Disposed young: Nonadult element representation and bone positioning in complex mortuary programmes in Chalcolithic Cyprus

Abstract

Nonadult inhumations have the potential to give insights into the attitudes of past societies toward age. Adult individuals have been afforded complex mortuary programs in Chalcolithic cemeteries in western Cyprus. This study explores what mortuary practices applied to nonadult individuals at Souskiou-Laona, a Middle Chalcolithic site with complex mortuary programs that include articulated, semiarticulated, and fully commingled individuals. The latter were organised into elaborate bonestacks enveloping the feet of the latest articulated individuals interred.Ninety-two archaeologically intact mortuary contexts were excavated at Souskiou-Laona cemetery, containing 203 individuals (31 articulated skeletons and 172 individuals as commingled and/or semi-articulated remains). Twenty-four of these are nonadults. Bone preservation is poor, with high levels of fragmentation and surface erosion. Nonadult remains were analysed for bone element representation using the Bone Representation Index (BRI), and the positioning of nonadult skeletal elements within tombs and in relation to adult remains. Further comparisons were made between nonadults recovered from the cemetery, and nonadults recovered from primary burials in the contemporaneous settlement nearby. BRI results indicate that several nonadults present skeletal elements from all parts of the body, including small and fragile bones. The primary mortuary program afforded to nonadults at Souskiou-Laona cemetery involved primary inhumation of the body in tombs, intentional disarticulation of skeletal remains after decomposition, and subsequent integration into the bonestack as part of the communal whole. Bone elements of nonadults were incorporated into the bonestacks, not as localized entities. To our knowledge, Souskiou-Laona is the first Middle Chalcolithic cemetery for which detailed data on commingled bone element positioning have been documented in Cyprus, and the only cemetery for which both nonadult BRI and bone element positioning data is available in the wider region.