2022 Program
Abstracts for Guest Speakers at 2022 WeBiG:
Sabrina Agarwal (University of California, Berkeley) - (Plenary Speaker) - "Envisioning Bioarchaeological Futurisms"
The field of bioarchaeology as we know it is facing extinction. While socio-political movements related to racial inequality and oppression dominate the media, archaeology has had to confront the ethics of how and why we obtain, analyze and curate material remains of others. This is particularly acute in the case of human remains, with institutions holding skeletal collections of the marginalized, enslaved, murdered, or dispossessed. Bioarchaeologists are keen to reimagine an anti-racist and decolonized practice, but how can we do that? In a world where we are facing climate catastrophe, and the end of democracy, liberalism, and capitalism how do we make our endeavors relevant? I argue that to envision a just and relevant bioarchaeology we need to first deconstruct and dismantle the practices we do that continue to maintain colonial violence. Using an example in which I am professionally and personally situated, the Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, I deconstruct the ways that bioarchaeology has been enmeshed in colonial biopower, necroviolence, and institutional racism. I then reflect on the ways that this racial violence has permeated our practice and what it will take to dismantle it. Finally, I turn to how we can use these reflections to envision our alternative futures: ones that work to restore racial and ecological justice, empower descendant communities and collaboration, and lift diverse voices.
Alex Garcia-Putnam (Washington State Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation) - "Past as Prologue: Grappling with Epidemic Disease, Bodily Autonomy, and Systemic Inequalities at Charity Hospital, New Orleans, LA (1847-1929)"
Bioarchaeology is uniquely situated to explore the antecedents of modern systemic inequality. By expanding the scope and reach of our work, we—the field of bioarchaeology—can use our observations of the past to inform how we view and work toward a more equitable future. Through a recent bioarchaeological investigation into the lives and deaths of patients from Charity Hospital, an indigent hospital catering to New Orleans’ poorest residents, this research presents two examples of past inequalities and their echoes in the modern world. Here, I explore the various forms of violence faced by these individuals—formerly enslaved Africans, free People of Color, immigrants from Europe, and other marginalized groups—both during their lives and after their deaths. During their lives these individuals faced crowded living conditions, dangerous working environments, poor nutrition, as well as epidemic disease, especially yellow fever. After their deaths these individuals’ bodies were dissected and experimented upon without their consent. The echoes of the injustices faced by these people, in life and death, are plain to see in today’s world, from COVID-19’s elevated impacts to marginalized groups, to the lack of bodily autonomy faced by women and minority groups in this country. This work is just one example of the parallels that we can draw from our research to current issues, and is just a starting point toward a more engaged bioarchaeology.
Amber Tedrow (Associate Environmental Planner (Archaeologist) and Native American Coordinator for for California Department of Transportation’s District 10) - "Penetrating the Past: Utilizing Ground Penetrating Radar and Community Collaboration at Hilltop Cemetery"
This case study’s purpose is to highlight challenges facing historic cemeteries in California and demonstrate how Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and related non-invasive methods can address them. The study is of Hilltop Cemetery in Elk Grove, California. Hilltop is an active cemetery that has an unknown number of unmarked historic graves, potentially inaccurate burial location maps, and non-digitized cemetery records. The project’s objectives were determined collaboratively with Hilltop management, and were designed to improve management of Hilltop and other historic cemeteries, increase engagement with local residential and descendant populations, and restore the unmarked historic graves to the community’s collective and social memories. The anticipated results were that use of GPR with archival research and other related methods would reveal unmarked graves at Hilltop Cemetery. GPR was utilized with other non-invasive methods to survey and record the Study Area within Hilltop Cemetery. Archival research was conducted to ascertain who may have been buried in unmarked graves within the Study Area. GPR results suggest the presence of potentially 25 unmarked graves. Archival research revealed 13 individuals with potentially unmarked graves in the Study Area. The methods used in this study enable 13 individuals to potentially be returned to the collective memory of the local community and the social memory of descendant communities. However, ground-truthing is still necessary to confirm the potential burial locations. Together, the results indicate that GPR with archival research, is a non-invasive and effective way to locate unmarked burials, and scientifically mitigate gaps or biases in historic cemetery records.
Chin-hsin Liu (California State University, Northridge) - “What about the people? A bottom-up framework of human interactions in Postclassic West Mexico”
Geographically and culturally, West Mexico occupies an intermediary position between highland central, southern Mexico, and the American Southwest. Over the past three millennia, this area’s complex cultural developments and social transformations have characterized West Mexico as a unique entity pivotal in the histories of population admixture and cultural transmission, producing long-lasting effects that still permeate in modern day Mesoamerica. During the Postclassic period (850/900-1350s CE), polities in West Mexico underwent centuries-long transformation in several waves of integration that shaped the course of regional history. Traditionally, studies on Postclassic Mesoamerica often centered on the distribution and dispersal of artifacts, architectural attributes of ceremonial structures, and meanings of polity boundaries. While these macro views provided significant insights on the region’s inter-community structure and interactions, the narratives have largely rendered individual agency invisible. Without exploring nuanced individual daily social and biological behavior, the construction and interpretation of the larger societal phenomena can be biased. People’s dietary choices and restrictions, activity patterns, and growth trajectories, for example, were direct reflections of their management and mitigation of the opportunities and challenges associated with the sociocultural changes, especially during this dynamic period. This project investigates and highlights individuals’ life experience embodied in skeletal morphology and chemical signatures from nine West Mexican sites. Comparison of the bioarchaeological trends between the West Mexican populations and other contemporaneous peoples in the American Southwest, the Yucatan Peninsula, and Baja California can elucidate the extend of variation in human biological consequences with respect to the varied ecological and political landscapes.
Samantha Blatt (Idaho State University), Taylor Flaherty (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Amy R. Michael (University of New Hampshire), & Mariyam I. Isa (Texas Tech University) - "Busting the Binary: Current and Future Strategies for Identification of Gender-diverse Individuals in Forensic Anthropology"
Bioarchaeologists have engaged with gender theory for decades to reconstruct social identities of past peoples. As the number of transgender and gender-expansive (TGE) individuals experiencing fatal violence has exponentially increased, it is essential and ethical for forensic anthropologists to incorporate a similar holistic approach to understanding and documenting gender identity of unidentified decedents. Yet, many forensic anthropologists view and assign sex as a binary category disregarding the impact of gender identity on decedent identification. Few forensic anthropologists have experience with known TGE decedents or gender-affirming procedures that may impact the skeleton. While skeletal morphology alone cannot reveal a decedent’s gender, a singular emphasis on sex estimation dismisses the unique needs of TGE individuals, perpetuates post-mortem harm of the decedent, and may delay identification. Here, we argue that overreliance on sex estimation methods, without consideration of gender identity, plays directly into the biological reductionsim anthropologists expressly try to avoid in their work.
We will explore some ways that the holistic and context-based approaches to gender in bioarchaeology can be applied in a forensic medico-legal setting. We report on culturally-informed and multidisciplinary approaches to forensic work, inclusive allyship strategies, and harm reduction practices in the identification of LGBTQ2S+/TGE individuals. We demonstrate the efficacy of these approaches by presenting case studies. Finally, looking towards the future, we propose the following: 1) use of a gender-inclusive case form in reports; and 2) updates to the sex and gender options available in law enforcement and private databases.
2022 SCHEDULE:
