Mensch - Körper - Tod: Ansätze zur archäologischen Erforschung des Umgangs mit Tod und Toten

Abstract

Death confronts the living with the challenges of how to deal with the material legacies of the deceased and with an ambivalent relationship between the presence and absence of the dead. Death is universal, but how we deal with death and the dead is culturally shaped – as is the study of these issues. Although burials are one of the main types of archaeological sources, (transformative) bodily practices and processes associated with death have been rarely addressed. In the introduction to this anthology, we argue for a process-oriented, contextual and praxeological consideration of the complex network of relations between human being, body and death instead of viewing the burial as a static archaeological record. First, we deal with the question of how and when boundaries are drawn between living and dead, then with transformative body practices and processes. Finally, we address the socio-spatial location of death and the dead, which takes place right in the middle of life and only sometimes brings with it a strict spatial separation of the living and the dead.

Mensch - Körper - Tod: Ansätze zur archäologischen Erforschung des Umgangs mit Tod und Toten