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.