Mortuary Studies

The Ivory Bangle Lady an elite burial of a Roman woman from North Africa, buried in the historic town of York.

Over the millennia since the earliest burial, people have buried their dead in many different ways. Each burial type listed on this page includes descriptions, dates and images of typical burials.

Otzi the Iceman is one of those amazing discoveries that continues, even decades after the original find, to surprise us with new bits of information. The

The Evergreen Cemetery Recording Project is the work of students from the University of Arkansas and the residents of Fayetteville. The website combines archaeology method and theory with usable information for the community. Project director Gregory Vogel discusses the project with About.com

When were the American continents populated? Some of the answers lie in the skeletal remains of individuals buried more than 8,000 years ago--called Paleoindian and Archaic.

Excavations by Charles Higham at the Neolithic, Iron Age, and Bronze Age cemetery of Ban Non Wat in Thailand reveal exciting new information about the beginnings of the Angkor civilization of Southeast Asia.

Death and Commemoration: An Article Abstract

Stable isotope analysis—the study of the balance of the minerals resident in human bones and teeth—has assisted in identifying what may be among the earliest African Americans in the New World, and perhaps indications of slave trade in the early 16th century between West African and the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. Results of these...

There is, for all humans, no more fascinating subject than death. Understanding what happens when we die has formed the basis of all religion, most of culture, and major portions of science. And the way human skeletal remains are treated is often as politically controversial as human rights, ethnic divisions, and religious differences.

A barrow is the archaeological term for a specific type of burial mound belonging to the Neolithic period structures in western Europe.

The Black Death was the name given to an episode of the devastating bubonic plague in Europe between 1348 and 1351.

From Spoilheap, a survey of burial practices from earliest times to the recent past, with particular emphasis on Britain.

Archaeological research into death includes mortuary behaviors, grave goods, cemetery plans, mortality, morbidity, and diet and health.

Egtved Girl is an extremely well-preserved burial of a Bronze age woman (ca. 1370 BC) located in south Jutland, Denmark.

From the inventive David Rumsey and the American Antiquarian Society, an online database of 13,500 images taken by three photographers of 9000 North American gravestones dated before 1800. Fascinating.

  From Michael D.Bathrick and Charles M. Niquette, a somewhat outdated (1994) collection of references.

The Iceman was found in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991, a Bronze Age hunter lost in a storm between 3350-3300 BC

Paleopathology is the study of diseases in ancient humans or other lifeforms.

From Thomas Green and Jerome Rose, the SOD project will act as a repository for data generated worldwide via the Internet.