The Identity at Death of the Old and Young from the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages on the Southeast Asian Mainland
By (author) Kenneth William Ross
Paperback (Published)
(July 2025)
ISBN: 9781805830627
7.99 x 10.87 inches
Price: $91.00
In stock
This book examines Neolithic to Iron Age burials in mainland Southeast Asia, focusing on age identity at death. Exploring four sites, it reveals diverse mortuary practices and social attitudes toward the old and young, offering the first regional study of elderly individuals in archaeological contexts.
Archaeological exploration of burial practices continues to provide insight into socio-historical cultural practices, behaviours, and attitudes to individual community members at the point of their death. This insight speaks to dominant social practices or beliefs within a population and may demonstrate connectedness with other regional localities. The ever-expanding body of evidence from burial settings across Mainland Southeast Asia, incorporating considerations of the range of social identities prominent in archaeological discourse, demonstrates the presence of complex, vibrant, and diverse practices throughout this region geographically and across time. The Identity at Death of the Old and Young explores four burial sites from the southeast Asian mainland, populated in the Neolithic to Iron Age, to discuss burial behaviour in relation to the old and young. While a biological sex identity is considered, the study primarily explores the potentiality for age identities as a defining social characteristic at, and between, each site. A range of burial variables, normative and non-normative, are interrogated to illuminate and discuss social attitudes and behaviours toward each cohort. This book provides the first comprehensive study of elderly subjects in mortuary settings from Mainland Southeast Asia. It incorporates emerging ageing methodologies and provides a regional perspective from discrete sites that contribute to the growing focus of older subjects in archaeological settings internationally.
Abstract
1 Introduction
2 Mortuary Archaeology, Mourning and Grief
3 Gender, Age and Ageing
4 Mainland Southeast Asia: Overview and Site Discussion
5 Materials and Methods
6 Results: Khok Phanom Di
7 Results: Ban Non Wat
8 Results: Ban Lum Khao
9 Results: Noen U-Loke
10 Results: Generalised Linear Modelling
11 Discussion: Age as a Characterisation of Identity in Southeast Asia
12 Regionality and Resilience Theories in the Context of Southeast Asia
13 Conclusion
References,
Abstract
1 Introduction
2 Mortuary Archaeology, Mourning and Grief
3 Gender, Age and Ageing
4 Mainland Southeast Asia: Overview and Site Discussion
5 Materials and Methods
6 Results: Khok Phanom Di
7 Results: Ban Non Wat
8 Results: Ban Lum Khao
9 Results: Noen U-Loke
10 Results: Generalised Linear Modelling
11 Discussion: Age as a Characterisation of Identity in Southeast Asia
12 Regionality and Resilience Theories in the Context of Southeast Asia
13 Conclusion
References
Appendix 1: Reallocated Adult Age Categories
Appendix 2: Funerary Variable Descriptions
Appendix 3: Burials by site including those excluded from analysis
- By (author) Kenneth William Ross
‘Ross delivers a comprehensive analysis of mortuary behaviour in Southeast Asia: he crunched a huge amount of diverse data for his core questions and correlated it into a cohesive result to establish simultaneously a picture of ‘normative’ burials in the research region, from which burials of young and old people to some level divert. The results deliver ideas for future research, including questions about gender and the gaining of more insights on the death and life perceived by past communities.’ – Marion Ucklemann (2025): ANTIQUITY Volume 99
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