
Feeding a third millennium BC mega-site
Prestige or Perish
Success in academic archaeology is strongly influenced by the publication of peer-reviewed articles. Despite the importance of such articles, minimal research has explicitly examined the factors influencing publishing decisions in archaeology. In order to better understand the landscape of archaeological publishing, we distributed a short survey that solicited basic professional and demographic information before asking respondents to (1) identif…
Isotopic evidence for mobility at large-scale human aggregations in Copper Age Iberia
Settlements incorporating large-scale human aggregations are a well-documented but poorly understood phenomenon across late prehistoric Europe. The authors’ research examines the origins and trajectory of such aggregations through isotope analysis of human skeletal remains from the mega-site of Marroquíes in Jaén, Spain. The results indicate that eight per cent of 115 sampled individuals are of non-local origin. These individuals received mortuar…
Balancing the scales
Archaeology lends a critical perspective to research on social inequality due to the field's unique access to deep history, emphasis on materiality, and explicit incorporation of multiple lines of evidence. This paper offers a concise overview of archaeological approaches aimed at students and scholars in other fields. We develop a categorization of disciplinary strategies, arguing that archaeologists address institutionalized inequality through …
The Deposition of Human Remains Inside Chalcolithic Ditched Enclosures
In the last few decades, the discovery of large ditched enclosures in Iberia has revealed the diversity and complexity of deposition and manipulation of human bone remains. Alongside traditional ritual burials (mainly megalithic tombs and hypogea), fragmented and scattered human bones mixed with other kinds of material culture began to appear in many features. This is the case for Ditch 5 at Marroquíes, which offers an excellent opportunity to ex…
The Labor of Building a Community
Jess Beck University of Cambridge and Vassar College A growing body of literature in public health and epidemiology is focused on the concept of "embodiment": "how we literally incorporate biologically-from conception to death-our social experience and express this embodiment in population patterns of health, disease, and well-being" (Krieger 1999, 296). Today, the majority of embodied inequalities are linked to living in a globalized economy dee…
Don't throw the baby teeth out with the bathwater
Commingled assemblages of fragmentary human skeletal remains are a common feature of many archaeological sites and pose significant analytical problems for bioarchaeologists. Such deposits often contain a high volume of the teeth of subadults for which it is challenging to estimate age, including developing permanent teeth with damaged roots, articulated teeth with roots obscured by alveolar bone, and deciduous teeth with completed root apices.He…
Landscape Archaeology, Paganism, and the Interpretation of Megaliths
Many varieties of contemporary Paganism share common methodologies and interests with the academic subfield of landscape archaeology, in particular with regard to their interpretation of megalithic architecture. While there are differences in the range of evidence considered, and the relative value placed on certain methodologies, there are more parallels than dissimilarities. In particular, reliance on intuition as a source of knowledge and a co…
The politics of placing the dead in Bronze Age Transylvania
Landscape Archaeology, Paganism, and the Interpretation of Megaliths
Many varieties of contemporary Paganism share common methodologies and interests with the academic subfield of landscape archaeology, in particular with regard to their interpretation of megalithic architecture. While there are differences in the range of evidence considered, and the relative value placed on certain methodologies, there are more parallels than dissimilarities. In particular, reliance on intuition as a source of knowledge and a co…
Part of the Family
Bioarchaeological approaches to looting
Essential Tensions
Research on the emergence of institutionalized inequality has traditionally maintained an analytical divide between lived institutions that affect daily life and performed institutions materialized in mortuary contexts. Here, we argue that convergence or divergence between lived and performed contexts reveals key aspects of past social organization. When combined, mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology provide a methodological framework well sui…
Minding the Gaps
In order to ensure sufficient sample sizes, bioarchaelogical studies of individual health in prehistory must often rely on assemblages that demonstrate high inter-individual variability in skeletal completion. Determining whether higher insult frequencies in particular individuals result from their greater skeletal preservation is a key step in understanding ancient health and disease. This study uses a simple new z-score residual approach to con…
Cremation and the Archaeology of Death
The fiery transformation of the dead is replete in our popular culture and Western modernity's death ways, and yet it is increasingly evident how little this disposal method is understood by archaeologists and students of cognate disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. In this regard, the archaeological study of cremation has much to offer. Cremation is a fascinating and widespread theme and entry-point in the exploration of the variab…
Feeding a third millennium BC mega-site
Isotopic evidence for mobility at large-scale human aggregations in Copper Age Iberia
Settlements incorporating large-scale human aggregations are a well-documented but poorly understood phenomenon across late prehistoric Europe. The authors’ research examines the origins and trajectory of such aggregations through isotope analysis of human skeletal remains from the mega-site of Marroquíes in Jaén, Spain. The results indicate that eight per cent of 115 sampled individuals are of non-local origin. These individuals received mortuar…
