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Deviancy and Disability in the Human Past

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Deviancy and Disability in the Human Past Eileen M. Murphy, ed.. Deviant Burial in the Archaeological Record. Oxford: Oxbrow Books, 2008. xviii + 244 pp. $60.00, paper, ISBN 978-1-84217-338-1. Reviewed by William Southwell-Wright Published on H-Disability (October, 2013) Commissioned by Iain C. Hutchison (University of Glasgow) The last two decades have seen scholars in‐ ment and disability for periods that offer little creasingly focus on aspects of premodern disabili‐ other evidence. ty history, with an especial focus on medieval Eu‐ The papers in this volume originate from a rope and the classical world. This work has, how‐ session held at the eleventh annual meeting of the ever, remained largely within the bounds of his‐ European Association of Archaeologists in Cork, torical rather than archaeological research. That Ireland, in 2005. The focus of that session was on archaeologists have made relatively little contri‐ atypical and deviant burial phenomena applied to bution to current debates is somewhat puzzling individuals from a wide range of past human soci‐ given the wide range of osteological examples of eties, which, as Eileen M. Murphy states in the in‐ individuals with impairments that archaeologists troduction, “can include criminals, women who and paleopathologists can draw on in the aid of died during childbirth, unbaptized infants, people disability history. Besides an edition of the Ar‐ with disabilities, and supposed revenants, to chaeological Review from Cambridge (1999) and name but a few” (p. xii). As such, several of the pa‐ Jane Hubert’s edited volume Madness, Disability pers in the volume will be of less interest to dis‐ and Social Exclusion: The Archaeology and An‐ ability historians than others. This review will fo‐ thropology of “Difference” (2000), there has been cus primarily on those that discuss impairment little explicit focus on the topic of disability as a and disability to some extent. social and historical identity within archaeologi‐ In the frst chapter of the volume, “Unusual cal discourse. However, the interested reader can Burials and Necrophobia: An Insight into the Buri‐ find substantial amounts of material in other edit‐ al Archaeology of Fear,” Anastasia Tsaliki pro‐ ed volumes, such as this one, which frequently in‐ vides a broad overview of the range of motivating tersect with evidence for attitudes toward impair‐ factors behind deviant burials--linked by common H-Net Reviews motivating behaviors of “necrophobia,” the fear explores the history of how such terms have de‐ of the dead. Tsaliki argues that “the type of burial veloped and been utilized in the archaeological together with the analysis of associated human literature. He notes that German research has fo‐ skeletal remains ... may offer an insight into an in‐ cused primarily on the question of what makes a dividual’s deviant treatment,” i.e., the analysis of burial “different” from those of its surrounding human skeletal remains can give us some insight culture, while Anglophone research has typically into the identity and attitudes ascribed toward the focused on a less rigid approach to categorization person in life (p. 2). This chapter briefly focuses and has instead applied the concept of deviancy on pathology as a factor in cultivating attitudes of “in terms which are of current interest in Anglo‐ fear toward the dead body before moving on to phone archaeology” (p. 29). The current interest discuss attitudes toward supposed witches and in disability that is emerging within archaeology revenants. There are several case studies of inter‐ could be taken as an example of such a trend. est, including one that examines a series of graves Both streams of research have found those who of adolescents and young males from ninth- to are physically different to have been treated in an eighth-century BC Italy. The subjects were buried unusual or deviant fashion, though Aspöck notes in unusually prone and fexed positions. Several that British research has more explicitly focused of them had physical impairments including fa‐ on the attitudes shown toward disabled people in cial and cranial traumas, which Tsaliki argues their burial treatment than German research. The could be evidence for sacrificial behavior. Unusu‐ difficulties and ironies of the interpretation of dif‐ al burial treatment from eighth- to ffth-century ferent burial treatment are highlighted in fgure BC Greece involved inhumation during a period 2.2, a German diagram indicating the range of when cremation was prevalent and included an positive and negative attitudes that could moti‐ individual with a misaligned and possible infect‐ vate a “Sonderbestattung,” which includes both ed tibia. A more contemporary case relates to a “special social-religious roles (e.g., hermaphrodit‐ sixty-plus-year-old man from the eighteenth to the ic, mentally handicapped)” and “social outcasts nineteenth century AD from Lesbos who pos‐ (e.g., hermaphroditic, mentally handicapped)” (p. sessed a range of cranio-facial changes, possibly 22). This chapter