ABSTRACT
This chapter explores questions of identity in terms of biocultural interaction by using human osteological remains of women from funerary contexts of Greece (Boeotia, Attica, Thrace, Peloponnese, Macedonia, and Crete) that range from the Early Christian to the Post Byzantine times. These samples represent various contexts, such as urban/agrarian or inland/coastal cemeteries. The analysis incorporates a large body of published and unpublished bioarchaeological data and uses several case studies to explore women’s life-and death-ways, and by extension, their identity. Results show inter- and intra-cemetery variations in health, diet, and mortuary practices between men and women or between women of various social and economic contexts. Gender differences in keeping with women’s experiences as well as burial offerings and grave typology are also displayed in mortuary practices. Finally, few cases of body modification on women suggesting ethnicity are reported.
This bioarchaeological analysis reveals socioeconomic rather than chronological variations in the manifestation of women’s identity during the Byzantine period. Results contribute long-term perspectives to studies of social complexity and admixture of populations in the Byzantine society.
