A bioarchaeological approach to prehistoric cemetery populations from western and central Greek Macedonia.

The osteological material under study consists of 510 skeletal remains dating
from the Early Neolithic (6000 BC) to the Early Iron Age (1100-700 BC). It comes
from nine different cemeteries and burial locations extending from the coastal to the
inland areas of the study region.
The current thesis attempts to explore two major issues: 1) the reconstruction of
aspects of life history and 2) the treatment and manipulation of the deceased as revealed
by the human skeletal remains.
With regard to the former, the investigation of demographic parameters, patterns
of health and oral status as well as diet have been considered. In short, local conditions
defined by environmental and social constraints probably affected the general quality of
life reconstructed for the study populations. There is an overall tendency however,
towards declining levels of health and oral status in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age
populations, while certain assemblages provide high levels of infant and child mortality,
possibly associated with a type of anaemia. There is also a substantial involvement of
the upper skeleton in work patterns, possibly related to activities such as food
acquisition, processing and preparation. Meanwhile, the evidence for dietary patterns
from the NeolithiclEarly Bronze Ages to the Late BronzelEarly Iron Ages is consistent
with an overall shift from a high reliance on meat consumption to a diet bas<:don
carbohydrate foodstuffs.
The evaluation of the manipulation of the deceased, alongside the evidence for
mortuary differentiation through time, reveals a striking transformation from the
practice of single inhumations in the Early Bronze Age to multiple/secondary burials in
the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age assemblages, suggesting a shift in emphasis from
individual to lineage-group identity.
Furthermore, the integration of biological inferences with the evidence of
mortuary behaviour provides further insights into sex roles and the position of
subadults, otherwise invisible, in the living community.