Bioarchaeological analyses of violence largely fail to consider the bio-cultural complexity that result from hostility. Here, we utilize an expanded definition of burial taphonomy to test if individuals exhibiting evidence for violence differed in other identifiable ways in early farming communities from the Sonoran Desert, circa 2,000-4,000 ybp. A variable matrix is constructed to conduct a more inclusive analysis considering demographic variables, decomposition, taphonomy, health status, and mortuary treatment. We postulate that although numerous community members experienced violence during a time of known subsistence intensification, specific individuals were selected for differential treatment as a form of postmortem signaling

Fields, Misty

Stoll, Marijke

Watson, James T.

English

ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst

Landscapes of ViolenceVolume 2Number 2 Bioarchaeological Perspectives on Violence Article 11May 2012Violence and Postmortem Signaling in EarlyFarming Communities of the Sonoran Desert: AnExpanded Taphonomic ApproachJames T. WatsonUniversity of Arizona, watsonjt@email.arizona.eduMisty FieldsUniversity of Nevada Las VegasMarijke StollUniversity of ArizonaFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/lovThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been acceptedfor inclusion in Landscapes of Violence by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contactscholarworks@library.umass.edu.Recommended CitationWatson, James T.; Fields, Misty; and Stoll, Marijke (2012) "Violence and Postmortem Signaling in Early Farming Communities of theSonoran Desert: An Expanded Taphonomic Approach," Landscapes of Violence: Vol. 2 : No. 2 , Article 11.DOI: 10.7275/R5NP22CVAvailable at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/lov/vol2/iss2/11Violence and Postmortem Signaling in Early Farming Communities of theSonoran Desert: An Expanded Taphonomic ApproachAbstractBioarchaeological analyses of violence largely fail to consider the bio-cultural complexity that result fromhostility. Here, we utilize an expanded definition of burial taphonomy to test if individuals exhibiting evidencefor violence differed in other identifiable ways in early farming communities from the Sonoran Desert, circa2,000-4,000 ybp. A variable matrix is constructed to conduct a more inclusive analysis consideringdemographic variables, decomposition, taphonomy, health status, and mortuary treatment. We postulate thatalthough numerous community members experienced violence during a time of known subsistenceintensification, specific individuals were selected for differential treatment as a form of postmortem signaling.KeywordsBioarchaeology, Burial Taphonomy, Trauma, ViolenceThis article is available in Landscapes of Violence: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/lov/vol2/iss2/11Violence and Postmortem Signaling in Early Farming Communities of the Sonoran Desert:An Expanded Taphonomic ApproachAcknowledgements: We are extremely grateful to the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, CentroINAH Sonora, the Consejo Arqueológico Mexicana, Elisa Villalpando, and John Carpenter for permission,support and cooperation with this work.REFERENCESDuday, H. 2009. The Archaeology of the Dead: Lectures in Archaeothanatology. Studies in Funerary Archaeology 3. Oxbow.LeBlanc SA. 1999. Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Lekson SH. 2002. War in the Southwest, War in the World. American Antiquity 67(4):607-624.Rice G. LeBlanc SA. 2001. Deadly Landscapes: Case Studies in Prehistoric Southwestern Warfare. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Sosis, R. Alcorta C. 2003. Signaling, Solidarity, and the Sacred: The Evolution of Religious Behavior. Evolutionary Anthropology 12:264-274.Turner CG.  Turner JA. 1999. Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric Southwest. University of Utah Press: Salt Lake City.James T. Watson1, Misty Fields2, and Marijke Stoll11Arizona State Museum and School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, 2Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada Las Vegas VIOLENCENumerous studies have documented violence, warfare (LeBlanc 1999, Lekson 2002,Rice and LeBlanc 2001), and perhaps even cannibalism (Turner and Turner 1999)throughout the pre-colonial Desert West. Traumatic injuries are common amongskeletal samples from early farming communities of the Sonoran Desert (Fig. 1) andhave the potential to document some of the earliest evidence for interpersonalviolence in the region. However, the close examination of contextual informationand an expanded approach to burial taphonomy has allowed us to document anumber of instances of violence that do not include skeletal lesions. Instead webelieve that these instances may represent ‘signaling’ by the perpetrators using thevictim’s body. Here we examine a suite of taphonomic variables within a skeletalsample of 100 individuals from the Early Agricultural period (1600 B.C.-A.D. 200) siteof La Playa, Sonora, Mexico (SON F:10:3) to evaluate potential evidence forviolence and signaling among early farmers in the Sonoran Desert.Figure 3. Body Disposals: lacking any formal burial treatment.  Instead position and placement indicate intentional disrespect or desecration of the body.Figure 2. Location of La Playa (left) and  the distribution of  burials within site (right).LA PLAYA [SON F:10:3]La Playa is an expansive archaeological site located in northern Sonora, Mexico(see figure above). The most intensive occupation is associated with the EarlyAgricultural period (1600 B.C.