Exercise, Violence, Illness, and Death:

Mortuary Programs as Curriculum-Vitae

Augustin F.C. Holl

Department of Anthropology

Xiamen University, Fujian, China

Introduction

More than sophisticated studies of material culture remains, mortuary evidence provides access to profound insights into past and present communities lives and values (Chapman et al 1981, Di Lernia and Manzi 2002, Di Lernia and Tafuri 2013, Holl 2013, Holl and Bocoum 2006, 2014, Holl et al 2007, Metcalf and Huntington 1991, Tafuri et al 2006). As paradoxical as this may appear at first glance, burial is much more an issue for the living members of the communities than for the deceased individuals. It is the living members performing the funerals and burial processes who make decisions about which ones of the many aspects of the deceased individuals’ life to transfer in the grave.

As far as Africa is concerned, the cognitive break-through that resulted in the “institutionalization” of burials took place during the later part of the Late Pleistocene. Isolated human burials are found in different sites in North Africa, the Nile Valley, and West Africa. They range in date from 50000 to 9000 BP and are documented at Taramsa I, Shum Laka, Mbi-Crater, Wadi Kubbaniya, Amekni, Ti-n-Hanakaten, Iwo Eleru, to mention the most important finds (Figure 1).  Formal disposal areas – cemeteries – emerged during the later part of the Iberomaurusian period in North Africa, at such sites as Mechta el Arbi, Afalou Bou Rhummel, Columnata, Beni Saf, Taforalt, and in Nubia at Jebel Sahaba (Balout 1955a, b, Wendorf and Schild 1986, Wendorf 1968, Willoughby 2007). From that period on, and in varying degrees according to time and places, burial practices in isolated graves and cemeteries became integral part of the human cultural package. It goes without saying, but worth emphasizing nonetheless, at this juncture of that: burials and cemeteries are more than simple spots in the landscape. They are manifestations of the operation of social practices and institutions that connect both worlds: that of the living and that of the dead.

This paper sets out to explore and bring to light pieces of social singularities fossilized in the archaeological record at a number of sites located in the northern hemisphere of the continent (Holl 2013). The approach adopted is bio-archaeological, “the deduction of information about behaviour, life style, diet, and health out of skeletal remains” (Facchini 2008: 27, Larsen 1987). The sample is longitudinal and ranges from 21-19000 to 3000 BP  It includes Late Pleistocene foragers burials from Waddi Kubbaniya and Jebel Sahaba in the Nile Valley, and Iwo Eleru in southwestern Nigeria, and Early and Late Holocene Shum Laka in West Africa. Each of the selected case study is unique and refers to specific circumstances, without any claim at cultural connection or continuity.