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Results for disarticulated:

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disarticulated

CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Bones out of their natural arrangement.

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burial

CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Inhumation or cremation -- the laying of a body in the ground, in a natural or artificial chamber, or in an urn after burning. In collective burial, a single chamber is used for more than one corpse. A primary burial is one for which a burial monument such as a barrow was erected. The term secondary burial is used for the practice of collecting the bones of a skeleton after the flesh has decayed, and placing them in some form of ossuary. In fractional burial, only some of the bones are so collected and interred. Archaeologists can learn a great deal about prehistoric societies by studying skeletons and the way they were buried. In some cultures, bodies were buried stretched out; in others they were placed in the ground in a fetal, or flexed position. In still other societies, the dead were exposed on platforms or in charnel houses, then when the flesh had decayed or been scavenged, the disarticulated bones were made into a bundle and buried. Sometimes bodies were cremated and the remains buried. Goods interred with a burial give many clues to the social position of the person and their culture and the study of bones can reveal sex, age, and information about nutrition and disease. The earliest deliberate burial of their dead was that of Neanderthal man of Palaeolithic times 100,000 years ago. They were buried in the cave in which the family continued to live. Food and tools were buried with them, proof of the belief in an afterlife. Neolithic man buried his dead in the long barrow, a communal tomb. Inhumation was followed by cremation in the Late Bronze Age.

cannibalism

CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The eating of human flesh by men. This is done either out of dire need or for ritual purposes, when parts of deceased relatives or enemies may be eaten so that their power can be magically acquired. Disarticulated bones of humans, as well as animals, have been found in the ditches of Neolithic camps, which is thought to be suggestive of cannibalism. Its existence in Paleolithic cultures is suggested by the lengthwise splitting of long bones so as to extract marrow from them. In Mesoamerica, there is evidence among hunter-gatherers at start of Holocene through the 1st millennium BC in farming villages. There were many written documents concerning cannibalism from the Aztecs of the 15th century AD. To the Aztecs, the human flesh sacrificed and offered to the gods became a sacred food.

Gaudo

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Chalcolithic cemetery site in Campania, Italy, with 3rd millennium BC rock-cut tombs; the type site of the Campanian Gaudo culture. The tombs produced up to 25 disarticulated skeletons each, and great quantities of highly burnished unusual pots, especially asymmetric straight-necked flasks (sometimes called askoi as they approximate the form of an askos). There were also cups, open dishes, lids, and double vessels. This group has with parallels with Central Italian Rinaldone. There are flint arrowheads and daggers; metalwork is rare, but some copper daggers and awls occur and a few small silver objects.

Hambledon Hill

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic causewayed camp and Iron Age hillfort in Dorset, England. The causewayed camp of the 3rd millennium BC had pits of pottery, flint tools, and bone. Human skulls had been placed at regular intervals along the ditch bottom. The disarticulated human remains of the camp may reveal exposure of corpses. A long barrow was nearby on the same hilltop. Much later, in the first millennium BC, there was an impressive Iron Age hillfort on another ridge of this three-spurred hill.

Isbister

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic chambered tomb on the island of South Ronaldsay, Orkney, Scotland, dating to c 3150 BC. Remains of 342 people were found within the chambers, mostly as disarticulated bones that were sorted.

Isernia

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: La Pineta
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Lower Palaeolithic site in central Italy with many disarticulated animal bones associated with stone tools and dating to c 730,000 BP. In modern times, it originated as Aesernia, a town of the Samnites and later became a Roman colony.

West Kennet

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Neolithic long barrow, the largest of the Severn-Cotswold group of megalithic tombs, in Wiltshire, England, of c 3500 BC. The tomb has two pairs of transepts and a terminal chamber; the entrance opens from a crescent-shaped forecourt blocked by a straight facade of sarsen slabs. The burial was of 46 disarticulated inhumations and the chambers were filled with a mixture of soil, charcoal, sherds of Peterborough ware, and grooved ware and beaker fragments. That material has a date of 2500/2000 BC.

Woodruff Ossuary

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Burial in northwest Kansas with 61 disarticulated individuals and Harlan cord-roughened pottery, Scallorn arrow points, hundreds of disk shell beads, and shell pendants. It belongs to the Keith Focus of the Woodland Stage and the burials are in 14+ pits.