Better than You

Status. This is a big section of Anthropology in general, everyone carries with them a place within their culture, community, family, friends, and on and on. Some of us are upper middle-class, a label with which we are ranked in society, some of us are students, or go to daycare rather than home after school. Some of us are fathers, or uncles, sisters, grandmothers. Status is simply a multitude of possibles, but what is it in archaeology?

Archaeology is forced, I think, to measure status through the grave goods and burial practice. We therefore tend to think of archaeological status as a cultural thing, not so much a personal measure of a person -- something that they've taken with them or had imposed upon them by the living. I mean, unless one can do DNA testing on several deceased buried together or close together or find a very specific record (birth/death certificate, tombstone/headstone, etc...) than we have little to no context for their life. We could assume that because a deceased may be an adult male, between 30 and 45, that he was a father, but we can't tell precisely. However, if he's buried beneath large stones than perhaps he was, powerful, dangerous or the living believed him malevolent in death.

However, while occasionally we do know enough to make precise guesses, such as the Sutton Hoo ship burial which would be that of a prestigious and rich -- high status -- individual, sometimes we can't. Again, at Sutton Hoo there is a gallows and various execution graves. Now, as executions the deceased are buried with very little to indicate status, however that doesn't mean that they may not have been high-status individuals that due to political or other reasons found themselves decapitated or hanged. Now, that in itself may be a bit of a stretch but if status is earned either by wealth or the acquisition of wealth (say, a high-profile actor) it can also be lost. Take a look at Brian Mulroney, Bill Clinton, and a whole host of others -- from footballers to hockey players. I think that politicians tend to lose prominence more often, or at least we're more acquainted with their rise and fall.

My point here, I think, is that Archaeology is forced to look at an individual through their grave -- which only makes sense -- but I feel like status is a much larger thing to the living than the dead. Death itself is a much larger thing to the living than the dead; while, we look at the grave goods and skeletal positioning we can interpret and infer much, we should attempt to take what we find, and our genius, with skepticism.


Carver, Martin. 1998. Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings? University of Pennsylvania Press. New York.