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The Archaeology of Ancestors: Death, Memory, and

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 The Archaeology
of Ancestors
Death, Memory, and Veneration

•
Edited by Erica Hill
and Jon B. Hageman

proof
Foreword by Patricia A. McAnany

University Press of Florida

Gainesville · Tallahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton
Pensacola · Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers · Sarasota
Copyright 2016 by Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

This book may be available in an electronic edition.

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A record of cataloging-in-publication data is available from the Library of Congress.

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ISBN 978-0-8130-6251-8

The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University
System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University,
Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University,
New College of Florida, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University
of North Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida.

University Press of Florida

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 Contents

List of Figures vii

Foreword 00ix0
Part I. Revisiting Ancestors
1. Leveraging the Dead: The Ethnography of Ancestors 1
Jon B. Hageman and Erica Hill
2. The Archaeology of Ancestors 42
Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

proof
3. Memory, Power, and Death in Chinese History and Prehistory 81
Roderick Campbell
4. Achieving Ancestorhood in Ancient Greece 102
Carla Antonaccio
5. The Ethnoarchaeology of West African Ancestors: Kusasi Shrines
and Domestic Space 124
Charles Mather

Part II. Discovering Ancestors

6. Landscapes of Ancestors: The Structuring of Space around Iron Age
Funerary Monuments in Central Europe 147
Matthew L. Murray
7. Royal Ancestor Construction and Veneration in the House of
Habsburg 166
Estella Weiss-Krejci
8. Images of Ancestors: Identifying the Revered Dead in Moche
Iconography 189
Erica Hill
9. Where the Ancestors Live: Shrines and Their Meaning among the
Classic Maya 213
Jon B. Hageman

Contributors 249
Index 251

proof
 2
The Archaeology of Ancestors
Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

General archaeological interest in ancestors is a relatively recent phenom-

enon, though the ancestral dead made an appearance as early as 1953,
when Kathleen Kenyon identified Neolithic skulls from early Jericho as
possibly those of venerated “tribal or family elders” whose personalities
their descendants attempted to preserve through the creation of plas-
tered likenesses (Kenyon 1954:108; Kenyon and Tushingham 1953:870).

proof
By the 1990s, ancient ancestors had undergone a veritable population
explosion, prompting James Whitley to wonder whether there were sim-
ply “too many ancestors” in prehistories of the British Neolithic. Whitley
(2002:124) highlighted the uncritical use of ancestors as explanations for
a range of archaeological phenomena, writing that the imaginary ances-
tors of the past “can do anything—a spot of legitimation here, a touch of
phenomenological meaning there.”
Although Whitley’s critique focused on ancestors in British prehistory,
Americanist archaeologists have also employed ancestor veneration ex-
tensively in their reconstructions of the past. Ancestors form the founda-
tion of corporate authority and territorial claims in contexts as varied as
the Maya area (e.g., McAnany 1995), Peru (e.g., Bauer 2004; Isbell 1997),
and the Eastern Woodlands (e.g., Brown 1990; Buikstra and Charles 1999;
Charles and Buikstra 2002). Elsewhere, ancestors appear to represent
new interpretive possibilities, as in the North American Southwest (e.g.,
Rakita 2009; Stinson 2005) and Teotihuacan (e.g., Headrick 2007; Man-
zanilla 2002).
Archaeology provides time depth to the study of ancestors—on the
order of centuries or millennia—that is simply not available to ethnog-
raphers and shows how ancestor-oriented ritual and belief have changed,
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 43

prior to the influence of Western colonialism. Archaeology can also il-

luminate the practices of those people left out of historical narratives,
such as women and members of subaltern, rural, and lower-class groups.
Ancestor-related ritual and belief may be identified in the same ways that
archaeologists have proposed for the study of memory (Mills and Walker
2008; Van Dyke and Alcock 2003) and in reconstructing relationships
with the dead more generally (Parker Pearson 1993). Nevertheless, “ances-
tors” and “the dead” are not equivalent terms.
As we see it, research on ancestors in archaeology has been plagued
by two closely related problems. One is the expansive use of the term
“ancestor” to include the dead in general, as opposed to a select subset
of the deceased. The other is the failure to define terms. As discussed in
chapter 1, who may become an ancestor varies cross-culturally. While we
do not endorse a single, all-encompassing definition of “ancestor,” we do
advocate (1) the restricted use of the term to refer to a select category of
deceased and (2) a definition or description of what constitutes an ances-
tor within the particular region or society under study.

proof
In this chapter, we review the contributions of two landmark studies:
Living with the Ancestors (McAnany 1995) and Access to Origins (Helms
1998). McAnany and Helms moved the study of ancestors beyond the
processual insights of Saxe-Goldstein and laid the conceptual foundations
for more nuanced and ethnographically informed work of the twenty-first
century. We then review the ways in which archaeologists have identified
and studied ancient ancestors in China and Europe. Two other key world
regions, Mesoamerica and the Andes, are dealt with elsewhere in this vol-
ume (i.e., Hageman, Hill). Finally, we outline the archaeological evidence
that has been used to identify ancestors in the archaeological record and
to reconstruct the roles of ancestors in past societies. These lines of evi-
dence include funerary remains, archaeological features and landscapes,
representational imagery, and documentary sources.

Critical Concepts in the Archaeology of Ancestors

As an archaeological concept, ancestors have their roots in the study of

cemetery structure by processual archaeologists. Perhaps the most widely
known reference linking the deceased with access to resources was the
dissertation of Arthur Saxe (1970). Saxe evaluated eight cross-cultural
44 · Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

hypotheses regarding the social implications of mortuary practices against

ethnographic data from West Africa, New Guinea, and the Philippines.
The eighth hypothesis is the one most relevant to the archaeology of an-
cestors. In Hypothesis 8, Saxe stated that, to the degree that crucial but re-
stricted resources are accessible through lineal descent, social groups will
maintain formal disposal areas (cemeteries, charnel houses, or mortuary
structures) for their dead (1970:119). When a resource is scarce or access
is competitive, the dead will be buried in cemeteries spatially associated
with that resource. Thus burials, property, and inheritance are explicitly
linked in Saxe’s formulation.
Lynne Goldstein (1976, 1981) refined Saxe’s hypothesis, suggesting that
if a permanent bounded area for the dead exists, it likely represents a
corporate group with rights to resources handed down lineally. The more
formal and structured the disposal area, the greater the likelihood that the
cemetery was linked to a corporate group (Goldstein 1976:60–61, 1981).
The deceased members of the group were interred in formal, bounded
areas maintained by their descendants, who were therefore indebted to

proof
them for access to land and other resources.
Building on the foundations established by Saxe and Goldstein, archae-
ologists in the 1990s began to explore ancestors as an explicit archaeo-
logical concept (e.g., Antonaccio 1995; McAnany 1995; Morris 1991). Carla
Antonaccio sought the Greek origins of veneration of heroes and ances-
tors in Bronze and Iron Age cemeteries, where she documented reentry
and reuse of tombs as well as evidence of feasting and libations. She argued
that mythic heroes were a select subset of ancestors who were “remem-
bered, respected, feared, and invoked” (Antonaccio 1995:1). Veneration
occurred at altars, shrines, and tombs (see also de Polignac 1995:140–142;
Whitley 2001:152–153). The Greek record, like that of Neolithic and Shang
China, indicates that the form and frequency of interaction with ances-
tors were fluid phenomena that varied with social complexity, political
organization, and ideological concerns.
Ian Morris (1991) focused on the ideological components of the ma-
nipulation of the dead in his application of the Saxe-Goldstein hypothesis
to classical Greece and Rome. Citing Ahern (1973) and Glazier (1984), he
found no consistent relationship among bounded disposal areas for the
dead, ancestral rites, and land tenure. Instead, he argued that the dead
were manipulated to resolve conflicts over power and property, with mor-
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 45

tuary ritual providing an arena for negotiation (Morris 1991:156, 161–163).

