Beyond the Bones: Emotional Narratives in Archaeological Explorations of Death
Beyond the Bones: Emotional Narratives in Archaeological Explorations of Death

Summary/Abstract: Experiencing and processing emotions, especially profound grief following a significant loss, provides deep personal insights and understanding that can inform the study of emotional practices and customs related to death and mourning. This paper explores how emotions, from basic to complex, are studied through historical artefacts, evolutionary biology, and cultural contexts, emphasizing their interconnectedness with cognition and behaviour in material culture, their biological underpinnings in brain development, and their manifestations as both group and collective phenomena in societal and interpersonal contexts. Death and funeral contexts offer opportunities to study emotions before and after death. Archaeological remains indicate mortuary rituals, customs, and human behaviour, which allows us to consider incorporating emotional narratives in prehistoric research by surveying conclusions from psychological, ethnographic, anthropological, sociological, historical, and medical studies.

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