While death and dying are universal, the treatment of the dead is culturally and temporally specific, highlighting the influence of both the deceased individual and the living community within the mortuary process. This volume focuses specifically on non-normative or atypical mortuary practices situated within a contextually driven understanding of social and cultural norms surrounding the process of interment. Each chapter compares and contrasts the various elements of these mortuary treatments (e.g., body position, body orientation, artifact inclusion) and how they may represent specific ide ... More

While death and dying are universal, the treatment of the dead is culturally and temporally specific, highlighting the influence of both the deceased individual and the living community within the mortuary process. This volume focuses specifically on non-normative or atypical mortuary practices situated within a contextually driven understanding of social and cultural norms surrounding the process of interment. Each chapter compares and contrasts the various elements of these mortuary treatments (e.g., body position, body orientation, artifact inclusion) and how they may represent specific ideological and/or cultural notions of identity and personhood after death (e.g., age, sex, gender, status, health). Care is taken to avoid simple binary classifications of “typical” and “atypical” by considering the range of mortuary treatments that characterize each society. Drawing on examples from North and South America, Europe, and Asia, this comprehensive volume stresses the commonality between non-normative or atypical treatments spanning millennia. Additionally, this volume strives to employ a holistic understanding of non-normative burials both in terms of assessing the significance and interpretation of individual cases of atypical interments, as well as to better understand the overall phenomenon of these mortuary practices, which continue to be the source of fascination and debate within mortuary archaeology.