Just kidding! I'm actually holding the temporal area of the skull which is situated at the sides and the base of the skull. Annie told me that she got her osteology students to remember the temporal bone by saying that it looked like a dragon. As for what I did in the BONE lab this week, I finished cleaning and labeling the skeletal remains for burial 8( which is where this temporal bone is from), helped clean burial 1 of the burial site 14-04, and worked on data analysis using R from the data I collected on the burial sites.
This week I also saw a little bit of forensics on ancient people in action when Dr. Baker and Annie were looking at the remains of a child who seemed to have suffered major trauma. This trauma can be seen on his/her ribs and mandible which I will be showing in pictures below. The first photograph is of the mandible that is broken on both sides which indicates that the child was hit by a weapon on the side of his/her jaw. Also, one of the ribs is broken as you can see from the fifth rib that is cracked. Dr. Baker says that from the spongy growth of the rib that it was beginning to heal( so the child did survive a little while longer after the ordeal). However, Dr. Baker and Annie hypothesize that the child died from the infection that came from an untreated broken rib.
Instead of an article discussion this week, I had the amazing opportunity to watch Sofia Pacheco-Fores, a bioarchaeology doctoral student at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, defend her proposal, "Ritual Violence and the Perception of Social Difference: Human Sacrifice in the Epiclassic Basin of Mexico". Sofia has been traveling to Mexico for the past couple of summers looking at skeletal remains in Teotihuacan and an anthropogenic(man-made) island which she called Non-Grid 4. Non-Grid 4 is a marshy island which she and other archaeologists found to be an Epiclassic shrine site in the marshes of Lake Xaltocan. The Epiclassic period was a time of dramatic political reorganization in the Basin of Mexico characterized by increased violence and migration. In Non-Grid 4, Sofia proposes to examine the skeletal remains in a sacrificial deposit which seem to be males around 20-30 years old. She wants to examine how individual's social identities such as geographic origin and biological kinship predispose them to be victims of ritual violence. In comparing Nubia to the Epiclassic basin of Mexico, I thought it was interesting how ritual violence wasn't as prevalent though interpersonal violence most certainly was.
As for my R analysis, I have a bar graph below that shows the proportion of which direction heads were facing in the burial site 03-01. You can see that the majority( 67%) of heads are facing to the west, although this makes sense since they were mostly Christian burials. Next week, I hope to do more analysis on grave goods and the body positions of remains.
I hope you guys enjoyed this post and I wish you all a lovely weekend! See you for the next post!
Wow this seemed like an amazing week for you, especially hearing Sophia Pacheco-Fores. My only question is if she found out what makes people more predisposed to ritual violence or is still looking into it.
ReplyDeleteHi Megna! Thanks for commenting. Sophia hasn't found out what makes certain people more predisposed to ritual violence however that is what she plans to find out when she conducts her research over the next couple of years.
DeleteHi Nicole. You're work is spectacular. It is amazing to see the progress that you make every week. Are the injuries found on the ribs and skull of these people combat related? If not, what causes these injuries?
ReplyDeleteHi Ethan! Thanks for commenting. Dr. Baker and Annie think that the injuries on the ribs and mandible may be a result of interpersonal violence. It definitely did not result from child's play.
DeleteHey Nichole! R programming has become an important tool for research in numerous fields including the medical field so it's really cool to see its application in the archeological world! Is there a specific reason behind the broken rib and its severe effects?
ReplyDeleteHi Aparna! Thank you for commenting. Dr. Baker and Annie think that the broken rib may be a result of interpersonal violence that the child may have been a victim of.
DeleteHi Nichole, thank you for this week's posts; I appreciate the clear photos you took of the child's mandible and ribs. Did Sofia Pacheco-Fores explain why males around 20-30 years old were prominent victims for sacrifice? Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteHi Brian! Thank you for commenting. Sofia Pacheco-Fores didn't explain why it happened that males around 20-30 were sacrificial victims. However, that is what she plans to find out with her research over the next couple of years. She hypothesizes that social identity has something to do with it.
DeleteHi Nichole. You tricked me; I got excited that it was really a dragon! It sounds like you're keeping busy with your BONE lab. Is there any hypotheses about how the child received the major trauma?
ReplyDeleteHi Sophia! Thank you for commenting. Dr. Baker and Annie hypothesize that the child may have been caught in an act of interpersonal violence.
DeleteHey Nichole! Not going to lie, I did believe you for a split second when you said it was a dragon remain. It's awesome that you're starting to plot results, I'm looking forward to see what the graph looks like at the end of the project in comparison to now! Awesome post!
ReplyDeleteHi Urmi! Thank you for commenting and I hope to provide you with more insightful posts over the next final weeks.
DeleteHi Nichole! Question for you, do you have any hypotheses as to what factors may cause some civilizations to value ritual sacrifice over interpersonal violence?
ReplyDeleteHi Liam! Thank you for your insightful question. After talking a bit with Dr. Baker, it seems that it may have to do with the environment the civilization is living in. IT seems the climate the the Classical Basin of Mexico was more volatile than what what is Sudan at the time but of course, I'm not entirely sure that is the correct answer and there is probably a large debate about it in the archaeological world.
DeleteHey Nichole, it seems as if you've been busy both with hands -on and computer work this week. I was curious, is the interpersonal violence that you described in Nubia a result of internal conflict within Nubia, or the result of foreign invaders, like the Egyptians?
ReplyDeleteJeez Caleb, you stole my question!... er, what I mean is Aloha Nichole! were there any other grave goods that you found while examining the graves, other than the beads and are there any relation to the grave goods and the body position of the goods? Also, you might want to watch were you step over there, cause it might just ending up as a grave mistake. I'm sorry for the bad pun. Anyways, Mahalo for your hard work and Aloha! (Aloha means both hello and goodbye if you didn't know)
ReplyDeletesorry, i meant to put "body position of the skeletal remains," not "the body positions of the goods."
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ReplyDeleteI can't believe how severe the break is in the rib and jaw bones! I certainly feel for that child even if they are thousands of years old! Was the child found buried with anyone else? Have you noticed if families tend to be buried together, or are burial sites often spread out?
ReplyDeleteIt's really interesting to see how much you can tell from the breaks in the ribs and mandible. Is there some sort of guide to follow when guessing the conditions of the person's life, or is it mostly just intuition?
ReplyDeleteWow the violence the little boy saw so many years ago is still so sad. It is truly amazing how much Dr. Baker can find out about his death so many years ago with as little evidence as she has. Did you find that particular finding difficult that day?
ReplyDeleteIt's really cool to see your project progress like this. Overall, do you feel like your project has progressed the way you like it? Or has there been many unexpected problems along the way?
ReplyDelete