053: Bioarchaeological fieldwork of an underground funerary crypt of the San Mateo Church
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 funerary crypt.
- 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 modern Spanish culture (the 16th - 18th centuries).
- The background of Christian funerary rituals.
