Theses by Stacey M . Ward
Lead and copper, two constituents of bronze, are harmful to human health in large quantities. Thi... more Lead and copper, two constituents of bronze, are harmful to human health in large quantities. This study aimed to see if metalworking and the use of bronze at the prehistoric site of Ban Non Wat, North East Thailand, was harmful to the health of the putative metalworker, burial 549 and his peers.
Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry was used on 16 soil samples and 11 bone samples from the Iron Age 1, Bronze Age 4 and Bronze Age 2 mortuary phases, to determine if lead and copper was present in abnormal quantities. Soil lead was normal, but four of sixteen soil samples were above the normal range for Ban Non Wat. However, none of the lead or copper soil samples were near toxicity level. Bone lead was abnormally low and copper abnormally high. Since the health of the Ban Non Wat population is assumed to be good, it is not likely these soil and bone metal concentrations were harmful to human health.
Other research objectives were considered. It is possible that copper and lead are present at Ban Non Wat due to a combination of natural deposition, and leaching from human-made hearths and metal artefacts. Their presence in the soil may have altered the bones used in this study in a process called diagenesis. It was found that metal concentrations changed over space and time and that there were slight correlations between heavy metals and the age and sex of burials, with older women having more copper and men more lead in their bones. It has been proposed that these age and sex differences are caused by dietary variation and sex- specific phenomena such as menopause. Burial 549 showed osteophytes and joint deterioration in his knee and elbow, which is consistent with pathology shown by metal workers at Non Pa Wai (Agelarakis 1996). This, along with his higher bone metal concentrations, supports the suggestion that burial 549 was a metalworker.
"Bone fragments remaining after cremation can be used to provide information on the cremation pra... more "Bone fragments remaining after cremation can be used to provide information on the cremation practices of ancient cultures. This is possible as the study of bone colours can indicate what type of fire was used for the cremation and the position of the deceased during the cremation procedure (Symes et al. 2008). The type and depth of heat fractures are linked to the amount of flesh remaining on a body at the time of cremation, and therefore can reveal how long after death the cremation occurred (Whyte 2001).
In this way, cremation practices have been examined globally, but there is a dearth of information on past cremation methods in Southeast Asia. With the discovery of archaeological human remains in Vientiane in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in 2006 - 2007, an opportunity arose to investigate the cremation practices used in the Lan Xang period of Lao history (1353 – c. 1695 CE) (Evans 2002). The human remains, constituting a total of 25 people, consisted of individuals that had been cremated and interred in jars, cremated and scattered, or buried without cremation. While this was a small sample, it provided a rare opportunity to contribute to the limited knowledge on cremation practices in the Lan Xang Kingdom.
This thesis aimed to contribute to the clarification of the cremation process used during the Lan Xang period, to identify variations within this process based on age, sex, pathology, burial weight, burial goods, burial jars and geographic location, and to clarify the issue of the archaeological dating of the inhumation burial BHB01.
Results showed that Lan Xang people were often cremated after their bodies had decomposed for a short time. Patterns of which skeletal elements were represented suggested individuals were cremated in a supine position, and cremation temperatures, which ranged from 485 – 940°C, were consistent with cremation on a wooden pyre. Skeletal temperature patterns suggested the pyre was ignited around its edges.
Small sample size and poor representation of the remains made the identification of variation within the sample difficult. However, it appeared that age and type of death, as indicated by skeletal pathology, were most likely to have caused the variations observed in the Vientiane sample. Age was a main variation because Lan Xang children were cremated when modern children are not. It is also possible that pathology, and therefore the type of death, explains why some cremation burials included burial items or were buried in different jar types to their contemporaries.
Analysis of the inhumation burial BHB01’s burial position, burial goods and burial depth suggested an archaeological date of the Iron Age (420 BCE – 500 CE) (Higham and Higham 2009), but radiocarbon dating was suggested in order to clarify this issue.
It was concluded that Lan Xang cremation practices were similar to modern Thai practices, but were influenced by age at death and type of death. Despite the inherent flaws identified in the methodology used for analysing cremation burials, this thesis shows that cremation burials can nevertheless provide valuable information on a culture."
Books by Stacey M . Ward
In: K. Squires, Errickson D., Márquez-Grant (Eds). Ethical Approaches to Human Remains: A Global Challenge in Bioarchaeology and Forensic Anthropology. Springer., 2020
Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology (Second Edition). Claire Smith (ed). Switzerland: Springer Nature., 2021
Ward SM, Halcrow SE, Buckley HR, Higham CFW, O'Reilly DJW, Shewan L, and Domett KM. 2018. Develop... more Ward SM, Halcrow SE, Buckley HR, Higham CFW, O'Reilly DJW, Shewan L, and Domett KM. 2018. Developing a New Project: The Impact of Social Change on Health at the Late Iron Age Site of Non Ban Jak in Northeast Thailand In: Tan NH, editor. Advancing Southeast Asian Archaeology 2016 - Selected Papers from the 2nd SEAMEO SPAFA International Conference on Southeast Asian Archaeology, Bangkok 2016. Bangkok: SEAMEO SPAFA. pp. 259 - 275.