Morris concluded that the Saxe-Goldstein hypothesis, while broadly ap-
plicable, simplified the relationship between formal cemeteries and prop-
erty, obscuring ideological motivations and political maneuvering. Links
among corporate groups, the deceased, property, and ideology have been
intensively explored in two landmark publications on ancestors: in Meso-
america by Patricia McAnany (1995) and in comparative perspective by
Mary Helms (1998).

Ancestors, Kinship, and Kingship

In Living with the Ancestors, McAnany (1995) examines the interrelated

phenomena of ancestor veneration, lineage, and kingship among the
Maya. Following Fortes, she distinguished ancestor veneration from a
“cult of the dead,” with ancestral spirits “standing for ritual validation of
lineage ancestry and for mystical intervention in human affairs” (Fortes
1987:72 cited in McAnany 1995:11). Ancestors are defined as “a select sub-

proof
group of a population who were venerated by name because particular
resource rights and obligations were inherited through them by their de-
scendants” (McAnany 1995:161). McAnany argued that ancestors played
key roles in the organization of society, rights to resources, and the devel-
opment and institutionalization of social inequalities. Ancestors defined
social group membership by descent and were linked to a specific locality
through the creation of a “genealogy of place” (1995:99). Lineages formed
the structural “glue” that held an intensive agricultural system together
(1995:84–86, 91–96); the lineage leader (“he of the burden of the land”)
(1995:117) organized production and collected tribute. Patrilineal ances-
tors were of greatest importance in determining lineage membership,
with matrilineal ancestors relevant only among the nobility (1995:24).
Regardless of socioeconomic status, ancestor veneration included
feasting, domestic rituals, bloodletting and sacrifice, and the creation of
material representations of progenitors. Among the nobility, texts and
iconography on pottery, wood, and stone were used to record the ritual
acts of ancestors and the genealogies of their descendants (McAnany
1995:31–49). Ancestors were buried either in residential contexts or in
nonresidential structures, such as pyramids. Such parallel practices are
reminiscent of Chinese veneration of ancestors in both the home and the
46 · Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

ancestral hall (Freedman 1958:85, 1979 [1970]). These locations facilitated

interaction between the Maya, their ancestors, and the cosmologically
charged places in which the latter were interred (McAnany 1995:50–52).
The genesis of Maya ancestor veneration was among Formative or Pre-
classic (1000 BC–AD 250) agrarian commoners (McAnany 1995:53). At
the site of K’axob, Belize, burial patterns shifted from extended to seated
or flexed with preferential interment in low buildings that were reopened
and renovated to deposit additional deceased, ornaments, and vessels.
These building episodes and ritual practices represent the “progressive
sacralization of place at K’axob” (1995:55). Refurbishing, repeated ritual
use, interment of the bodies of the deceased, and deposition of votive
objects are the “material residue of the intergenerational transmission
of resource entitlements” (1995:99) that created physical links between
the lineage and the land. Over time—centuries in some cases—lineage
members established property rights to “exclusionary tracts with inher-
ited entitlements” (1995:65). McAnany suggested that the Maya practice
of remodeling residential complexes is indicative of descent rights and the

proof
process of inheritance, such that stratigraphic sequences of burial, struc-
ture renovation, and dedicatory deposits reflected genealogical sequences
(1995:65–66, 161).
As in China, ancestors were the conceptual basis of social inequalities
within and between lineages. The interment of ancestors expressed the
principle of “first occupancy” and facilitated the development of large,
powerful lineages that dominated high-quality land at the expense of
smaller, weaker lineages (McAnany 1995:112–113). Inequalities within lin-
eages are reflected in residential architecture and in burials—similar to
the ways in which elaboration of ancestral halls and grave sites material-
ized differences between Chinese lineages.
McAnany argued that, from the Late Preclassic into the Classic (AD
250–900) period, ancestors were key to the transformation of the Low-
land Maya from a relatively egalitarian, agrarian society to one dominated
by divine kings. Ancestor veneration was appropriated by a few and sa-
cralized, emplaced, and politicized in order to sanction elite power and
authority. Evidence for this can be found in Classic Maya iconography
and texts. Agrarian images of inheritance and regeneration, often featur-
ing maize, appear in carved public monuments (Taube 2004:76). Clas-
sic texts describe elite bloodlines and marriages and often link the royal
line with mythic creators (McAnany 1995:127–130). Royal lineages thus
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 47

mobilized iconography and text, in addition to ritual practices in monu-

mental public shrines, to establish authority. Image, genealogy, ritual, and
place were all used to naturalize the relationship between ancestors and
political office.
In sum, ancestors—both royal and commoner—figured prominently in
the trajectory of ancient Maya society. This subset of the deceased linked
descendants with rights to agricultural land through ritual action and the
creation of sacred space. In so doing, inequalities within and between lin-
eages emerged, as indicated by placement of the deceased, burial furniture
marked with cosmologically significant imagery, and structure size and
quality. Later, elites co-opted practices and beliefs surrounding ancestors
to legitimize kingly power. They adapted agrarian imagery from com-
moner sources and structured domestic architecture and ritual practice
in ways that differed profoundly from earlier forms. Kingship is therefore
not “kinship writ large” (sensu Sanders and Webster 1988). Kings actually
worked at cross-purposes to lineages to “establish hegemony over kin-
ship” (McAnany 1995:143) by linking themselves to a divine moral order.

proof
Ancestors, Affines, and Aristocrats

Mary Helms dealt with many of the same issues that McAnany consid-
ered—ancestors and elites, property and authority, lineage and legiti-
mation—in an explicitly cross-cultural context. For Helms, ancestors,
aristocrats, and affines are all ontological “others”: aristocrats are “affinal
outsiders” and living ancestors (Helms 1998:9). Each embodies cosmo-
logical origins, inherent inequalities, and the potential to establish hier-
archies and institutionalize rights to labor and resources. Ancestors are
either “rather distant beings related to the [social group] in a context of
original or prior origins . . . or . . . specific named dead of the [social
group] who are remembered as having achieved exceptional socially sig-
nificant goals while still physically alive” (1998:35). Cross-culturally, what
is considered to be “socially significant” varies. Helms (1998:36) cited eth-
nographic work in Africa and elsewhere in identifying necessary—but
not sufficient—criteria for ancestorhood, such as successful parenthood,
high moral standards, status as firstborn, experience of a “good” death,
strength of character, and wisdom or esoteric knowledge.
Helms defined two types of ancestors: emergent and first principle.
Emergent ancestors are “intangible beings associated with past time rela-
48 · Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

