Human Identities in the Archaeological Record

Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Late Antiquity to the Modern Period

Annamaria Diana, Daniela Marcu-Istrate, Alice Toso

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350536258
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: Social Sciences

Retracing the origin, development and survival of individual and collective identities in past human societies, this volume features a global and interdisciplinary range of case studies from Late Antiquity to the modern period covering a diversity of geographical and historical regions. The contributors delve into the archaeological record to detect not only biological and cultural affinity, but also evidence of diversity and 'otherness'. Through the lens of burial customs, dietary habits, biocultural changes, paleopathological evidence, everyday objects, built remains and belief systems, this book highlights archaeology's crucial role in unearthing, reconstructing and protecting long-established as well as forgotten – or even obliterated – identities, while also unveiling the recurrence of human values transcending space and time.

Organised by broad thematic sections, this collective body of work draws together perspectives from archaeology, bioarchaeology, zooarchaeology, forensic anthropology, archaeosciences, anthropology, historical archaeology and other disciplines. As a result, this book elucidates the importance of holistic approaches to the analysis of material culture and skeletal remains – often the only indisputable remnants of human survival and resilience.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• CONTENTS
• ILLUSTRATIONS
• ONLINE MATERIALS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• CONTRIBUTORS
• INTRODUCTION HUMAN IDENTITIES THROUGH THE LENS OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT: STRIVING FOR INTERDISCIPLINARITY Annamaria Diana, Alice Toso and Daniela Marcu-Istrate
• PART I BELONGING, RESILIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY
• CHAPTER 1 AKSUM AND BEYOND: PLURALITY, HYBRIDIZATION AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY IN THE HORN OF AFRICAG abriele Castiglia
• CHAPTER 2 MARTYRDOM NARRATIVES AND IDENTITY FORMATION AT THE EDGE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE: THE CASE OF EPICTETUS AND ASTION FROM HALMYRIS Ciprian Crețu and Andrei Dorian Soficaru
• CHAPTER 3 IRISH IDENTITIES REFLECTED IN PRE-FAMINE HEADSTONE ICONOGRAPHY Gerry Mullins
• PART II STORIES FROM THE BURIAL CONTEXT
• CHAPTER 4 MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES IN LATE MEDIEVAL LISBON: A MULTI-ISOTOPE DIET AND MOBILITY STUDY OF THE RUA DOS LAGARES #74 NECROPOLIS Rebecca Anne MacRoberts, Lucy Shaw Evangelista, Marina Lourenço, Manuel Fialho Silva, Cristina Barrocas Dias, Hermínia Vasconcelos Vilar, Bernd R. Schöne and Anne-France Maurer
• CHAPTER 5 A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE? ATYPICAL AND DEVIANT BURIAL PATTERNS AT TURDA VECHE’S REFORMED CHURCH CEMETERY, TRANSYLVANIAHorațiu Dorin Groza and Annamaria Diana
• CHAPTER 6 GRIPS AND GRIP PLATES: GETTING AHOLD ON IDENTITY IN POST-MEDIEVAL YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND Diana Swales
• PART III BIOCULTURAL TRANSITIONS
• CHAPTER 7 EXPLORING TRANSITION AND IDENTITY THROUGH AN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF THIRD- TO SEVENTH-CENTURY NO RTHAMPTONSHIRE: A THEORETICAL DISCUSSION Alvaro Felipe Ortega-González
• CHAPTER 8 ANIMALS AS WITNESS TO CULTURAL IDENTITIES: THE SPANISH IMPRINT OF THE COLONIZATION OF THE AMERICAS Aurélie Manin, Noémie Tomadini and Ophélie Lebrasseur
• CHAPTER 9 THE TASTE OF THE LAND: ISOTOPIC EVIDENCE OF URBAN AND RURAL IDENTITIES IN MEDIEVAL PORTUGAL Alice Toso, Cleia Detry, Ines Simão, Jaoquina Soares,Ana Margarida Arruda and Michelle Alexander
• CHAPTER 10 PADDOCK TO PLATE AT THE BARRACKS: MEAT CUTS AS A SOCIOECONOMIC INDICATOR IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY COLONIAL TRIABUNNA (TASMANIA, AUSTRALIA) Madeleine E. Lucas, Sofia C. Samper Carro, D. A. Lenton, Catherine J. Frieman and James L. Flexner
• PART IV EXPRESSIONS OF INDIVIDUALITY
• CHAPTER 11 NEW INSIGHTS ON THE IDENTITY OF A SEVENTH-CENTURY HORSE RIDER: THECASE OF GRAVE 104 BIS FROM TÂRGȘOR Erwin Gáll, Andrei Soficaru, Ana Ștefan, Andrei Măgureanu, Gergely Szenthe and Bogdan Ciupercă
• CHAPTER 12 ARCHAEOLOGICAL STORYTELLING, OR STORIES ABOUT THE ‘OTHER’? COGNITIVE ARCHAEOLOGY AND ITS POTENTIAL TO UNDERSTAND EMOTIONAL ACTIONS TOWARDS THE DECEASED Patrycja Godlewska
• CHAPTER 13 BRICK BY BRICK: CONSTRUCTING ANTHROPOMORPHIC GRAVES FORTHE EARLY NOBILITY Daniela Marcu-Istrate
• CHAPTER 14 ‘IN A COMMUNITY OF PIPES IS A COMMUNITY OF HEARTS’: GLAZED TOBACCO PIPES AS A REFLECTION OF IDENTITY Ionuț-Cosmin Codrea
• PART V RECLAIMING AND PROTECTING IDENTITIES
• CHAPTER 15 AFTER THE STORM: COUNTERACTING THE IMPACT OF CATASTROPHIC WEATHER EVENTS ON THE INDIGENOUS ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD WITH CREATIVE MITIGATING SOLUTIONS IN THE MIDWESTERN UNITED STATES Elizabeth C. Reetz and John F. Doershuk
• CHAPTER 16 THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BULGARIANS OF TRANSYLVANIA AND THE FRANCISCAN MONASTERY IN VINŢU DE JOS: HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DIASPORA Sebastian Ovidiu Dobrotă
• CHAPTER 17 IDENTITY WITHOUT CONTEXT: INTEGRATING ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND FORENSIC METHODS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF ISOLATED ARCHAEOLOGICAL SKULLS Annamaria Diana, Daniel O’Meara and Julieta Gómez García-Donas
• EPILOGUE TO BE OR TO BELONG: A PERPETUAL DILEMMA Annamaria Diana, Daniela Marcu-Istrate and Alice Toso
• INDEX