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Graduation Term

2013

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Department of Sociology and Anthropology: Archaeology

Committee Chair

Maria O. Smith

Abstract

The motivations behind the bundling of human remains in the Middle and Late Woodland populations of Illinois were previously unknown. Factors including sex, age, interment location, presence or absence of grave goods, and appearance of taphonomic markers indicating particular degrees of post-mortem processing, assist in determining why Woodland populations practice bundling and how they selected individuals to be bundled. Skeletal remains from one Middle Woodland site (Albany Mounds), one early Late Woodland site (Kuhlman Mounds), and one Middle-Late Late Woodland site (Dickson Mounds) are analyzed with the aforementioned factors in mind to identify a pattern of bundling the dead and determine whether changes to the particular practice occurred over time.

Research showed that there was a lack of discrimination between individuals who were bundled and those who were interred as primary burials, indicating that particular

groups of people were not singled out for bundling. It is assumed that bundled individuals were not of a different status than primary interments. This lack of discrimination also suggests that mobility and seasonality are the primary factors in the appearance of bundle burials.

Access Type

Thesis-ISU Access Only

DOI

http://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2013.Albrecht.J

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