Care for the afterlife? A bioarchaeological investigation of a Romano-British decapitation burial
Authors: Speith, N.
Conference: PALEOPATHOLOGY ASSOCIATION 42nd Annual North American Meeting
Dates: 24-25 March 2015
Abstract:Interpretations of decapitation burials from Romano-British contexts are as manifold as the circumstances in which this funerary treatment is encountered in rural southern Britain (Boylston et al. 2000). However, the evidence rarely permits an association of age, impairing illness, and decapitation as a ‘healing rite’ (Philpott 1991), disengaging the act of decapitation from destructive notions of coercion or punishment and suggesting an agency of provision of ‘care’ extended to its limits, the transition to death and enablement in the afterlife.
This study offers a bioarchaeological perspective on this burial rite and a socio-cultural facet of its meaning using the case of a decapitation burial from a Romano-British mortuary enclosure near WinterborneKingston, Dorset, UK. The skeleton of an elderly female, found in supine position with flexed knees and an anatomically correctly positioned skull in a furnished grave, presents peri-mortem lesions consistent with sharp-force trauma to the back of the neck region delivered by a large bladed weapon. Osteological analysis furthermore revealed age- and stress-related degenerative joint disease as well as necrotic lesions to the femoral neck consistent with potentially osteoporosis-related post- traumatic osteolysis. The contextual analysis shows a signature of decapitation in combination with the funerary treatment that differs from comparable burials in the region. This burial provides physical evidence for an aspect of the decapitation rite comprising components of identity, severe frailty, and social practice in late Roman Britain, suggesting an interpretation of decapitation as a signifier for an act of relief and of care for integrity of the body.
Source: Manual