Don't throw the baby teeth out with the bathwater
Commingled assemblages of fragmentary human skeletal remains are a common feature of many archaeological sites and pose significant analytical problems for bioarchaeologists. Such deposits often contain a high volume of the teeth of subadults for which it is challenging to estimate age, including developing permanent teeth with damaged roots, articulated teeth with roots obscured by alveolar bone, and deciduous teeth with completed root apices.He…
The politics of placing the dead in Bronze Age Transylvania
The Deposition of Human Remains Inside Chalcolithic Ditched Enclosures
In the last few decades, the discovery of large ditched enclosures in Iberia has revealed the diversity and complexity of deposition and manipulation of human bone remains. Alongside traditional ritual burials (mainly megalithic tombs and hypogea), fragmented and scattered human bones mixed with other kinds of material culture began to appear in many features. This is the case for Ditch 5 at Marroquíes, which offers an excellent opportunity to ex…
The Labor of Building a Community
Jess Beck University of Cambridge and Vassar College A growing body of literature in public health and epidemiology is focused on the concept of "embodiment": "how we literally incorporate biologically-from conception to death-our social experience and express this embodiment in population patterns of health, disease, and well-being" (Krieger 1999, 296). Today, the majority of embodied inequalities are linked to living in a globalized economy dee…
Bioarchaeology and Mountain Landscapes in Transylvania's Golden Quadrangle
The Apuseni Mountains of southwestern Transylvania (Romania) are home to the richest gold and copper deposits in Europe, key resources that fueled the development of social complexity during the Bronze Age (ca. 2700–800 B.C.E.). This landscape encompasses a significant amount of topographic and ecological diversity, with upland landscapes incorporating major mineral deposits, forests, pastures, and salt springs, and lowland agropastoral landscape…
Living and Dying in Mountain Landscapes
In this introduction to the thematic issue Living and Dying in Mountain Landscapes, we develop an analytical framework for the bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology of highland landscapes. We highlight new theoretical, methodological, and comparative contributions to the anthropological study of upland spaces. Theoretical contributions include examining identity, connectivity, and adaptation from an explicitly biocultural perspective. By bridgi…
Prestige or Perish
Success in academic archaeology is strongly influenced by the publication of peer-reviewed articles. Despite the importance of such articles, minimal research has explicitly examined the factors influencing publishing decisions in archaeology. In order to better understand the landscape of archaeological publishing, we distributed a short survey that solicited basic professional and demographic information before asking respondents to (1) identif…
Balancing the scales
Archaeology lends a critical perspective to research on social inequality due to the field's unique access to deep history, emphasis on materiality, and explicit incorporation of multiple lines of evidence. This paper offers a concise overview of archaeological approaches aimed at students and scholars in other fields. We develop a categorization of disciplinary strategies, arguing that archaeologists address institutionalized inequality through …
Integrating Bioarchaeology and Chronology at Los Melgarejos to Understand Ditched Enclosures in Copper Age Iberia
In Iberia, ditched enclosures appeared during the Copper Age (late fourth to third millennium bc ). These sites are linked by their circular organization, communal labour investment, and complex temporality, but vary markedly in their distribution, function, and scale. Though archaeological attention has focused on ‘mega-sites’, an assessment of small-scale enclosures in marginal environments is key to understanding the social dynamics that facil…
A histological approach to mortuary variability in Early Bronze Age Transylvania
The shift from the Copper Age (c. 3600–2700 BCE) to the Early Bronze Age (c. 2700–2000 BCE) in Transylvania (Romania) was a period of significant changes in mortuary practices. We combine bone histology with bioarchaeological and archaeological assessments of mortuary variability to better understand the organization and diversity of funerary practices in the region. Bone histology, the study of microscopic structures of connective tissues in bon…
Changing the Landscape of Archaeological Publishing
Disseminating research is a key component of scholarly labor, but the costs and benefits of the current structure of academic publishing are underexamined within anthropology. This paper brings together a range of authors from across archaeology and cultural anthropology to summarize current issues in archaeological publishing and offer potential interventions at multiple scales. The paper is divided into five core topics. “Ideology” discusses th…
We Hear, for You
In his “modest proposal for university reform”, Scroggins (this issue) makes the case that faculty must adapt to the neoliberal reality of higher education by revising their approaches to public scholarship and to pedagogy. I expand on his arguments, focusing on the key role played by university administrators in perfecting the modern university. I also provide a number of suggestions for administrators to more effectively promote the central ins…
Archaeology (16 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (13 works) · Geography (12 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies (10 works) · History (10 works) · Paleopathology and ancient diseases (10 works) · History (8 works) · Prehistory (7 works) · Anthropology (6 works)