Final Blog

For my final blog entry I want to comment on what I thought about the blogging process for Archaeology of Death. At first I wasn't sure how I would feel about blogging because I didn't feel like I had a lot to say, however I ended up really enjoying blogging and I also really enjoyed reading my classmates blog entries. It was very interesting to see everyone's diverse interests within our class blogging parameters. That's one reason why I absolutely love Anthropology. It has such a diverse group of people with different interests within it, but we all can bond about the love of it! This class defiantly had one of the biggest social aspects in it out of all the classes I have taken at UVic. The way that the social aspects taught me were very beneficial as I was supposed to be able to have full discussions so I always made sure I would have everything memorized before class! The two major group projects as well as the data base assignment in this class also gave me very beneficial skills as it taught me to work in a group setting as well as gathering my own research and writing a research paper on it. Overall, I have had a very good experience with Archaeology of Death and I will defiantly recommend the class to other Anthropology students in the future!

Neandertal Burials

Along with taking Archaeology of death I have been taking Palaeolithic Archaeology as well as The Neandertals, which of course have all combined over the course of semester on one very interesting topic. Neandertal burials. Very cool. At the site of Sima de las Palomas there are remains of six to seven other Neandertals including an infant and two juveniles. The burials have associated tools, food as well as well as a panthers paw. The interesting fact about the panthers paw is that the rest of the skeleton was buried way from the Neandertal skeletons, which would give the impression that the paws were removed intentionally and were put in the grave on purpose, possibly for ritual or spiritual purposes. The bodies appeared to be intentionally buried because the arms were folded "such that the hands were close to the head" and other individuals have been found in the same position.  In the article it states that the researchers could not be 100% certain that the individuals were all related but they states that the child was related to one of them.

Based off of what I have learned in all my classes this semester I want to believe that Neandertals did have burial practices, as there is a lot of evidence in circulation and  because have discussed it so much in such a wide variety of classes it must have some validity. I just find it very interesting that Neandertals would bury their dead, as that likely means that they had some kind of thoughts in relation to an afterlife. I'd like to learn about what those types of thoughts were if they did have any inclination to afterlife and where they may have gotten the idea to bury there dead.

Just keep learning... just keep learning.

Here is the web page where you I found some information!

http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/neanderthal-burial-ground-afterlife-110420.htm

Capacocha!

I’m not going to lie. This blog post may be lacking creativity as I am swamped with projects and papers that are due over the next couple of weeks and my brain is basically fried. However. I will attempt to discuss interesting things for all of your enjoyment.

The group project that I am apart of for this class is based on Ritual Sacrifices - we decided to focus that even more and look at Incan child sacrifices, specifically, on a type of sacrificial ceremony called a capacocha. This type of ceremony involves children being chosen or parents volunteering their children (:|) to be apart of a special ceremony that can last months. The children are treated very well once they are chosen; they are fed very fancy meals, clothed nicely and in most cases go on a trip to either the top of a mountain (where the sacrifice happens) and in some cases, at the bottom of mountains/valleys. Because many of the sacrifices were near the tops of the mountains the bodies of the children have been preserved quite well, even some of their internal organs are still in place and therefore, there can be a proper coroners report on the bodies - which can determine what the children were eating and what kind of health conditions they were in when they were killed. This is how they know about the types of food they were eating, etc. Many of the bodies still have their hair on the head and even their arms! I just think that is crazy. Anyway, moving along. The children were usually buried with different types of grave goods. One of the best grave goods that I have stumbled across in my research is a 25 cm silver figurine. That’s a pretty big deal guys. Fancy.

I’m not going to write too much more about the capacochas because that IS what our project is about and I’d love it if you guys would look at our project once it is all put together and makes more sense - I will post the tumblr soon... Since right now it is a mess of our group writing notes back and forth to each other.

The "Gay Caveman"

The "gay caveman" buried with "household jugs." 

(Photo from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1374060/Gay-caveman-5-000-year-old-male-skeleton-outed-way-buried.html)

I don't even know how to begin. First off, I love how majority the newspaper articles are stating that this "gay” “caveman" is not even a "caveman” as this individual is dated from about 2,900 and 2,500 B.C., and was from a Copper Age farming community... not even close to being a caveman! I also I find it very interesting that reporters were soon to jump to the conclusion that because "he" (who may not even be a he because there is a sliding scale on sexing a skeleton, as we discussed in class) was buried facing the way of a female and was buried with female grave goods, “he” is considered automatically gay. Though, in one article I read, it stated that people from that period took funerary rights very seriously, therefore it would have been unlikely that this individual would have been buried incorrectly.

One way to look at this type of information would be that the dead do not bury themselves, and we did talk abut this in class as well. Who knows what this individuals family thought of them, their life style, and this individuals sexuality. Another point is that it may not have been the family who preformed the burial. There is also a chance that this individual could have been transgendered. Now, I'm just going off on one of my own ideas, but maybe there was a chance that this individual could have been reburied? Maybe this individual was dug up after an initial burial and then reburied in a different manner. Who knows. It is very interesting how much attention this archaeological find has gotten and how much it has gotten out of hand.

Another point that I find interesting that I saw in Krystal Grove's blog (http://archofdeath.blogspot.ca) was that the idea of sexual orientation in western culture could have been very different in other cultures and it could have been different for this specific individual as well. Maybe the culture was diverse, or this individual had to take on different roles in their family.

Bottom line is, I feel like the press went a little crazy when naming the "gay caveman” because who really knows.

You can find more information at these websites:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/04/17/gay-caveman-probably-not-gay-or-a-caveman/

http://www.livescience.com/13620-gay-caveman-story-overblown.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1374060/Gay-caveman-5-000-year-old-male-skeleton-outed-way-buried.html