tive to the house” (i.e., lineage). They are emergent in the sense that they
have “grown out” of the living membership of a lineage, a “temporal elab-
oration of the house” (Helms 1998:37–38). Emergent ancestors require
service and obedience, and in return they provide good fortune and abun-
dance for their descendants. Like some Chinese ancestors (Ahern 1973;
Otake 1980; Wolf 1974), emergent ancestors can cause misfortune for their
living descendants when ritual obligations are neglected. This paternal-
istic model of ancestor-descendant relations shares features with some
of the classic African ethnographies on ancestors (e.g., Fortes 1959, 1965;
Goody 1962).
The second form of ancestor refers to cosmological conditions of cre-
ation, or first principles. Similar to a founding ancestor (Kopytoff 1987;
McCall 1995), first principle ancestors are associated with primordial
origins; they may be immigrants from far away, like the “foreigners” de-
scribed by Cole and Middleton (2001), or live in some distant cosmologi-
cal locale. In some cases, places of origin may actually be located on the
landscape and sacralized (Helms 1998:38–39); they are often salient fea-

proof
tures, such as rivers, mountains, caves, and lakes (1998:77–79). In contrast
to emergent ancestors, who derive from lineage members, first-principle
ancestors precede the lineage temporally. First-principle ancestors are also
typically nurturing or bountiful, unlike the more capricious recently de-
ceased (1998:42). Helms links first principle ancestors with the emergence
of aristocracy; such ancestors provide aristocrats with privileged “access
to origins” that legitimate their authority. By co-opting cosmological ori-
gins, aristocrats set themselves apart from commoners. As members of
a superior social group that exists outside of and beyond the mundane,
aristocrats are, in effect, living ancestors relative to the populace at large
(Kopytoff 1971). In preindustrial societies, this model of social relations
is predicated on the widespread belief that hierarchy and inequality are
inherent in the structure of the cosmos (Helms 1998:95–99).
As cosmological others, aristocrats are distinguished by prescriptions
and taboos that simultaneously deny their ordinariness while highlight-
ing their qualitative superiority. These include freedom from manual la-
bor, sexual and dietary restrictions, untouchability, and sumptuary laws
(Helms 1998:109–120). As living ancestors, aristocrats stabilize their social
and cosmological positions by representing themselves as part of the per-
manent order of the universe. They project “tangible durability” and the
longevity of the lineage using heirlooms, skeletal remains, pelts, feathers,
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 49

bones, and teeth of select animals, and potent minerals, shells, and metals.
These items signify access to origins, and their accumulation enhances the
tangibility of living “ancestorness” (1998:164–166).
Both McAnany (1995) and Helms (1998) viewed ancestors as power-
ful social, economic, and cosmological agents who legitimize hierarchy
and link lineages to resources. McAnany focused on the relationship be-
tween ancestors and land claims, illustrating how ritual practice, caches,
shrines, and pyramid construction sacralize space and materialize prop-
erty claims. Among the nobility, human remains, texts, iconography, and
monumental tombs placed lineage members within a divine social order
that existed beyond the (mundane) bounds of kinship. Helms’s compara-
tive work complements McAnany’s case study through an exploration of
the mechanics of the divine social order upon which elites depend. In
her view, elites construct themselves as “living ancestors” by establish-
ing links to cosmological origins. Through the mobilization of durable
markers of “otherness,” elites claim divine sanction and stabilize emerg-
ing hierarchies. Helms’s distinction between emergent and first principle

proof
ancestors highlights the versatile nature of the concept, which permits
elites to mobilize lineage antecedents to serve multiple purposes. While
McAnany’s work outlined the historical particulars of Maya ancestor
veneration, Helms describes some of the markers of ancestor/otherness
that archaeologists worldwide may employ to identify ancestors or test
hypotheses. For Helms, certain rituals and objects possess “tangible du-
rability”; they “embody various mystical powers and, by their durability,
keep these powers available, controlled, and harnessed” (1998:165). Below,
we identify some of the artifacts, features, texts, and imagery that social
groups have used to convey ideas about ancestors, origins, and the pri-
mordial past.

Ancient Ancestors in China and Europe

The Archaeology of Ancestors in China

Anthropologists and historians working in China have produced some of

the most sophisticated studies of ancestor worship from any world region,
providing diachronic perspectives and detailing the ways in which ritual
practices vary across time and space (Rawson 1999; Thorp 1980). Archae-
ological evidence indicates that ancestor veneration in China developed
50 · Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

over several thousand years, beginning as a collective ritual among egali-

tarian groups during the Neolithic circa 4500 BCE (Liu 2000; Yao 2013)
and evolving into a highly institutionalized elite practice through the Late
Shang (1200–1045 BCE) (Keightley 2004; Nelson 2003) and Zhou (1045–
771 BCE) (Vogt 2012).
Liu Li analyzed burial patterns at several sites in the Yellow River valley,
focusing on sacrificial activities near burials. Liu (2000:157) considered a
general “cult of the dead” and formal ancestor veneration to be two forms
of funerary ritual focused on ancestors rather than qualitatively different
phenomena. At the site of Longgangsi (4500 BC), 168 burials were sur-
rounded by 150 ash pits filled with carbonized organics, presumably the
remains of sacrificial offerings. Liu (2000:138) interprets this as evidence
that collective rites conducted by one or more lineages were dedicated
both to individuals and to the deceased as a group. Collective secondary
burial had developed by the fifth millennium BC in some regions, which
Keightley (1998:780) sees as an extension of mortuary concerns beyond
death and indicative of a “commemorative cult of the dead.”

proof
During the succeeding Shijia phase of the Yangshao culture (4300–
4000 BCE), remains of males began to receive differential ritual elabo-
ration, likely in association with patrilocal residence. As Liu notes
(2000:144), women “were the first group to be alienated in mortuary
practices through which the dead were transformed into ancestors.” At
the cemetery of Yangshan in Qingha (2600–2300 BCE), associated with
the Majiayao culture, Liu identifies the veneration of selected dead based
on the contents of three tombs and their spatial association with sacrificial
pits. The men in these tombs were buried with drums—symbols of ritual
authority—and were honored with offerings. At Yangshan, individuals,
rather than groups, became the focus of veneration and, for the first time,
“religious and political authority [became] intertwined with the ancestral
cult” (Liu 2000:150).
Finally, the Chengzi cemetery (2500–2000 BC), associated with the
Longshan culture, exhibits clear evidence of social stratification. The
largest and most elaborate interments are fewest in number and spatially
distinct; they contain adult males and are associated with pits contain-
ing burned pig bones, ceramic vessels, and stone and bone objects. The
Chengzi burials link hierarchy with ancestor veneration, a pattern that
became institutionalized during the Late Shang period (Liu 2000:152–
157). At Chengzi, kin-based veneration of select prestigious ancestors
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 51

Figure 2.1. Bronze altar set of thirteen vessels used by Shang and Zhou elites to offer

proof
libations to ancestors. The set includes distinctive vessel forms, such as the tripodal
jue (second from left, with spout) and the long-stemmed gu (center, at base of the
altar). Used to warm and serve wine, the jue and gu are the most commonly encoun-
tered Shang ritual vessels. These vessels had ceramic counterparts that were used in
the graves of those of lower status (Campbell, this volume). See Chengyuan (1980)
and Thorp (1980) on bronze vessel forms. © Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no.
24.72.1–14), Munsey Fund, 1931.

