PROLEGOMENA TO A SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE HUMAN BODY
PROLEGOMENA TO A SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE HUMAN BODY

Summary/Abstract: Much of archaeology takes the human body into account when it comes to recording, analysing and interpreting graves. Human remains are encountered as dead matter, and often scrutinized with osteological and bioarchaeological methods and approaches. Bioarchaeological methods enable us to obtain a wide range of data on diet, ancestry, mobility and so on; yet bodily remains thus tend to be understood primarily as a repository of data and such a view of the human body is rather positivistic. Here, I want to sketch an approach that goes beyond the notion of the human body as a container and focuses not only on the body in relation to death and dying. The starting point is the idea that the human body is central to all spheres of human society and activity, as all social interaction is body-based. My objective is to go beyond the representational character of bodies and to include their phenomenology into the study of human remains.

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