Overview

The essays in Transforming the Dead: Culturally Modified Bone in the Prehistoric Midwest explore the numerous ways that Eastern Woodland Native Americans selected, modified, and used human bones as tools, trophies, ornaments, and other objects imbued with cultural signifi­cance in daily life and rituals. Transforming the Dead is a collection of essays that examines culturally modified human bones and their roles as “cultural and ritual objects” among prehistoric Eastern Woodland cultures. Previous scholarship has explored the role of human body parts in Native American cultures as trophies of war and revered ancestors. This collection discusses new evidence that human elements were also important components of daily and ritual activities across the Eastern Woodlands. The contribu­tors to this volume discuss each case study within the unique regional and temporal contexts of the material, rather than seeking universal answers to how these objects were used. Most research addressing modified human bone has focused on cut marks and trauma associated with warfare, trophy taking, and burial practices. The editors and contributors of Transforming the Dead docu­ment the varied and often overlooked ways that human bone was intentionally modified through drilling, incising, cutting, and polish­ing for utilitarian, ornamental, spiritual, or ritual use. Examples include bracelets and gorgets to be worn, as well as musical rasps, pipe stems, masks, and protective talismans. The form and function of these ob­jects are not unusual; their construction from the remains of “another” sets them apart. Through a flexible but systematic analysis of the archaeological record, the contributors bring into focus how the careful selection, modifica­tion, and retention of particular bones or body parts of an individual after death offer insights into concepts of personhood, the body, life, and death among the prehistoric Native Americans in the Midwest.

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9780817318611

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Reviews

Transforming the Dead encourages its readers to think in a broader perspectiveoutside of western normative dualities like life and death, the physical world, and the spiritual world. Debra L. Martin, coeditor of Bioarchaeology: An Integrated Approach to Working with Human Remains and Bioarchaeological and Forensic Perspectives on Violence: How Violent Death is Interpreted from Skeletal Remains

Transforming the Dead encourages its readers to think in a broader perspective--outside of western normative dualities like life and death, the physical world, and the spiritual world. --Debra L. Martin, coeditor of Bioarchaeology: An Integrated Approach to Working with Human Remains and Bioarchaeological and Forensic Perspectives on Violence: How Violent Death is Interpreted from Skeletal Remains .. . a superb resource for professionals and students alike.... The editors and authors of this volume venture beyond descriptions of modified human bone that are argued as 'transforming the dead'; they transform our discourse of both the living and the dead. --Journal of the Iowa Archeological Society In the seminal The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies by Amerindians, editors Richard Chacon and David Dye demonstrated that prehistoric and historic Native Americans cut off and displayed human body parts. Transforming the Dead now shows the other side of the coin: that human bone was used in everyday life and special rituals in prehistoric Native American culture. No other book on the market presents what these authors have. --Keith Jacobi, author of Last Rites for the Tipu Maya: Genetic Structuring in a Colonial Cemetery

In the seminal The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies by Amerindians, editors Richard Chacon and David Dye demonstrated that prehistoric and historic Native Americans cut off and displayed human body parts. Transforming the Dead now shows the other side of the coin: that human bone was used in everyday life and special rituals in prehistoric Native American culture. No other book on the market presents what these authors have. --Keith Jacobi, author of Last Rites for the Tipu Maya: Genetic Structuring in a Colonial Cemetery

Author Information

Eve A. Hargrave is a public engagement coordinator and skeletal biolo­gist at the Illinois State, USA Archaeological Survey and coauthor of Recent Investigations into the Late Prehistoric Mortuary Behavior: The Halliday Site. Shirley J. Schermer is a former director of the Burials Program for the Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist and author of Discovering Archae­ology: An Activity Guide for Educators. Kristin M. Hedman is an associ­ate director of the Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials Program and skeletal biologist at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey, USA and coauthor of Hill Prairie Mounds: The Osteology of a Late Middle Mis­sissippian Mortuary Population. Robin M. Lillie is a skeletal biologist for the Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist Burials Program and coauthor of Dubuque’s Forgotten Cemetery: Excavating a Nineteenth-century Burial Ground in a Twenty-first-century City.

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