Abstract
When one reads archaeological publications on funerary remains, one might think that the deceased was sacrificed to accompany the burial of a pot [34]. One could easily blame archaeologists for this predicament, but it also has its roots in a research tradition within biological anthropology that tends to provide biological data to the archaeologist who provides the social and cultural meaning. Due to empirical divergence this approach encourages archaeologists and anthropologists tend to address parallel rather than synthetic questions. Burials are often only used to develop a notion of time-successive funerary traditions that support a chronological framework. This means that the event represented in the burial is left underdeveloped or erroneously identified as a tradition. Bioarchaeology addresses archaeological questions through a contextual approach combining the biological identity of the deceased with their cultural and archaeological context. It therefore aims to synthesise the biological and cultural aspects of the funerary record to address archaeological questions and better place burials in their cultural, social, and political context. The goal of this treatment is to introduce bioarchaeology, its origin and purpose, and to attempt to place such studies within French archaeological and anthropological scholarship.
Résumé
Á la lecture des publications qui concernent l’archéologie funéraire, il est souvent possible de penser que le défunt était sacrifié pour accompagner une vaisselle céramique [34]. On pourrait reprocher aux archéologues cette situation difficile et ridicule, mais on peut aussi lui trouver des racines dans une tradition de recherche au sein de l’anthropologie biologique dans laquelle l’anthropologue fournit les données biologiques afin que l’archéologue leurs rende un sens culturel ou social. Du fait de cette approche empirique divergente, les archéologues et anthropologues ont tendance à formuler des questions en parallèle et non de façon synthétique. Les sépultures sont souvent essentiellement utilisées pour développer une esquisse chronologique des traditions funéraires successives. Cela signifie que le geste funéraire n’est pas assez apprécié pour son information sociale ou pire, identifié comme une « tradition funéraire » de manière erronée. La bioarchéologie s’intéresse aux questions archéologiques au travers d’une approche qui combine l’identité des défunts et leur contexte culturel et archéologique. Son but est de synthétiser les aspects biologiques et culturels du domaine funéraire pour mieux s’intéresser aux questions archéologiques et anthropologiques et mieux comprendre les sépultures dans leurs contextes culturelles, sociales et politiques. Cette contribution a pour but d’introduire le concept de bioarchéologie, son origine et son objectif, et de tenter le positionnement de ces études au sein de l’école française d’archéologie et d’anthropologie.
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Knüsel, C. Bioarchaeology: a synthetic approach. Bull. Mém. Soc. Anthropol. 22, 62–73 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13219-010-0003-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13219-010-0003-1