Elisa Perego (UCL; elisaperego78@yahoo.it) and Veronica Tamorri (University of Durham; veronicatamorri@googlemail.com)

As archaeological and ethnographic studies have clearly revealed, the post-mortem treatment of the corpse may assume an almost endless variety of forms and meanings. Cremation, embalming, mummification, secondary burial and exposure to wild animals are just few of the several procedures adopted by different human groups to deal with the deceased. As the subject of such practices, the body stands at the centre of the funerary ritual as a metaphorical tissue which connects the society of the living and the world of the dead. In this exchange in which the mourners forge their underworld to mirror, translate and re-work their culture and society, and the dead exert an indirect agency over the living, an osmotic relation is established between the two spheres of existence. Further, the extreme malleability of human remains allows the funeral’s participants to bring about meaningful practices that are apt at reconstructing the social order after the traumatic event of death, and at expressing beliefs concerning the afterlife and the destiny of the soul.

This session will explore taboos related to corporality and decay, the interconnectivity between bodies and grave goods and the permanence and ephemerality of corpses, performances and funerary monuments. Papers are invited to investigate different perspectives on ancestrality, the creation of social memory via mortuary behaviour, and the negotiation of relational modes of personhood through the disarticulation and mingling of dead bodies.

The aim of the session is to bring together young researchers and experts from prehistoric and historical archaeology to discuss new theoretical approaches to the study of the body in funerary practices. Scholars from historical archaeology are particularly encouraged to apply in order to illuminate how theoretically-laden frameworks, enriched with the wealth of data and written sources, can be employed to cast further light on bodily practices in the archaeological record.