Archaeologica.org

Okay, I should have added inherited brain. You know, there were people that thought Neil Armstrong was filmed walking on the moon in a studio. I'm not one of them.
Donna

Genesis Veracity wrote:If those ruins of rock buildings and ritual buriel practices are from 8000 B.C., and the Canaanites supposedly didn't come along until 5,000 years or so after that, what was going on there for all those supposed years, nothing?

20) ABSTRACTS of papers presented at the 9th Annual Meeting of the Midwest Bioarcheology & Forensic Anthropology Association, University of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana, October 19 & 20, 2002

(snipped some entries not related to our thread)

SIMMONS, Tal. "'What Ceremony Else?': Ritual Treatment of the Dead in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Mortuary Complex of Kfar HaHoresh, Israel."

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Kfar HaHoresh (8750 B.P.) in the lower Galilee of Israel has yielded numerous burials and unique mortuary contexts. Burials of single, articulated individuals are relatively rare at KHH, in contrast to most known PPNB Levantine sites where they are the norm. At most sites, individuals are buried under plaster floors of dwellings. KHH has no apparent house architecture and, although human remains are routinely found under plaster surfaces, these function more as caps to burial installations rather than floor structures per se. Burials at KHH may take many forms including individual burials with or without skull removal, multiple burials of both a primary and secondary nature, bundle burials, skull caches, and depictions ? two dimensional representations of animals constructed of human bones. Many burials are intimately associated with animal remains. A headless gazelle was buried with a plastered human skull, two foxes were each buried with a piece of human cranium, and an articulated but headless human male was placed atop a pit containing the remains of at least 9 butchered Bos.

This paper examines the human burial taphonomy (postmortem modification by human, animal or natural actions) at Kfar HaHoresh with regard to several variables. For the purposes of this study, human modification of a skeletal element was defined as indications of peri-mortem (sensu latu) cutmarks (for dismemberment, defleshing, or disarticulation), burning, saw marks, and/or drill holes. Animal modifications of bones were defined as being caused by carnivores (punctures, scratches/striae, shallow pits, ragged edge chewing, perforations, and crenulated edges) and rodents (gnawing). In addition, percussion damage, fracture type and shape, shaft circumference, and weathering were also considered. Two loci are compared: Locus 1003, which is argued to represent a multiple use secondary burial pit containing a MNI of 12 individuals (based on the mandible), and the complex of Loci 1155, 1352, 1353, and 1373 (MNI of 12 individuals, based on the left femur), which is argued to represent a depiction with a skull cache. There are significant differences in the treatment of the human remains in each area. For example, in Locus 1003 only .02% of the 1028 bones and bone fragments examined exhibit postmortem human modification; in the 1155 Locus complex, a full 6.10% of the 722 bones exhibit human modification. Likewise, in Locus 1003 only .02% of bones show modification by rodents and/or carnivores; in 1155 over 7% of the bones are modified by animals. These differences are statistically significant and reflect the contrasting use of these burial areas and the actions and intents of the people who created the site. Other factors, including the age distribution of the individuals, the marking of the graves, and (in at least one case) the cause of death, also speak to these distinctions.