This paper introduces on-going research by presenting the original proposal for this work. This research seeks to combine archaeological and bioarchaeological analyses, as well as theoretical perspectives from these fields, to obtain an integrated and holistic perspective of social change and its effect on health in prehistory. This approach will be tested on the archaeological and human skeletal remains from the late Iron Age site of Non Bak Jak in northeast Thailand. Social organization prior to the advent of state society in mainland Southeast Asia has long been a focus of archaeological research. The Iron Age of northeast Thailand (420 BCE-500 CE) has received particular archaeological attention, as rapid social and technological change has been identified in this region during this period. These changes include increasing social complexity, which is often associated with inequality between social groups and deterioration of population health. In contrast, bioarchaeological research in northeast Thailand has largely focused on the periods prior to the Iron Age, leaving the biocultural consequences of these late social changes relatively less well understood. Excavations at Non Ban Jak, a moated settlement and residential burial site with two distinct mounds, have been undertaken from 2011 to 2017. These have provided a well-preserved skeletal sample, unusual for this period in Thailand, making it ideal for investigating health and social change. The project underway aims to explore how a putative rise in social inequality might have affected levels of physiological stress at Non Ban Jak using holistic approach presented. Social groupings will be identified through spatial analyses of grave wealth, burial practice and location in the Esri ArcGIS programme. This programme uses statistics to identify and explore the patterning and relatedness of spatial data. Dental enamel defects and long bone lengths will provide information on physiological disruptions in growth. It is expected that this work will inform on health and social organization during a period of rapid social transition.
Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier 125,
Papers by Stacey M . Ward
Bioarchaeology International, 2020
The rise of social inequality is a key development in human history and is linked to deterioratin... more The rise of social inequality is a key development in human history and is linked to deteriorating health. These associated health impacts are poorly understood for Iron Age (420 B.C.-A.D. 500) northeast Thailand. To clarify this issue we investigate whether social status differences influence non-specific stress at the site of Non Ban Jak (A.D. 300-800), which comprises two separate burial mounds. These mounds are thought to represent the neighborhoods of two distinct social groups at the site. Quantitative analyses were used to explore differences in grave goods among the adults of Non Ban Jak (N = 47). Long bone lengths, ages at death, and linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) were examined to explore differences in non-specific stress on the basis of age, sex, burial mound, and mortuary phase. Results demonstrated that older adults of both sexes, males of all ages, and west mound individuals received greater grave good quantities and may therefore have been of higher social status. West mound individuals were taller and had a lower prevalence of LEH compared to those from the east mound. Although female LEH prevalence and mortality were reduced relative to males, decreasing stature over time and high neonatal mortality indicated greater female stress. Lower-status individuals may therefore have suffered increased stress relative to those of higher status. Artifactual and epigraphic evidence supports the suggestion of sex-and class-based status differences at Non Ban Jak, legitimized and perpetuated through the adoption of residential burial and new religious ideologies.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2019
The Iron Age of Mainland Southeast Asia began in the fifth century BC and lasted for about a mill... more The Iron Age of Mainland Southeast Asia began in the fifth century BC and lasted for about a millennium. In coastal regions, the development of trade along the Maritime Silk Road led to the growth of port cities. In the interior, a fall in monsoon rains particularly affected the Mun River valley. This coincided with the construction of moats/reservoirs round Iron Age settlements from which water was channelled into wet rice fields, the production of iron ploughshares and sickles, population growth, burgeoning exchange and increased conflict. We explore the social impact of this agricultural revolution through applying statistical analyses to mortuary samples dating before and after the development of wet rice farming. These suggest that there was a swift formation of social elites represented by the wealth of mortuary offerings, followed by a decline. Two associated changes are identified. The first involved burying the dead in residential houses; the second considers the impact of an increasingly aquatic environment on health by examining demographic trends involving a doubling of infant mortality that concentrated on neonates. A comparison between this sequence and that seen in coastal ports suggests two interconnected instances of rapid pathways to social change responding to different social and environmental stressors.
Biological anthropological research, the study of both modern and past humans, is a burgeoning fi... more Biological anthropological research, the study of both modern and past humans, is a burgeoning field in the Indo-Pacific region. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the unique environments of the Indo-Pacific have resulted in an archaeological record that does not necessarily align with those in the northern hemisphere. New, regionally-specific archaeological models are being developed, and biological anthropological research has an important role to play in establishing past human experience within these models. In the Indo-Pacific, research using ancient and modern human tissues is adding insight into global processes of prehistoric settlement and migrations, subsistence change and human biosocial adaptation. This review synthesises current themes in biological anthropology in this region. It highlights the diverse methods and approaches used by biological anthropologists to address globally-relevant archaeological questions. In recent decades a collaborative approach between archaeologists, biological anthropologists and local communities has become the norm in the region. The many positive outcomes of this multidisciplinary approach are highlighted here through the use of regionally-specific case studies. This review ultimately aims to stimulate further collaborations between archaeologists, biological anthropologists and the communities in the region, and demonstrate how the evidence from Indo-Pacific research may be relevant to global archaeological models.
