[Archport] Associação Arqueológica do Algarve

["Jenny Compton" <jennycompton@sapo.pt>]

Notice of presentations on Tuesday 1st April to take place at the Muséu do Trajo, São Brás 15.00hrs and Convento São José, Lagoa 19.15hrs.
Entry €6 (non AAA members)

'Living with the Dead: Mortuary prctices from the Neolithic Near East' - Dr. Karina Croucher

The paper discusses mortuary evidence from the Neolithic of the Near East (Southwest Asia), a crucial period in the development of civilisation, seeing the inftroduction of farming and the first settled towns. There were multiple ways of treating the dead, including fragmentation of the human body and the reuse of body parts, particularly the skull. Practices included the plastering of the skulls of the dead, where the faces of the deceased were recreated onto the skulls using lime, mud and gypsum plasters. The paper also discusses recent interpretations of this enigmatic phenomenon, including connections between the living and the dead, and the tangible role of the dead in the lives of the living.

Dr Karina Croucher is author of 'Death and Dying in the Neolithic Near East (Oxford University Press 2012) and is lecturer in Archaeology at the universityu of Bradford (UK). She recently completed a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Manchester.