MISSISSIPPIAN BURIAL PRACTICES: Mississippian Burial Practices and How Various Society’s Burial Practices Differ and Relate At the first description of the Mississippian cultures, specifically the Cahokian, my interest with these people grew. In both lectures from this course and my world civilizations course, descriptions of these people varied in terms of focus, but nevertheless caught my attention. And while my experience with North American cultures has been limited up until now, I am finding the people truly fascinating and can recognize the importance of researching this area of the world. In terms of civilizations, my interest has always lied with more ancient civilizations. And while their ideas and ways seem far off from our own,
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Scalping is normally done as a way of trophy taking, and cuts seen beginning frontal on the skull and working their way circularly around the cranium is interpreted as scalping (Steadman, 2008, p. 53). And while this is seen as evidence for interpersonal violence, scalping will not kill a person, and therefore it is normally seen in conjuction with another form of death. What is more than likely solid evidence for more ritualisc violence is decapitation and if the presence of a skull, the position of it. Steadman mentions that factors caused by human, animal, and environmental forces can disrupt the original burials and so these factors must be taken into consideration, while examining these remains (2008, p. 53). And while this is extremely important there has been evidence of more deliberate burials, such as a decaptated skull placed between the legs of the remains (Steadman, 2008, p. 53). The deliberate placement of such body parts suggests that this type of trama was more interpersonal than intrapersonal. Additionally, found at the Orendorf site was about an equal ratio of males to females and about half of the burials consisted of adults (Steadman, 2008, p. 52). What can be normally seen in warfare is quite a large amount of adult male deaths, but the almost equal ratios of male versus female, and old versus young, suggests that these deaths were interpersonal and ceremonial in
Scalping is normally done as a way of trophy taking, and cuts seen beginning frontal on the skull and working their way circularly around the cranium is interpreted as scalping (Steadman, 2008, p. 53). And while this is seen as evidence for interpersonal violence, scalping will not kill a person, and therefore it is normally seen in conjuction with another form of death. What is more than likely solid evidence for more ritualisc violence is decapitation and if the presence of a skull, the position of it. Steadman mentions that factors caused by human, animal, and environmental forces can disrupt the original burials and so these factors must be taken into consideration, while examining these remains (2008, p. 53). And while this is extremely important there has been evidence of more deliberate burials, such as a decaptated skull placed between the legs of the remains (Steadman, 2008, p. 53). The deliberate placement of such body parts suggests that this type of trama was more interpersonal than intrapersonal. Additionally, found at the Orendorf site was about an equal ratio of males to females and about half of the burials consisted of adults (Steadman, 2008, p. 52). What can be normally seen in warfare is quite a large amount of adult male deaths, but the almost equal ratios of male versus female, and old versus young, suggests that these deaths were interpersonal and ceremonial in