Burial practices, mortuary goods and biological remains are used to reconstruct the lives of the dead as well as the lives of those that buried them. This course explores ideas associated with death and the treatment of the dead from individuals to communities using archaeological evidence recovered from many parts of the world. The temporal expanse of this course extends from the middle Pleistocene evidence for para-human cannibalism, to prehistoric clues suggesting human sacrifice and mutilation of the dead, and finally onto the complex burial ritual associated with historically recent tuberculosis victims thought to be the victims of vampirism.

2 hours of lectures and one hour of tutorial per week