We take an archaeothanatological approach to the study of burial disturbances in northeastern and central-eastern Brazil from 12,000 years BP to 200 years BP. Archaeothanatology is an area of archaeological science that focuses on the analysis of the context of human burials, emphasizing the study of taphonomic changes and the detailed observation of bones and objects of material culture in the field. This approach allows archaeologists/bioarchaeologists to study many aspects of the processes of burying the dead, including how people engage with the dead even after the first burial has taken place. Funerary rituals can result in primary or secondary deposition of the bodies of the dead. These processes of deposition are not always permanent or static. Graves may be reopened, skeletal elements may be moved or taken away, and older graves may be reused or modified later through exhumation, destruction, moving bones to another location as relics, secondary or tertiary deposits and offerings.

Such post-funerary modifications are found world-wide but South America stands out for its examples of body manipulation and disturbance of burials since the early Holocene, around 10,000 years BP. Our study compared practices at four precolonial burial sites in the State of Piauí with four in the State of Minas Gerais (Figure 1). We found that bodies were manipulated using such techniques as skinning or dismemberment by cuts, fractures, partial or total removal of certain bones or complete skeletons, recovery and curation of bones and re-interment of isolated anatomical units, painting bones with mineral pigment (usually red ocher), and exposure to fire. These “alternative” mortuary practices of post-funerary manipulation of older burials were something that is found in both regions we studied and persisted throughout the Holocene until European colonization. This comparison indicated continuity within a diversity of practices, according to the taphonomic context and laboratory data observed during the research. The long duration of these practices was exemplified in the sites studied, a small but temporarily very comprehensive sample. Looking at Brazil more broadly, the disturbance of graves and skeletons appeared to be an integral and significant part of the mortuary practices of ancient inhabitants. Cultural and ideological attitudes toward death, the afterlife, or between the living and the dead persisted far beyond primary or secondary inhumation, where the living exhumed, manipulated, and re-deposited skeletons or bones, representing some of the most peculiar manifestations of materiality of death among the ancient peoples of South America.

The systematic observation of archaeothanatological data in this research, referring to the interpretation of the archaeological context of the funerary and postfunerary cycles of these ancient societies, is fundamental for understanding the manipulations of primary, secondary or tertiary funerary depositions and their unusual use by the living.

The associated research – Older Burial Disturbance: Postfunerary Manipulation of Graves and Corpses in Precontact Northeastern Brazil by Ana Solari, Sergio F. S. M da Silva, Anne Marie Pessis, Gabriela Martin and Niede Guidon – is free to access until the end of June 2022.