Mortuary Excavation and Recording Approaches

Mortuary archaeology examines the treatment of the dead, consisting of the study of human remains as well their funerary landscapes, monuments, and material assemblages. Human societies respond to and treat death in diverse ways between cultures and throughout time, which provides archaeologists with the opportunity to gain insight into the funerary rituals, the relationship between the living and the dead, and the social, political, and economic organization of the populations of study. This entry reviews excavation and recording techniques in mortuary archaeology as well as contemporary topics of importance in this field.