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The Bronze Age Demography of Crete and Greece—A Note1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Paul Halstead
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Extract

One of the specialist contributions often appended to an archaeological report is the analysis of human skeletal material. Such an analysis is rarely of sufficient interest to be included in the main report, largely because the excavator has not set pertinent and soluble problems for the analyst. The time of specialists has been wasted measuring morphological minutiae in a vain attempt to track down quasi-tribal entities in which archaeologists no longer believe. The assessment of the age and sex of a skeleton, however, follows a firm methodology, is far less time-consuming, and yields relevant information.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 72 , November 1977 , pp. 107 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1977

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References

2 e.g. Shennan, S., Antiquity xlix (1975) 279 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 J. L. Angel: for FIG. 5, Appendix in Mylonas, G. E., Aghios Kosmas (Princeton, 1959) 169 ff.Google Scholar; for FIG. 7, Appendix in Mylonas, G. E., O Taphikos Kyklos B ton Mykinon (Athens, 1973) i 379 ff.Google Scholar; for FIGS. 9, 10, Lerna 70.

4 Charles, R.-P.: for FIGS, 1, 2, 3, 4, L'Anthropologie archéologique de la Créte (Études Cret. xiv (1965)) 40—123Google Scholar and 208–9; for FIGS. 6, 8, BCH lxxxii (1958) 306–7 and Étude anthropologique des nécropoles d' Argos (Études pelop. iii (1963)) 61 and 75–6.

5 Lerna 70.

6 Ibid. 77 ff.

7 e.g. tombstones from Imperial Rome suggest a ratio of fifteen or more juvenile deaths to ten adult ones: MacDonnell, W. R., Biometrika ix (1913) 366–80Google Scholar, quoted in Angel, J. L., World Archaeology iv (1972–1973) 101.Google Scholar

8 Greece (Geographical Handbook, Naval Intelligence Division, 1944) ii 30.

9 e.g. twenty-two of the thirty-one male skeletons found in the Shaft Graves survived in a condition suitable for study, compared with five out of sixteen female skeletons: Angel (1973) op. cit. 392.

10 56 per cent of the Lerna material and 31 per cent of that from the Agora is juvenile (Lerna 70). These two samples must be particularly well preserved, because the survival of juvenile skeletons is usually very poor.

11 Becker, M. J., AJA lxxix (1975) 271 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Cf. Waterhouse, H., Bull. Inst. Classical Studies xxi (1974) 153–4.Google Scholar

13 Lerna 91–2. Fractures and wounds (including ‘parry fractures’ of the forearm, a broken back, and two split skulls) affect about 20 per cent of the population. Many of these cases could have resulted from fighting, but clear sword cuts of the Iron Age type do not occur; only rarely can an observed trauma be identified as the cause of death. Conversely, Bronze Age weapons could have inflicted fatal wounds which would not be detectable on the skeleton.

Gf. the Tsembaga of New Guinea: a substantial death rate for young males is consequent upon quite small-scale skirmishing with simple weapons: Rappaport, R. A., Pigs for the Ancestors (New Haven and London, 1968) 16.Google Scholar

14 Angel (1973) op. cit. 387.

15 Ibid.: two cases of head wounds and perhaps three of spinal fractures among twenty-two male skeletons.

16 Most of the Middle Minoan material is from Knossos, but most of the Late Minoan I from the non-palatial site of Sphoungaras.

17 Lerna 85, for Early Neolithic Nea Nikomedia, for Lerna and for the Shaft Graves; Becker op. cit. 274, for Zakro; Charles (1963) op. cit. 71–2, for the Middle and Late Helladic Argolid, and (1965) op. cit. 82 for Middle Minoan.

18 Lerna 89 f., for Nea Nikomedia, Lerna, the Shaft Graves and ‘Late Helladic’; Angel (1959) op. cit. 177, for Aghios Kosmas; Becker op. cit. 275, for Zakro; Carr, H. G., Man lx (1960) 119 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for Middle Minoan Knossos; Charles (1963) op. cit. 66, for Middle and Late Helladic Argolid.

19 Lerna 84, for Lerna and ‘Late Helladic’.

20 Ibid. 89.

21 Ibid. 90.

22 Body size and dental health are partly genetically determined, but there is no evidence of a racial difference between the Shaft Grave aristocrats and the Lerna commoners: Angel (1973) op. cit. 393. Conversely, one case of gallstones and the lack of lines of growth arrest in tooth enamel hint at better nutrition for the aristocrats: ibid. 387.

23 Renfrew, C., The Emergence of Civilisation (1972) 249–54.Google Scholar

24 Ibid.

25 McDonald, W. A. and Rapp, G. R. (eds.), The Minnesota Messenia Expedition (1972) 255.Google Scholar