is particularly useful in provid‐ related to paralysis, and was buried with three ing a context in which to place the largely Anglo‐ bent spikes. This was a behavior associated with phone research on display in this volume, to make fear of vampirism; Tsaliki argues that in Greek the reader question how we assign difference or folklore “physical disability is known to be a fac‐ deviancy in a given burial treatment, and to as‐ tor that can predispose an individual to become a sess whether it translates to such difference dur‐ vampire” (p. 14). ing the life of an individual. In the second chapter, Edeltraud Aspöck ana‐ Stephany Leach’s chapter, “Odd One Out? Ear‐ lyzes the utility of the notion of deviant burials by lier Neolithic Deposition of Human Remains in undertaking a thorough review of the two main Caves and Rock Shelters in the Yorkshire Dales,” streams of research on the topic in German and focuses on the phenomena of cave burials in the Anglophone studies. The chapter usefully notes early Neolithic upland regions of Yorkshire which the difference between the German expression have been encountered at more than twenty sites. “Sonderbestattung,” a term that translates as spe‐ While earlier authors have argued that the ap‐ cial or exceptional burial, with no positive or neg‐ pearance of human skeletal material in such sites ative connotations, and the Anglophone focus on was due to natural factors, Leach makes the case the deviant aspect of burial behavior, which typi‐ that cave burial was a deliberate form of burial cally ascribes negativity to the practice. Aspöck treatment and examines material from fve sites 2 H-Net Reviews to look at the possible motivating factors. She sacrifice of the impaired, a recurring theme of the links this conspicuous burial treatment to a range volume. Charlier asks the reader to consider the of reasons, including impairment and disfigure‐ range of impairments that would have been con‐ ment. Several individuals buried in these sites dis‐ sidered different and marginalizing in the past: played evidence of physical difference, including “What is a slight anomaly to the modern world ... cranial trauma and severe osteoarthritis. Of par‐ could have been interpreted in the ancient world ticular note was an individual who would have as a severe and ‘fatal’ malformation, particularly possessed visible disfiguring lesions of the jaw because of the potential associated symbolic caus‐ whose skeleton was deliberately “processed” after es” (p. 62). While this chapter provides an inter‐ death by having the left tibia split open longitudi‐ esting case study, a criticism has to be made of the nally. Another example, the cave burial of a sev‐ terminology employed. “Palaeoteratology,” the enteen- to eighteen-year-old woman with signs of study of “monsters” in the past, is a term that is early osteoarthritic development and facial defor‐ out of sync with current understandings within mities, is also intriguing. Leach argues that these wider disability studies of how we should discuss individuals would have, for various reasons, impaired people, and stands out as something of stood out as notably different in their semino‐ an anachronism within an otherwise interesting madic communities due to their impairments. chapter. Therefore they would have been buried separate‐ Alison Taylor’s chapter, “Aspects of Deviant ly within cave contexts in a manner markedly dif‐ Burial in Roman Britain,” provides another over‐ ferent from the normative burial practices of this view of the range of burial practices, and possible period--communal burials that mixed the skeletal motivating factors behind them, from the frst remains of the deceased. As Leach notes, “the in‐ through the ffth centuries AD. Such practices in‐ dividuals whose remains were not commingled, clude “decapitation, prone burial, unusually se‐ in some way remained separate from the ances‐ cure graves, with signs of unusual violence ... and tral community of the dead” (p. 51). Leach useful‐ dismembered remains,” practices that notably dif‐ ly, and thoughtfully, notes that we must be careful fer from the normal “care for the integrity of the not to project our present notions of disability too body” recognized in other burials (p. 92). Numer‐ far into the past, and that these individuals may ous motivating behaviors are explored by Taylor, not necessarily have been ascribed negative social including sacrificial and punitive actions, pagan roles, but were still seen as markedly different as religious beliefs, and the fear of the supernatural. evidenced by how they were treated in death. Impairment is a frequent theme in such burials, Philippe Charlier’s chapter, “The Value of from the potential human sacrifice represented Palaeoteratology and Forensic Pathology for the by the bog bodies of individuals with impair‐ Understanding of Atypical Burials: Two Mediter‐ ments, to an example of an instance where “the ranean Examples from the Field,” discusses the foot of a decapitated lame man was removed” importance of utilizing pathological understand‐ postmortem, to an example of a physically im‐ ings of the human skeleton.
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