Oral Presentation Session

Reviewed by: Biological Anthropology Section

Of interest to: Students

Primary Theme: Biologies

Secondary Theme: Materiality

(5-0480) Sensing the body: An exploration of sensation, perception, and emotion in bioarchaeology

Sensation—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching—and sensory modalities—nociception, mechanoreception, chemoreception, thermoception, proprioception, equilibrioception—are the basis for human interactions with the world and with each other. Artists and philosophers have long explored the connection between perception, sensation, and emotion; psychologists have recently begun to do so in a more systematic way (Phelps et al. 2006; Stefanucci et al. 2011; Zadra and Clore 2011). Archaeologists too have developed an interest in identifying the materiality of sensation and emotion, which drive the constitution and reconstitution of daily existence, social life, and deathways (e.g., Day, 2013; Hamilakis, 2013; Kus, 1989; Pellini et al., 2015; Tarlow, 2000, 2012; Fleisher and Norman, 2016). Bioarchaeologists also have begun seeking to capture human sensation and emotional experiences through research on embodiment and phenomenological approaches to violence, disease, deviance, disability, and care (Bourbou, 2013; Boutin, 2016; Hill, 2015; Geller, 2006; Gowland, 2017; Wesp 2017). The influence of emotions — love, fear, coping, dysfunction, attachment, desire, pride, concern, loneliness, and anxiety, to name a few — on perception and sensation, as mediated through the body, is well-suited to further bioarchaeological exploration. This session will bring together bioarchaeologists interested in developing critical perspectives on sensational experiences, emotional relations, and their material manifestations in bodies and burials from the past. Our goal is to explore the tension between recognizing the emotional and perceptual aspects of past peoples’ experience and negotiating the pitfalls of ethnocentric legitimization of modern, Western feelings and perspectives.

Organizer(s)

• Gwen Robbins Schug

  Professor
  Anthropology Department, Appalachian State University

Presenter(s)

• Gwen Robbins Schug

  Professor
  Anthropology Department, Appalachian State University

• Julie Wesp

  American University

• Carrie Sulosky Weaver

  Visiting Assistant Professor
  University of Pittsburgh

• Jessica Cerezo-Román

  Assistant Professor
  University of Oklahoma

• Chryssi Bourbou

  SNF Senior Researcher
  University of Fribourg

Chair(s)

• Alexis Boutin

  Sonoma State University

Presenter(s)

• Alexis Boutin

  Sonoma State University

Presentations:

• 10:15 AM - 10:30 AM

  Touching the Surface: Biological, behavioral, and emotional aspects of plagiocephaly at Harappa
  Gwen Robbins Schug – Anthropology Department, Appalachian State University
• 10:30 AM - 10:45 AM

  Unpacking the Emotional Baggage of Past Lives: A Bioarchaeology of Sensational Experiences in the Spanish Colonial World
  Julie K. Wesp – American University
• 10:45 AM - 11:00 AM

  Holy Woman, Holy Sickness: A Unique Burial from Byzantine Sicily
  Carrie L. Sulosky Weaver – University of Pittsburgh
• 11:00 AM - 11:15 AM

  Cremation and Pyro-technology among the prehispanic Cerro de Trincheras in Northern Mexico Sonora
  Jessica I. Cerezo-Román – University of Oklahoma
• 11:15 AM - 11:30 AM

  ‘The Stone of Folly’? Sociocultural attitudes towards two cases of trepanations from Hellenistic (3rd c. BC) Crete, Greece
  Chryssi Bourbou – University of Fribourg
• 11:30 AM - 11:45 AM

  Affective Approaches to Interpreting Bioarchaeological Data: New Opportunities for Emotion and Empathy
  Alexis Boutin – Sonoma State University