008: Digging anthropology in the Sanisera Necropolis (Menorca – Spain)

What you will learn ?

In the Fieldwork

• How to dig and which archaeological techniques are used.
  
  
• Use and handling of the tools that are used during the excavation process.
  
  
• Detecting graves to excavate in the Necropolis.
  
  
• Exhume the skeletal remains and record any finds.
  
  
• Scale drawings and elevations of tombs/individuals within the tombs.
  
  
• Record funerary structures and anthropological remains in context sheets.
  
  
• Basic principles of stratigraphy.
  
  
• Basic procedures for collecting C14 samples.
  
  

In the Laboratory

• Prepare anthropological material in the laboratory.
  
  
• Cleaning, Inventory and cataloging of recovered human bones during the excavation process.
  
  
• Basics of the methods used in human osteological analysis, including skeletal anatomy, palaeodemography and palaeopathology.
  
  
• Learning how to identify age, sex and height of buried individuals.
  
  
• Relative dating based on the classification of archaeological artifacts discovered in stratigraphic sequence.
  
  
• Interpret what went on during the burial process of these individuals.

Theory

• Introduction to Physical Anthropology and Bioarchaeology
  
  
• Skeletal Anatomy –Terminology-: generalities, dental structure, skull and other bones.
  
  
• History, archaeology, economy and culture of the Roman civilization.
  
  
• Introduction to the History of the Sanisera Site.
  
  
• The background of Roman funerary rituals.
  
  
• Minorcan archaeology before the Roman conquest of the Balearic Islands.