is consistent with the model described by Fortes (1987) and McAnany

(1995); however, in Liu’s view (2000:157), Longshan-style ancestor wor-
ship represents a late and fully developed form of venerative ritual that
originated as early as 4500 BC in the collective rites at Longgangsi.
By the Late Shang period, inscriptions on oracle bones and bronzes
indicate that ancestor veneration had become a privileged practice and
legitimation strategy used by royalty and other elites (figure 2.1). The
elaborate rituals manifested elite efforts to avoid calamity and ensure
prosperity; they validated a particular worldview and the place of the
Shang within it (Allan 1991; Campbell, this volume; Keightley 2004:29;
see also Helms 1998:109–120 for a comparative perspective). As Keightley
(2001:186) has observed, the Shang were “craftsmen of ancestral order.”
Such order involved highly structured venerative and divinatory rituals
that reinforced elite hierarchies and emerging bureaucratic institutions
52 · Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

(Keightley 1998). Shang rulers accessed selected ancestors as individuals

through posthumous “temple names” (Chen 1996) and through offerings
at tombs (Allan 1991), which included wine, food, and human sacrifices
(Thorp 1980:56–57). Ancestorhood was achieved, as “certain dead were
assigned jurisdictions on the basis of their generational, gender, and
dynastic status” (Keightley 2004:27). These ancestors coexisted with an
older, undifferentiated, and depersonalized assemblage of the dead who
received offerings and appeals in a more general way.
The Chinese archaeological and historical evidence provide immense
time depth to the study of ancestor veneration. When combined with
recent ethnographic work, the record extends back some six millennia,
to 4500 BCE, when rites conducted in cemeteries honored the collec-
tive dead (Keightley 1998; Liu 2000; Yao 2013). Through time, venerative
rites were celebrated by ever smaller, more exclusive kin groups and were
dedicated to fewer and fewer deceased until, during the Late Shang and
Zhou, royalty devoted rites to a mere handful of named ancestors. The
early history of Chinese ancestor worship bears similarities to the Maya

proof
trajectory, in which private domestic ritual shifted to public arenas, and
small-scale rites became monumental performances (McAnany 1995). A
similar long-term trend is evident in the Andes (DeLeonardis and Lau
2004; Hastorf 2003; Lau 2008; Mantha 2009). As with the Shang, Zhou,
and Maya, ancestors and their veneration became resources that elites
used to “embody the potency and authority of origins” and establish their
“cosmological credentials” (Helms 1998:74). Chinese relations with the
ancestral dead were diverse and dynamic; beginning in the Neolithic, they
involved routine graveside sacrifices. During the Bronze Age, Shang and
Zhou ancestor ritual expanded to include formalized divinatory appeals
and bronze vessel displays in temple contexts as well as elaborate sacrifi-
cial offerings at elite tombs.

The Archaeology of Ancestors in Europe; or, Too Many Ancestors?

The Neolithic was a critical period for the development of ancient societ-
ies’ interest in ancestors. Like Liu in China, archaeologists in the United
Kingdom have suggested that the earliest ancestor-oriented rituals and
beliefs emerged in tandem with Neolithic shifts in the treatment of the
dead and engagement with the landscape beginning about 4000 BC. Since
the mid-1980s, British archaeologists (e.g., Bradley 1984) have implicated
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 53

ancestors in ritual practices, construction technologies, monuments and

tombs, and the enculturation of landscapes. John Barrett’s work (1988,
1990, 1994), in particular, has focused on how relationships between the
living, the dead, and the ancestors shifted from the Neolithic to Bronze
Age. During the Neolithic (4000–2500 BC), communion with ancestors
occurred at megalithic tombs; reentry and manipulation of human skel-
etal remains created “heavily reworked symbolic residues” that expressed
community values and materialized social distinctions (Barrett 1990:183).
As corporate monuments, tombs provided places where the remains of
ancestors could be used to structure and sanction relations among living
descendants. These practices declined between the third and second mil-
lennium BC in favor of individual burial. Instead of ongoing venerative
rites in which bodies were disarticulated and bones were arranged or re-
moved, Bronze Age mourners ended their interactions with the deceased
at interment (Barrett 1994).
Building upon Barrett’s work, Julian Thomas (1988, 1996) situated Neo-
lithic human remains within the performative context of the tomb. He

proof
suggested that identity, power, and authority were constituted through
access to and enaction of rituals such as feasting, skeletal disarticulation,
and body part circulation. Deposition and relocation of human remains
represented control over the “symbolic universe” of the tomb (Thomas
1990:175). Physical closeness to the ancestors was transformed into social
authority and legitimized emerging inequalities (Thomas 1988:556–557).
The corpses themselves were critical to Neolithic ritual practice. Disartic-
ulation and manipulation of remains dissolved the person and re-created
him or her as an ancestor. These transformations entered bones into cir-
culation as inalienable possessions; they were then moved, exchanged,
and deposited across the landscape (Thomas 2000:662). Lucas (1996)
developed some of these ideas, arguing that bones, bearing ancestral po-
tency, were part of a gift-based ritual economy in Late Neolithic York-
shire. Through the process of “ancestralisation,” ties with the living were
severed as the bodies of selected dead were disarticulated and processed
within chambered tombs. The eventual removal of these bones from the
tomb completed the transition of the deceased into an ancestor and inte-
grated him or her into a new set of social relationships and obligations.
The shift to single, primary burial stopped this “flow” of human
bodily substances, creating ancestors “fixed in space and time” (Thomas
2000:664–665). Thomas argues that the new burial practices highlighted
54 · Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

specific ancestors in a Late Neolithic context in which personal identity

was constituted less through group affiliation than through life history
and descent. Abandonment of communal tombs and the end of the circu-
lation of ancestors’ bones reflected a new relationship with the dead. De-
scendants emphasized burial ritual, rather than ongoing veneration, and
identified with a line of known ancestors who could be precisely located.
Many of the ideas developed by Barrett, Thomas, and others appeared
in the burgeoning literature on the phenomenology of landscape in the
1990s. Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments, cemeteries, and landscapes
were (re)interpreted in terms of “ancestral geographies” (Edmonds 1999).
Stonehenge and Avebury, for example, figured as lithicized realms of the
ancestral dead (Parker Pearson and Ramilisonina 1998). Materials such as
stone were conceptualized in structural terms, as analogous to the bones
of ancestors; structures, axes, and ceramic temper were thus imbued with
“symbolic and ancestral significance” (Parker Pearson 2000:208). Mythic
places where ancestors had emerged, imprinted themselves, or petrified
dotted the Neolithic landscape (Tilley 1994; Tilley and Bennett 2001),

proof
prompting James Whitley to ask whether there were “too many ancestors”
in British prehistory. He observed that “ancestors are everywhere, and
everything is ancestral” (Whitley 2002:122), arguing that ancestors had
become the default explanation for diverse phenomena without sufficient
consideration of alternatives (cf. Whittle et al. 2007). He attributed the
“obsession” with Neolithic ancestors (2002:121) in part to inappropriate
and implicit African, Asian, and Malagasy analogies. In Whitley’s view,
appropriation and reuse of monuments—often associated with ancestor
veneration—may be explained just as effectively through reference to be-
liefs about mythic beings, earlier races, gods, or heroes. His point was
that “the universal ancestor has gone from being a suggestion to becom-
ing an orthodoxy without [suffering] the indignity of being treated as a
mere hypothesis” (2002:119). Whitley (2002:121–122) made three points
critical to the study of ancient ancestors: (1) “ancestor” must be defined,
(2) ancestorhood is an achieved status reserved for the select dead, (3)
and burial and venerative rites are often both conceptually and spatially
distinct; therefore, rituals conducted at the site of interment may not rep-
resent ancestor worship.
Our review of the ethnographic literature in chapter 1 strongly sup-
ports Whitley’s three assertions, as do the studies by McAnany (1995) and
Helms (1998). Like Whitley, we advocate definition of the term “ancestor”
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 55

and its restricted use, given the overwhelming evidence that who is an
ancestor varies in time and space.