-A.D. 200). Excavations over the past decade haveproduced a skeletal sample representing 324 individuals that span the entire courseof the Early Agricultural period. The sample is evenly distributed between sexes,across age groups, and has no identifiable patterns of distribution within the site orby burial treatment. The La Playa burials represent the largest, earliest, and mostcomprehensive skeletal sample in the region and provide the ideal instrument totest the assumptions about the consequences of the adoption of agriculture in theregion.ABSTRACTBioarchaeological analyses of violence largely fail to consider the bio-culturalcomplexity that result from hostility. Here, we utilize an expanded definition of burialtaphonomy to test if individuals exhibiting evidence for violence differed in otheridentifiable ways in early farming communities from the Sonoran Desert, circa 2,000-4,000 ybp. A variable matrix is constructed to conduct a more inclusive analysisconsidering demographic variables, decomposition, taphonomy, health status, andmortuary treatment. We postulate that although numerous community membersexperienced violence during a time of known subsistence intensification, specificindividuals were selected for differential treatment as a form of postmortemsignaling.DISCUSSION Approximately 20% of the individuals from the La Playa skeletal sample exhibit evidence for violence. The results indicate that many victims of violence experienced uncommon differences in body placement that resulted in post-mortem disarticulation of the joints. The presence of body ‘disposals’ within the site are additionally indicative of violent acts in which participants were not afforded burial rites by their community but were instead deposited by the perpetrators of the violence. We propose that these events represent episodes of post-mortem signaling (Sosisand Alcorta, 2003) by those enacting the violence at La Playa.Table 1. Evidence for Violence from La PlayaTrauma M F   Cranial Fractures (n = 16) X     X Perimortem Fractures (n = 6)           X     X Healed Fractures (n = 27) X     X Healed Severed Forearm (n = 1)        X      X Embedded Point (n = 3) XBody Treatment Body Disposals (n = 5) XEmbedded Point in Cranium Cranial Fracture Healed Forearm Fracture Figure 1. Examples of skeletal lesions from La Playa that represent violence.AN EXPANDED TAPHONOMYLittle attention has been paid to formally documenting the impact of tahonomy onhuman burials. One exception to this oversight is the work of Henri Duday (2009),whose approach focuses on recording position and relationships of individualskeletal elements to reconstruct burial taphonomy, and how decomposition of softtissue can help reconstruct body placement and grave construction by consideringthe affects of gravity, soil compaction and weight, and the rate and course ofdecomposition in the burial feature. Decomposition creates space that soft tissuesonce occupied. Soil eventually fills most of these voids. If decomposition is slow andlargely matched by soil replacement then individual elements are more likely toremain in their original position (progressive filling). Fast decomposition and/or slowsoil replacement is more likely to create active space or voids that skeletalelements can move by gravity or soil movement (delayed filling). The analysispresented here considers variables that reflect decomposition processes.METHODSFour sets of variables were recorded on a sample of 100 mortuary features from La Playa; demographic, mortuary, biological, and taphonomic.  The data were compared using cross-tabulation tables and chi-square test for significance.  Violence was the independent variable.  Significance was set at the .05 level and all tests were run using PSAW 18.0.Demographic Variables:LocusArchaeological PhaseSexAgeMortuary Variables:Context (primary or secondary)Placement (right or left)Cranial Orientation (N, E, S, & W)Grave AccompanimentsEvidence of ViolenceBiological Variables:InfectionTraumaDental PathologyDJDTaphonomic Variables:Rib CollapseTumbling of the CraniumAngle of the ClaviclesPlacement of the HandsArticulation (of all major bony connections)Joint Flexure (of all major joints: acute, 90, obtuse)RESULTSTwo forms of evidence for violence were recorded in the La Playa sample: trauma and body disposal (Table 1).  Skeletal lesions indicative of trauma included both healed and peri-mortem cranial and long bone fractures, a healed and severed forearm, and embedded projectile points (Fig. 3).   Body ‘disposals’ are recognized as having most joints unarticulated, lacking paired limb placement, lacking body treatment such as the application of red ochre, and three had projectile points embedded in various elements (cranium and back).  Results of the analyses demonstrate a significant difference in articulations and limb placement between individuals exhibiting evidence of violence versus those lacking such evidence (χ2 = 4.038, df = 1, p = .046).  The pattern is strongest among those few individuals that represent body disposals, who also lack mortuary treatment found among other individuals in the sample.1Watson et al.: Violence in Early Villages in the Sonoran DesertPublished by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 2012

Violence and Postmortem Signaling in Early Farming Communities of the Sonoran Desert: An Expanded Taphonomic Approach

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Violence and Postmortem Signaling in Early Farming Communities of the Sonoran Desert: An Expanded Taphonomic Approach

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