Defining Non-Normative Practices in a Diverse Funerary Record

Abstract

In the past few decades, researchers have increasingly come to understand that the archaeological record of the Caribbean region shows a high degree of sociocultural variation across the archipelago and through time. Funerary treatment in the precolonial and early colonial Caribbean archipelago in particular was variable, hampering assessment of potentially non-normative funerary practices. Alongside multidisciplinary contextual assessment of funerary practice, we use social network analysis to study relations within the dataset to explore other indicators of non-normative practices. This approach demonstrates that altering the scale of analysis (i.e., local vs. regional) can drastically change our concept of what can be considered non-normative. Network analysis revealed relationships within the diverse funerary patterns, including co-occurrence of uncommon modes of burial at sites, suggesting that even rare modes of burial comprised widely recognized practices.