Title:
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A multidisciplinary approach to the social determinants of funerary treatment and human health based on the multivariate analysis of osteological and funerary data from the classical and hellenistic city of Ambrakia, northwest Greece
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The current thesis presents a unique approach to the integration of osteological and
funerary data. This approach exploits the nature of archaeological funerary and
osteological data and their relationship to social factors to examine the social
correlates of funerary treatment, diet and health. This is achieved via a
reconceptualization of the relationship between osteological evidence and funerary
data as a potential juxtaposition between evidence based on the lived reality of the
individual and that constituted in the arena of death by the burying group.
The new approach was applied to funerary and osteological data from the Classical
and Hellenistic city of Ambrakia in northwest Greece. This entailed a detailed
assessment of the relationships between funerary treatments, biological variables,
indicators of health and stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis of dietary
content. This analysis was performed utilizing the multivariate statistical procedures
logistic regression and factorial ANOVA (GLM). The results indicate that the current
approach permits the identification of variable relationships that cannot be anticipated
or visualized utilizing traditional methods of integration.
The thesis establishest he importance and complexity of intra-population patterns of
health, and of their correlation with funerary treatments, in providing social
explanations of observed variation in osteological and funerary remains
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