Saying Good Bye to the BONE Lab( For Now)

Hi everyone! I just cannot fathom how ten weeks went by so fast. It seemed like it was just last week that I was learning to clean and label bones. First, I did change my senior project title to Unearthing the Truth: Burial Patterns in Nubia because I feel like this title more accurately captures my research. Below I have the picture of the BONE lab logo! More information on what is around the thumb of the hand will be discussed in my graph analysis!

 I have to say that this week has been one of the busiest and most productive weeks I've had at the BONE lab. I spent most of the time creating more graphs as well as attending two dissertation defenses and a thesis defense. After discussing my graphs with Dr. Baker and Annie, I feel like I can now tell you more about what my results mean!

For my graphs, I looked at the Kerma period( oldest period) grave site (09-01, 09-30, and 03-14) as well as the large el-Ginefab school site ( 03-01 and 03-02). I further broke down the el-Ginefab site into the three different periods that graves exhibit: Late Meroitic, Post-Meroitic, and Christian. With all of these grave sites, I looked at burial orientation, body position, and grave goods. Below I have some( not all) of the graphs to help visualize what my results are.

Most remains in Kerma period sites 09-30 and 03-14 face expected northward site facing the flow of the Nile River. However, Kerma period site 09-01 has remains facing mostly east. Annie was thinking this may be due to temporal changes. For the el-Ginefab site, 03-01 Post-Meroitic grave remains seem to be evenly proportioned in many directions. This seems very unusual but two hypotheses are that this may be indicative of no burial pattern which seems to fit in with the Post-Meroitic period which was a time of social unrest. The other hypothesis was that the graves may all be facing a fixed point on the landscape like how Muslim remains are faced pointing towards Mecca. For the Meroitic period graves, remains mostly face southward which may be the customary burial orientation of the time( or just sampling bias). Finally, Christian period remains have their heads oriented to the west, which is the expectation for a classical Christian grave. All of these results are heavily influence by sampling bias since there are not many well-preserved graves that accurate data is collected from.

Looking at the body position, most Kerma period remains face the classical position of being flexed on their right side. Interestingly, Late Meroitic period graves are in a mostly extended position but also some remains are in a flexed position which is intriguing because this shows a mix of burial practices. None of the Post-Meoritic period graves seem to be in a flexed position, perhaps indicating the transition from flexed to extended burial position. But of course, these results are probably flawed with sampling bias.

Now,  I promise not to talk too long about grave goods! While all sites have a large proportion of ceramics and faience beads, Kerma period graves included leather and not any pots. The Late Meroitic and Post Meroitic period graves had many pots. A hypothesis is that Nubians in the Kerma period were pastoral and didn't find it necessary to carry heavy pots. In the Meroitic graves, archaeologists found many arrow heads and knocking stone in graves of males. These are evidence that archery was very prominent during this time. Knocking stone prevents injury when archers release the string of the bow and is what is around the thumb of the skeletal remain in the BONE logo!



Besides analyzing my graphs, I got to go to two dissertation defenses and an honors thesis defense this week! One dissertation defense was on Social Mobility at Teotihuacan, Mexico and the other dissertation defense was on the Islamic conversion of the Iberian Peninsula. It was really interesting to see how the presentation on Social Mobility at Teotihuacan focused a lot on biological anthropology while the one on Islamic conversion of Iberian Peninsula focused more on historical records on theories on how Christian and Jewish people of the Iberian Peninsula were converted to Islam. Also, the honors thesis defense I attended was on Transition Analysis, a relatively new method on predicting the ages of skeletal remains. From this presentation, I found out that Transition Analysis at the moment isn't better than traditional analysis in the accuracy of predicting the ages of ancient remains.

I know this is probably my longest post, but I can't end without giving a huge thanks to all who have supported and guided me throughout my senior project journey. I want to thank Dr. Baker for taking me on in the BONE lab, introducing me to the amazing field of bioarchaeology, and always having the time to answer any questions I have. Also, I want to thank Annie for showing me how to clean and label bones properly, and taking the time to explain some osteology and the background of Nubians. Thank you to my faculty advisor Mrs. Silbaugh for guiding me throughout the research project. I couldn't have been able to do this without the support of my family, especially my mom who drove me everyday to the BONE lab at ASU.

Finally, I want to give a big thanks to all who follow my blog for supporting me through my senior project journey. I hope everybody has a wonderful weekend and feel free to ask any questions you may have about my results!