Archaeological Lines of Evidence for Ancestors

Archaeological evidence for ancestors generally involves materializing re-

lations with selected dead through ritual and deployment of their physical
remains. The bones and body parts of ancestors thus function as “natu-
ral symbols” (Douglas 1996) of the time depth and durability of lineage
claims to land and resources. Among the Maya, as McAnany (1995) dem-
onstrated, such durability was expressed through genealogies, iconogra-
phy, ritual practice, monumental architecture, and spatial relationships.
The intimate bond between ancestors and the land may be manifested
in archaeological features, such as shrines or structured deposits, and in
landscape modifications that naturalize and reify relationships between
the living and the dead. Ancestors themselves may be represented on
painted pottery, in rock art, or in sculptural form. Finally, ethnohistories,

proof
such as the reports of Spanish chroniclers, provide firsthand accounts of
ancestors in action and the rituals that sustained them. Arguments for
ancestors are most effective when multiple lines of evidence are employed.
The forms of material culture that archaeologists have used to identify
ancient ancestors include
1. mortuary remains, such as graves, burial furniture, bodies, and
body parts
2. shrines, features, and structured deposits
3. architecture, monuments, and enculturated landscapes
4. symbols, images, and essences
5. documentary sources, especially ethnohistories
Below, we distinguish between categories of material culture and archaeo-
logical features for heuristic purposes; however, in practice, these catego-
ries overlap. For example, a feature, such as a human interment, may also
be part of a monument and situated meaningfully upon the landscape.

Mortuary Remains

Preservation of the entire body, through mummification, as among

the Inca, creates an enduring ancestral presence and material focus for
56 · Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

memorial practices at multiple scales. Individual body parts, especially

skulls, may fulfill similar functions when recovered from primary burial
contexts, curated, and displayed (Armit 2012; Arnold and Hastorf 2008;
Chacon and Dye 2007; Duncan and Hofling 2011; Hill 2006; Houston et
al. 2006; Needham 1976; Walter et al. 2004; Wright 1988). As mnemonic
devices, bones may recall individual ancestors or, when deposited in os-
suaries or other collective contexts, refer to lineage ancestors in more gen-
eral and generic terms.
Evidence of curation and manipulation of the remains of the de-
ceased is suggestive of ancestor-focused ritual referencing origins (Helms
1998:170–171), as is the practice of reopening or reentering tombs (An-
tonaccio 1995), what Isbell (1997:139) has termed the “open sepulcher.”
The provision of food offerings or libations following interment may also
be indicative of ancestor ritual. However, such rites must be distinguished
from funerary ritual itself. The mere provision of offerings is insufficient
evidence of ancestor ritual, since the inclusion of food or beverages is
a common practice cross-culturally when interring or disposing of the

proof
dead. Fortes’s emphasis on “ritual service and tendance” (1965:124) is es-
pecially relevant, as this facet of ancestor worship involves ongoing pat-
terned actions discernible archaeologically. Such service may be an ex-
clusive practice associated with specific graves (Liu 2000) or be directed
toward a larger subset of the deceased.
Rakita (2009:150) explored the curation of human bone at Casas
Grandes, northern Mexico. He suggested that curation extends the liminal
period between primary and secondary burial, enabling kin to develop
and maintain their relationships with these powerful “others.” Among
elites, the remains of ancestors and their ritual manipulation provided
powerful symbols of a connection with cosmological forces. Rakita’s work
highlighted the importance of liminality in ancestor ritual and, following
Hertz (1960), suggested that the condition of the body and its parts re-
flect the condition of the soul and mourners (see also Rakita and Buikstra
2005).
Nineteenth-century funerals of Maori chiefs also involved the display
of elite ancestors’ bones that had been polished and kept in baskets as sa-
cred relics (Fletcher 2000:24). Human bones are similarly potent among
the Kwaio of the Solomons, where the skulls of some deceased men were
exhumed several months after death, adorned with shell rings, and lashed
with vines (Walter et al. 2004). The skulls are curated in ancestor shrines,
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 57

the ancestral “skull house,” or deposited in caves and fissures associated

with specific kin groups (Keesing 1982:157, 175). Pig sacrifices take place
at the shrines on altar-like “ovenstones.” The arrangement of ovenstones
constitutes a “physical map of the ancestral universe of a particular de-
scent group” (1982:87). At a regional scale, “founding” shrines reify the
establishment of territory; branch shrines mark subsequent settlements.
Although human bone is an especially potent material expression of
ancestorhood, human remains themselves are neither necessary nor suf-
ficient evidence of venerative beliefs and rituals. The Inca, for example,
preferred to direct appeals and offerings to ancestors in the form of mum-
mies; however, when the actual bodies of the deceased were unavailable,
they employed proxy representations. Multiple cross-cultural examples
of ancestors in lithified form (Lau 2008; MacCormack 1991:191–193) also
demonstrate that absence of human remains is not necessarily absence of
ancestors.

Shrines, Features, and Structured Deposits

proof
Venerative rites, whether directed at the skeletal remains of an ancestor,
an effigy, or some other object representing the deceased, may produce
“structured deposits” (Bradley 2000; Hill 1995, 1996), like the spatially
salient Kwaio shrines. Such deposits are patterned accumulations of ritual
detritus of “service and tendance”; they are features usually associated
with specific elements of the human skeleton or selected animal taxa, soils
(e.g., Charles et al. 2004; Pauketat 2008), distinctive configurations of ar-
tifacts (e.g., Stahl 2008; Walter et al. 2004) representing offerings, or the
residue of sacrifice, libations, or feasts (e.g., Dietler and Hayden 2001; Lau
2002; Nelson 2003). Such features may nevertheless be difficult to identify
archaeologically for several reasons. First, the materials they contain may
be indistinguishable from domestic refuse, as those species or artifacts
used as offerings or to feast the ancestors may overlap with foods and
objects in routine or daily use. Second, the remains of ritual acts, such as
animal sacrifice, may be consumed or dispersed and so disappear from
the record (Insoll 2007b). Third, deposits or features, such as shrines, may
be located beyond the bounds of camps, settlements, or cemeteries and
take apparently “natural” forms, such a fissures or groves.
Rather than attempting to define what a “shrine” is a priori, we ad-
vocate an emic perspective on what constitutes a shrine. Ethnographic
58 · Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

