Author: Christopher E. NicosiaPublisher:
ISBN: 9780355341652
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 186
Book Description
There has been little research on the mortuary practices within the Middle (~6,000-3,000 BC) to Late Archaic (~2500-500 BC) period, particularly with respect to subadults. The biological sex of a subadult is difficult to assess because there are very few sexually dimorphic skeletal attributes before puberty. However, recent methodologies involving dentition, pelvis, portions of the skull, and long bones (humerus, femur) have sex-assignment accuracies that prove to be archaeologically useful. This project seeks to determine if there is a sex-based social identity in Archaic period subadults in the Tennessee River Valley of west-central Tennessee by identifying a suite of sex-specific grave accompaniments in the adults and determining if they also occur in the subadults. This is compared to the results of the subadult protocols to determine of there is congruence. The seven Archaic sites examined are: Oakview Landing, Cherry, Eva, McDaniel, Kays Landing, Big Sandy and Ledbetter Landing. The study determined that few of the grave goods were sex-specific.