Class discussions and lectures over the last week consisted of the theme of kinship. We looked at and discussed at length an article whose argument was that based on genetics, looking at dental morphology, age and sex, it is arguable that there are distinct and separate cemeteries based on kin groups in the Zuni settlement of Hawikku (Howell and Kintigh 1996). Considering that this paper was published in 1996, the dating methods are quite old and well, are out-dated (pardon the pun)! That being said I was on the look out for a more recent article, something that was published within the last 5 years, to compare some different approaches.
The more recent and relevant article that I found relating to burials and kinship is entitled “Kinship between burials from Grave Circle B at Mycenae revealed by ancient DNA typing” by A. Bouwman, K. Brown, J. Prag and T. Brown. Instead of focusing more on the statistics and dental traits like the older article, this one tends to focus more on the visible physical characteristics within the sites found. This article uses aDNA (ancient DNA) analysis to determine the relationships between all the individuals. This being said, the methods used in both articles are very different. The first paper is extremely dense with statistics of dental traits and lengthy compared to the simple explanation of genetic testing which produces the 4 different facial types as well as family relationships. I most definitely enjoyed the second article as I found it much simpler and quick to read through, unlike the first article. Although, since the article is so brief, it does leave a lot of room for questioning of their methods, results and conclusions.
In terms of approaches, the article published in 2008 obviously had the advantage of including some of the world’s newer approaches in archaeology. One of the newest tools that this article had the privilege of using is that of facial reconstruction. After taking bone samples and running the aDNA tests of individuals all while scrutinizing the skeletal remains, can the anthropologists at work can create a facial reconstruction of the individuals. This new approach is not only fantastic as it appeals to those visual learners but combines data with 2D skeletal pictures to create the best of both worlds.
This is a diagram indicating the facial reconstructions of individuals from different groups, indicating the 4 evident facial possibilities observed.
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The Howell and Kintigh article that we analyzed in class can be found at the following website:
The newer article by Bouwman, Brown, Prag and Brown can be found at the following website:
The image provided was also taken from the Bouwman, Brown, Prag and Brown article, and can be found at the same link as above.
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