accounts have shown that the venerative locus may be considered a place
of ancestral residence and, at the same time, an instantiation of the ances-
tor. Shrines may mark the establishment of new territory (Keesing 1982)
or embody the entire history of a lineage (Kuba and Lentz 2002). As Mid-
dleton (1960) has demonstrated for the Lugbara, shrine forms are highly
diverse and may be dedicated to ancestors who are matrilineal, patrilineal,
apical, or childless. Shrines may be pots, effigies, mounds, monumental
edifices, or natural objects, such as trees, which do not fit comfortably
within any single category of archaeological evidence (Mather, this vol-
ume). As Insoll (2007b:329) has observed among the Tallensi, shrines ex-
ist “in a bewildering range of configurations.”
Shrines to different types of ancestors—matrilineal versus patrilineal,
for example—may be distinguished by the sort of offerings provided and
by location; they may be constructed under granaries, under verandas, or
within the hedges of the family compound. Structurally, shrines may be
domestic affairs incorporating the bones of the deceased (Hageman, this
volume; McAnany 1995:100–101); small, “cocoon-like” structures or flat

proof
stones (Middleton 1960:52); wooden effigies eaten by termites (Goody
1962:389); or concentrations of specific objects, such a gun flints, beads,
and python bones, beyond the bounds of habitation sites (Stahl 2008).
The Lugbara terms for shrines include the words for “house” or “ter-
ritory” (Middleton 1960: 54). The idea of the shrine as house is a critical
point since, as Helms notes (1998:15), “house” may refer simultaneously to
a physical structure and, following Lévi-Strauss (1987), to a social entity
or corporate group. The house is therefore both material and immaterial,
perpetuated physically through land, structures, and objects and concep-
tually through inheritance of its name, wealth, and entitlements (Helms
1998:15). As discussed above, Fortes (1949:329, 1965:128–129, 1976:7) sug-
gested that the “reincorporation” of the deceased into the social group
as an ancestor was made tangible to the living through shrines, which
symbolized the unity and corporate identity of lineage members (Fortes
1945:55). In other words, conceptualizing the shrine as a house conveys
ideas about both kinship and physical and spatial proximity. Shrines and
similar features are therefore highly salient in terms of their structure,
location, and contents, though they may not be immediately recognizable
as ritual loci.
For example, among the Tallensi, shrines may be landscape features,
such as a grove of trees. Such trees appear to be “natural” spaces, but are
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 59

actually cosmologically potent places sacralized through sacrifice, prayer,

and offerings. Prohibitions regulate their use, making them analogous to
anthropogenic forests. A Tallensi shrine may also be a small household
feature, such as a pot containing artifacts associated with a deceased fam-
ily member (Insoll 2007a:141). In one abandoned house, Insoll (2008:390)
found a paternal shrine—a pot partially embedded in the mud platform
of the building containing objects associated with the life of the deceased,
including coins, cowry shells, blue plastic twine, a razor blade holder, a
copper bell, bracelets, and a polished pebble. Such objects assist in the
negotiation of a descendant’s destiny through the ancestors (2008:386)
and demonstrate that the contents of structured deposits may be as varied
as the form of the feature itself.
Animal remains, like human remains, are common components of
structured deposits. They may be efficacious animal parts or represent
sacrificial offerings or the remains of a feast. Assemblages may include
salient wild taxa, such as python (Stahl 2008) or red deer (Sharples 2000),
or domesticates familiar as foodstuffs. Fortes (1945:98) noted that “the

proof
selection of the [sacrificial] animal depends on a multiplicity of factors,
such as the relative importance of the shrine at which it is offered, the im-
portance of the occasion, the status of the suppliant, or the group offering
the sacrifice.” Distinctions between wild and domestic taxa appear to be
similarly significant. Ancestors in Shang China (Liu 2000) and Oceania
(Keesing 1970, 1982) preferred pigs, while Andean ancestors favored lla-
mas (Lau 2002). Red deer, however, may have been the desired feast food
in Neolithic Orkney, amid social transformations that fundamentally al-
tered human engagement with animals and the landscape (Jones 1998;
Jones and Richards 2003; Sharples 2000).
Finally, the disproportionate presence of specific vessel forms found
in association with shrine or burial features is consistent with making of-
ferings to or feasting ancestors. Hageman (2004), for example, found that
middens associated with rural residences containing shrines in north-
western Belize had a dramatically higher frequency of food preparation
and serving vessels than middens in non-shrine, domestic contexts. Du-
lanto (2002) found the highest counts of small decorated bottles amid
offering and burial pits under patios at Pampa Chica, Peru. In the Central
Andes, Lau (2002) argued that feasting of ancestors occurred in enclo-
sures associated with decorated bowls, bone serving utensils, and camelid
remains. Frequencies of these materials differed significantly from those
60 · Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

in other contexts, indicating their celebratory function. Festal activities

also served to reinforce group solidarity, as all who participate are osten-
sibly descended from or affinally related to those being honored.
In Neolithic China, pit features containing burned pig remains and
objects made of stone and bone, in association with specific tombs, are
indicative of routine tendance of select dead (Liu 2000). During the suc-
ceeding Shang and Zhou dynasties, offerings and consumption of food
and drink produced deposits above the burial chamber as well as within
it. As Keightley has noted, “The dead are notoriously thirsty” (1998:789–
790); they prefer to drink from elaborate bronze vessels like the jue and
gu (figure 2.1) (Allan 1991; Keightley 2001; Rawson 1999). Many distinctive
vessel forms had earthenware counterparts and were in use for hundreds
of years (Chengyuan 1980), indicating how durable ancestral rites were,
despite the changing political and social landscapes of the Bronze Age.
As these examples have shown, shrines and other archaeological fea-
tures exist within larger spatial and cosmological contexts. In Neolithic
and Shang China, offering pits illustrate the importance of proximity

proof
to the remains of the dead. Elsewhere, access to ancestors may require
specific architectural forms or monuments (Isbell 1997) or involve the
creation or alteration of landscapes. Often these constructions house the
dead and facilitate communication with them, but in some cases, the
presence of ancestors on the landscape is metaphorical in nature.

Architecture, Monuments, and Enculturated Landscapes

Like the patterning associated with periodic ritual activities at shrines, the
significance of the broader spatial context of ancestorhood has become
implicit in the archaeological understanding of the phenomenon (Charles
and Buikstra 2002; Parker Pearson 1993). The ancestral presence is high-
lighted through the erection of monumental tombs and manipulation of
landscape features. Middleton (1960:67), for example, noted that some
Lugbara shrines are actually “burial trees”—fig trees planted at the graves
of important men and women with stones set beneath them. Over several
generations, the trees accumulate and become “conspicuous landmarks;
their distribution on the open Lugbara landscape shows the past of the
lineages dispersed across it and gives a visible sign of a single tradition of
development from the founders to the present members” (1960:67).
Mounds, too, may serve to mark territories and establish the antiquity
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 61

of lineages. For example, work by Arnold (2002) and Murray (1995, this
volume) has documented a network of spatial relationships at Iron Age
sites in Germany where La Tène people appropriated earlier Hallstatt
burial mounds. They buried their dead within Hallstatt tumuli and con-
structed rectangular enclosures for corporate feasting nearby. Through
these practices, La Tène situated themselves amid a “landscape of ances-
tors” and accessed the cosmological power that resided within it (for addi-
tional examples, see Fontijn 1996; Roymans 1995; Roymans and Kortland
1999). As Weiss-Krejci (this volume) demonstrates, the creation of fictive
ancestral kinship-by-association with mounds or monuments is an en-
during sociopolitical strategy.
The monumental tombs of the Merina of Madagascar are perhaps the
best ethnographic example of the use of architecture in tandem with hu-
man remains to communicate corporate property rights. Bloch’s classic
work (1971) describes the famadihana ritual, in which a monumental tomb
is reopened and the corpses within are manipulated and rearranged. The
ritual dramatizes the transition of the deceased from individuals into an

