The identity of death of the old and young

from the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages on the Southeast Asian Mainland

Ross, Kenneth Williams

Archaeological exploration of burial practices continues to provide insight into socio-historical cultural practices, behaviours, and attitudes to individual community members at the point of their death. This insight speaks to dominant social practices or beliefs within a population and may demonstrate connectedness with other regional localities. The ever-expanding body of evidence from burial settings across Mainland Southeast Asia, incorporating considerations of the range of social identities prominent in archaeological discourse, demonstrates the presence of complex, vibrant, and diverse practices throughout this region geographically and across time.
The Identity at Death of the Old and Young explores four burial sites from the southeast Asian mainland, populated in the Neolithic to Iron Age, to discuss burial behaviour in relation to the old and young. While a biological sex identity is considered, the study primarily explores the potentiality for age identities as a defining social characteristic at, and between, each site. A range of burial variables, normative and non-normative, are interrogated to illuminate and discuss social attitudes and behaviours toward each cohort.
This book provides the first comprehensive study of elderly subjects in mortuary settings from Mainland Southeast Asia. It incorporates emerging ageing methodologies and provides a regional perspective from discrete sites that contribute to the growing focus of older subjects in archaeological settings internationally.