This thesis studies the effect of age-at-death, sex, and socioeconomic status on the burial ritual in the Netherlands between 1200 and 1650 AD by analysing archaeological data from three urban...Show moreThis thesis studies the effect of age-at-death, sex, and socioeconomic status on the burial ritual in the Netherlands between 1200 and 1650 AD by analysing archaeological data from three urban cemeteries across the country. The late medieval and early modern burial ritual is often perceived as uniform and plain, restricted by the regulations set out by the church. These regulations included strict rules on grave orientations, body positions, nature of the graves, and burial locations. Although, by analysing and comparing these different aspects of the burial ritual from the urban cemeteries of the Franciscan monastery in Alkmaar, the St. Catharina church in Eindhoven, and the Eusebius church in Arnhem, this view of uniformity has been challenged. The results of this thesis revealed the occurrence of local variation in the burial location of non-adults, especially infants, in the urban context of the Netherlands. This variation is hypothesized to be related to the baptism status of the individual, varying beliefs about purgatory and the afterlife, death at childbirth, and/or the context of the burial ground. Nonetheless, men and women were found to receive uniform burial treatment, implicating that, despite their different social standing in life, in death, they were considered equal in terms of burial practices. Furthermore, it was found that socioeconomic status influenced burial treatment. The St. Catharina church displayed not only a statistically significant difference in non-adults buried inside the choir as opposed to the adjacent churchyard, considerably more men were present than women. This prevalence of men buried inside the church compared to the low to middle socioeconomic populations buried in outdoor cemeteries could be related to high secular status.Show less
Skeletal non-metric traits (NMTs) are minor morphological variants that are often used by osteoarchaeologists to determine genetic affiliation between past populations (biodistance). Some NMTs are...Show moreSkeletal non-metric traits (NMTs) are minor morphological variants that are often used by osteoarchaeologists to determine genetic affiliation between past populations (biodistance). Some NMTs are heavily affected by environmental factors, especially habitual physical activities, whereas others have a genetic cause. This study introduces the novel application of subdividing NMTs into a mechanical, genetic, and ambiguous category, to elucidate traits of different heritability. This method is applied to a sample of 93 well-preserved adult skeletons from the 17th-19th century AD cemetery of Middenbeemster, the Netherlands. Twenty-six cranial and post-cranial skeletal NMTs were examined to determine: 1) whether significant differences in NMTs between males and females, and different age groups were present, 2) whether significant differences in mechanical NMTs versus genetic NMTs were present in the Middenbeemster sample, and 3) whether there was more variation in mechanical versus genetic NMT frequency between Middenbeemster and comparative groups of the same ethnicity. It is expected that mechanical NMTs would exhibit more variation than genetic NMTs, since it is thought that activities vary more between groups than their genes. No statistically significant differences in NMT frequency were present between males and females, or among age categories. No statistically significant differences were observed between the genetic and mechanical NMT categories in the Middenbeemster sample. Finally, no significant differences were encountered when comparing Middenbeemster to comparative assemblages. The results are affected by a small sample size, and the lack of comparative samples with frequency data for many NMTs. Future research using this categorisation can provide insight in highly heritable NMTs, which will improve the accuracy selection of biodistance studies, and traits that are more mechanically affected, for use in past activity reconstruction.Show less