proof
ancestral collective, while the tomb and its contents represent the ideal of
descent-group unity. Crossland’s (2001) work in the Andratsay region of
Madagascar links Bloch’s insights to the archaeological record; she argues
that the tombs and their locations on the landscape materialize a network
of beliefs and practices through which social identity is constructed and
maintained. The tombs themselves create an impression of permanence
and continuity; their altitudinal relationships convey information about
social hierarchies. The oldest and “most senior” tombs (i.e., those of the
most powerful lineages) are located on the highest hilltops (Crossland
2001:833). Crossland suggests that in the nineteenth century, these ances-
tral landscapes—including tomb locations—were manipulated to estab-
lish the legitimacy of the emerging Merina state.
Collective tombs in Madagascar have served as analogs for the interpre-
tation of Neolithic monuments in Britain where, it has been suggested, the
intimate “co-presence of stones and ancestors [is] a structuring principle”
(Parker Pearson and Ramilisonina 1998:310). Barrett (1990:182) cited the
Merina tombs in his interpretation of megaliths. He argued that the con-
struction of monuments was critical to the creation of Neolithic society.
The tombs and their use in venerative and burial rites established mem-
bership in social groups and distinguished members from “others” (sensu
Helms 1998). Emphasis was on exclusivity since, as Turner (1974:185) has
62 · Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

observed, ancestral cults “tend to represent crucial power divisions and

classificatory distinctions within and among politically discrete groups.”
In Barrett’s view (1990), Neolithic societies in Britain employed monu-
mentality and landscape to build a spatial focus for the community, an
arena in which the living and the ancestors interacted.
Relationships among ancestors, monuments, and landscape have also
been explored in the Americas; interpretations often parallel those ad-
vanced for the British Neolithic. The stone chullpas of the Andean region,
for example, were highly visible sites of interment and veneration that
simultaneously materialized social and territorial boundaries (Isbell 1997;
Mantha 2009; Nielsen 2008). Hopewell and Mississippian mounds and
henges may have played similarly complex roles in North American soci-
eties, where their location, construction, and deposition commemorated
the ancestral dead and “sedimented” memory (Pauketat 2008:77; see also
Buikstra and Charles 1999; Charles and Buikstra 2002; Pauketat and Alt
2003).

proof
Symbols, Images, and Essences

Ancestors may be represented in two- or three-dimensional form; sym-

bolized by some class of artifact, such as a pot or tablet; or embodied by
a technological process. The distinction between an object as ancestor
and an object representing an ancestor may be fluid or nonexistent. Some
ancestor “objects” were in fact ontological subjects, possessing agency and
personhood, animacy and generative capacity (Lau 2008). Given these
complex issues, we make no clear distinctions here among those forms of
material culture that are understood to be ancestors, those that represent
or embody ancestors, and those that contain some fundamental essence of
the ancestor. Examples of ancestors as subjects and objects illustrate this
categorical complexity.
As discussed above, bodies and body parts, especially the skull, may be
understood to be ancestors, as among the Inca, where mummies of rul-
ers were conceptual subjects capable of communicating, celebrating, and
consuming. Not all ancestors existed in human form. Fortes observed that
“every Tallensi knows that these crocodiles are the incarnation of impor-
tant clan ancestors. . . . To kill one of these is like killing a person” (Fortes
1987:249 [1973]). Perhaps more accurately, it is not like killing a person,
it is killing a person—a person in crocodile form. The idea that ancestors
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 63

exist as animals (Jones and Richards 2003) begs a reexamination of thou-

sands of animal burials worldwide; we suspect that many animals buried
“like” humans were actually considered to be persons themselves (Hill
2013); some of them may have been ancestors.
More commonly, ancestors are represented by some two-dimensional
image or three-dimensional object. Ancestor or “spirit” tablets are per-
haps the best known material embodiment of ancestors (figure 2.2). Such
tablets have been used in China (Addison 1924; Hsu 1948; Watson and
Rawski 1988), Japan (Smith 1974), and Korea (Janelli and Janelli 1982; Kyu
1984). They were usually made of wood or paper and contained the name
of the deceased. As objects of veneration, they were erected in shrines
within the home or ancestral hall. Within the last fifty years, photographs
have begun to replace the more traditional tablets (Suzuki 2013).
Among the Nayar of the Malabar coast of India, representations of
ancestors made of wood or stone are erected in the inner courtyard of
the house (Raman Manon 1920). The Dagara (i.e., LoDagaa) of Ghana
carved bamboo rods in anthropomorphic form (Goody 1962:224–225,

proof
plate 213), similar to the wooden shrine figurines of the Moba of Ghana
and Togo (Kreamer 1987). On Irian Jaya, Indonesia, Kamoro anthropo-
morphic ancestor boards, or yamate, were made of carved wood. They
honored recently deceased individuals and were sometimes used to adorn
the prows of boats (Kjellgren 2007:37; Smidt 2003; Zee 2009). A final ex-
ample of ancestors in material form are the carved and painted posts,
panels, and lintels found in Maori meetinghouses in New Zealand (Neich
2001; Salmond 1976). Through construction and use of the house, descent
groups “symbolize their unity and . . . distinction from other subtribes”
(Meijl 1993:205). The meetinghouses themselves are named after famous
ancestors, and their structure reproduces the ancestral body. Progression
through the house is likened to movement through time from the earliest
ancestor at the back, along the walls where his descendants are carved, to
the front, where the recently deceased are represented (Meijl 1993).
Perhaps the best archaeological evidence for ancestors as objects in
North America comes in the form of anthropomorphic stone statuary
from Mississippian sites (figure 2.3). Dozens of such sculptures have
been identified, representing men and women in stylized kneeling poses
(Smith and Miller 2009). Following Waring (1968:62) and Brown (1985),
Knight (1986) has suggested that the statuary functioned as sacra in a
cult of “aristocratic” ancestors. Veneration of the ancestors underpinned
 proof

Figure 2.2. Twenty-one ancestors with spirit tablet. The inscription reads, “The ancestral tab-
let of the honorable Madame Wu, the first wife.” The tablet is visible to the left of the central
figure. Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). Ink on paper; artist unknown. © Metropolitan Museum of
Art (acc. no. 69.100); gift of Mrs. F. L. Hough, 1969.
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 65

Figure 2.3. Missis-

sippian sandstone
sculpture, probably
representing a chiefly
ancestor. This is one
of a male and female
pair recovered in
1895 from the Duck
River region, Ten-
nessee; 67 × 36 × 27
cm. See Smith and
Miller (2009) for
discussion of Mis-

proof
sissippian ancestors.
© Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art (acc. no.
1979.206.476); Mi-
chael C. Rockefeller
Memorial Collection.
Bequest of Nelson A.
Rockefeller.

chiefly power, possibly by facilitating exclusive claims to ancestry (Brown

1997:467; see also Emerson 1997:233–241). Another possibility is that the
sculptures actually were the ancestors or were imbued with their essence.
Brown (1985:105) notes that they were cared for scrupulously, in some
cases interred in their own chests or graves. Contemporary accounts in-
dicate that their destruction was a desecratory practice in warfare.
George Lau (2008) has described several material forms of ancestors
in the Andes, most notably in his study of anthropomorphic Recuay
sculpture that, like other effigies, facilitated physical interaction between
the living and the dead. At the site of Chinchawas, Lau (2002:297) docu-
mented stone monoliths depicting anthropomorphs in “conventionalized
poses reminiscent of mummy bundles and positions.” The sculptures were
66 · Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

associated with tombs that had evidence of reentry and postmortem ven-
erative ritual. Their purpose, he suggests, was to “create sacred spaces in
which esteemed lithified individuals were incorporated permanently as
observers and participants” (Lau 2008:1035).
Mabry (2003), in a thorough discussion of Near Eastern ancestors,
suggests that Neolithic figurines were used in household venerative ritu-
als to underscore spatial and temporal continuity, reference origins, and
highlight more distant social ties as communities grew. Mabry’s study is
notable for a number of reasons, including his attention to context, dia-
chronic patterns, and recognition that multiple categories of ancestors
may have been represented by figurines. He argues that while public ritu-
als may have affirmed common ancestry and integrated multiple lineages,
ceramic figurines used in female-focused household rites operated at the
scale of the lineage on a more routine basis.
Representations of ancestors, such as female figurines (Mabry 2003) or
Recuay monoliths (Lau 2002), often take anthropomorphic form; how-
ever, ancestors may also appear as objects or processes that bear no obvi-

proof
ous similarity to the human body. As Mather (this volume) illustrates,
shrines often blur the line between signifier and signified; that is, the
shrine erected to an ancestor may also be understood to be the ancestor.
Similarly, ancestral essences may be implicated in productive or repro-
ductive activities. Among the Fipa of western Tanzania, the iron smelting
process involves the transformation of the furnace into a fecund woman
through the use of certain tree species—associated with ancestors—as fuel
(Schmidt 2009:277–278). The successful transformation of an inert object
into an agential subject within the female body of the furnace indicates
the approval of the ancestors and ensures economic and reproductive
prosperity. Mike Parker Pearson (2002:156) also sees the involvement of
ancestors in transformative processes, suggesting that metaphorical shifts
from wood to stone on the Neolithic landscape paralleled the transition
of the corpse from flesh to bone. In his view, stone circles represented the
permanency and durability of an ancestral social order; the subsequent
technological shift to metalworking and single burial thus represented a
change in Neolithic ideas about death, being, and time.
Metaphorical ancestors may be present in clay, chalk, or stone, often
considered conceptually equivalent to bone (Boivin 2004:7), or embodied
in wood, ceramic, or lithic form. In societies with relational ontologies,
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 67

in which things are invested with animacy, sentience Bradley, or person-

hood, stone sculptures—such as the Recuay andesite monoliths or Missis-
sippian statues—may be ancestors themselves. In the Andes (Dean 2010)
and in Aboriginal Australia (Taçon 1991), stone outcroppings and other
landscape features were—and still are—considered to be the remains
of ancient people or mythic ancestors. In these cases, as Parker Pearson
(2004; Parker Pearson and Ramilisonina 1998) has argued for the British
Neolithic, the medium is meaningful. While stone conveys ideas about
durability, permanence, and antiquity, more mobile, plastic, or transi-
tory forms, such as the wooden figures consumed by termites used by the
Dagara (Goody 1962:389), indicate that the revered dead could also be
impermanent entities, lasting only as long as their physical form.

Documentary Sources

Ethnohistoric documents represent a final line of evidence for ancestor

beliefs and veneration in the past. Such documents are best used in tan-

proof
dem with contextual and artifactual evidence and recognition of the usual
caveats that pertain to sources written by Western observers.
Bishop Diego de Landa’s sixteenth-century Relación de las Cosas de Yu-
catán provides one of the most complete accounts of contact era Maya re-
ligion as practiced in Mexico. Landa noted the emphasis the Maya placed
on knowing their family origins, observing that genealogy was “one of
their sciences.” Further, the Maya “were proud of the men who have been
distinguished in their families” (Tozzer 1941:98). While such observations
are general in nature, they provide context for accounts of Maya funerary
practices, several of which have archaeological referents. Among the more
prominent Maya, leaders of lineages were afforded special burial treat-
ment. A portion of the body was burned, and the ashes were placed inside
the head of a wooden statue. Skin from the back of the head was placed
on the back of the statue. Along with other “idols,” the statue was placed
in the oratorio (shrine) of the house (McAnany 1995; Hageman, this vol-
ume) and the body interred within (Tozzer 1941:131). These idols were
held in “very great reverence and respect.” On festival days, they received
offerings of food (Tozzer 1941:131). A 1562 account described “idols” dis-
covered in a cave near Maní, Yucatán, along with decorated human skulls
(Farriss 1984:290–291; Scholes and Adams 1938:24–31; Scholes and Roys
68 · Erica Hill and Jon B. Hageman

1938:585–620). Such “idols” were reportedly worshipped “so that it would

rain and that [the idols] would give them much corn and so that they
would kill many deer” (Clendinnen 1987:73).
Among the best known ethnohistoric accounts of ancestors in the
Americas are those of Spanish chroniclers describing Inca beliefs and rit-
uals. Bernabe Cobo (1979:31), for example, reported that the Inca “show
more concern for the place they were to be put after death than for the
dwelling in which they lived.” He also described the preservation of the
deceased Inca ruler, noting that “the body was handed down to the most
prominent members of the family” (1979:111). In the same document,
Cobo noted that images of the deceased were venerated and that some
ancestors were believed to have turned to stone. As in the Maya region,
accounts by Spanish officials charged with extirpating idolatry described
many beliefs and practices related to ancestor veneration. The Huarochirí
Manuscript, for example, written around 1600 in Quechua, records the
veneration of proxy figurines in place of mummies (Salomon and Urioste
1991:§319). The same source identifies social groups with specific locations

proof
of the dead and describes the dancing and feasting of masks represent-
ing ancestors (1991:§155, §321–323). Such accounts suggest that Andean
ancestors were manifest in multiple forms, only some of which were rec-
ognizable as human remains.

Conclusions

Some of the most convincing arguments for the existence of ancient an-
cestors are those that effectively mobilize multiple lines of evidence. Lau
(2002), for example, employed ceramic, faunal, iconographic, burial, and
architectural evidence in his analysis of Recuay materials at Chinchawas.
Similarly, Thomas (2000) integrated tomb architecture, human remains,
and spatial evidence to suggest that Neolithic monuments functioned as
arenas for ancestor-focused ritual.
While the conceptual depth and spatial breadth that currently exist in
the archaeological study of ancestors provided a plethora of approaches
and examples, the failure to define terms remains a problem. Using “an-
cestors” as a synonym for the dead in general is both imprecise and con-
fusing, doing little to advance the study of either. Contributors to this
volume define ancestors in multiple ways and employ multiple lines of ev-
idence to argue for their existence. The mutable nature of ancestors—their
 The Archaeology of Ancestors · 69

flexible adaptation to the demands of time and place—make them valu-

able tools to address issues of authority, land tenure, descent, and iden-
tity in complex societies. This mutability explains both their persistence
through time and their broad distribution across the world.
Archaeologists have yet to thoroughly explore the origins of ancestors;
role(s) that ancestors play in small-scale and semi-sedentary societies;
how ancestorhood is gendered; the division of labor in ancestor venera-
tion; and the differential scale and distribution of ancestor veneration
in hierarchical societies. These questions suggest that the archaeological
study of ancestors has a very productive future.

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