This volume represents a multidisciplinary collection of papers, including bioarchaeological, soc... more This volume represents a multidisciplinary collection of papers, including bioarchaeological, social archaeological, and ethnological research, originally presented at the first major international conference on the archaeology of infancy and childhood in 2005. The majority of the chapters assess childhood from a biological perspective and/or mortuary analyses, with several investigating social and biological age, a central topic in bioarchaeology and social archaeology.
News Article by Stacey M . Ward
Conference Presentations by Stacey M . Ward
Podium presentation given at the 25th Meeting of the Australasian Society for Human Biology. Canberra, Australia, 2011
Podium presentation given at the 20th Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association. Siem Reap, Cambodia, 2014
Podium presentation given at the 2nd SEAMEO SPAFA International Conference of Southeast Asian Archaeology. Bangkok, Thailand, 2016
Prehistoric social organisation in northeast Thailand has long been debated by archaeologists, wi... more Prehistoric social organisation in northeast Thailand has long been debated by archaeologists, with hierarchy and/or heterarchy being the organisational models favoured for the area. This debate has been based on the analysis of grave ‘wealth’, spatial distribution of burials, and mortuary practices, as these aspects of mortuary ritual are believed to reflect social status. Amounts of physical labour and access to food and healthcare can also vary according to social standing and low social status has been associated with poor health. Biological health can be assessed using human skeletal remains. We present a proposal for an interdisciplinary investigation of social organisation and its influences on health at Non Ban Jak in northeast Thailand. This site dates to the late Iron Age (300 – 500AD) and features a well-preserved skeletal sample numbering ~142 individuals. Non Ban Jak therefore provides an excellent opportunity to observe changes in social organisation and health immediately prior to the formation of complex polities in Southeast Asia. We aim to investigate status variation within the site from a biosocial perspective through an analysis of health (as represented by growth and developmental defects of dental enamel), demography, temporal and spatial patterning in burials, mortuary practices and grave goods. Proposed methods for these analyses will be outlined. It is hypothesised that different status groups will be recognised at the site, and that the status differences observed at the site will reflect a flexible yet hierarchical form of social organisation. It is expected that higher status will buffer against the deterioration of biological health.
Podium presentation given at the 30th Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Human Biology. Dunedin, New Zealand, 2016
Social organisation prior to the advent of state society in Mainland Southeast Asia has long been... more Social organisation prior to the advent of state society in Mainland Southeast Asia has long been a focus of archaeological research in the region. The Iron Age of northeast Thailand (500BC – AD500) has received particular interest, as it has been identified as a time of rapid social and technological change. These changes include increasing social complexity, which is often associated with inequality between social groups and decreased population health. However, bioarchaeological research in northeast Thailand has focused on the earlier agricultural transition and as such, the biocultural consequences of these rapid changes are poorly understood. This presentation outlines PhD research being conducted as part of a larger interdisciplinary study on the unique double-mound site of Non Ban Jak, northeast Thailand. This site dates to the late Iron Age and features a well-preserved skeletal sample, making it ideal for investigations of health and social change. This research aims to investigate whether increasing social complexity, represented by the presence of social inequality, had a negative effect on health at Non Ban Jak. Social groupings will be identified through ArcGIS analysis of grave wealth, burial practice and location. The ArcGIS programme uses statistics to identify and explore the patterning and relatedness of spatial data. Non-specific indicators of stress (dental enamel defects and long bone length) are being analysed to investigate health. Hypotheses and methods for this study will be outlined and current progress summarised. It is expected that this work will inform on health and social organisation during the rapid Iron Age social transition in northeast Thailand.
Podium presentation given at the 16th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists. Poznan, Poland, 2017
A recent reassessment of the timing of social and technological developments in northeast Thailan... more A recent reassessment of the timing of social and technological developments in northeast Thailand has revealed that these changes occurred rapidly and relatively late in the region. In particular, major social changes including a shift to a hierarchical mode of social organisation and the putative development of social inequality, have been identified within the Iron Age (500 BCE – 500 CE). Multidisciplinary research conducted elsewhere in the world has demonstrated the negative health effects resulting from the development of social inequality, but the impact that this change had on the health of prehistoric people of northeast Thailand is as yet poorly understood. This paper outlines the preliminary findings of PhD research being conducted on the human skeletal remains from Non Ban Jak in northeast Thailand. This research is part of a larger interdisciplinary study on this late Iron Age site and aims to identify and qualify social change and its effects on physiological stress and health from a biocultural theoretical perspective. Physiological stress is investigated through analyses of long bone length and dental enamel defects in a sample of over 160 adult and subadults. Geographic Information
System analyses of the spatial patterning of burials and archaeological analyses of mortuary goods are used to identify different social groups within the site. It is expected that there will be variation in stress levels and the material culture associated with each group, indicating social inequality. The prestige value of the mortuary goods will relate to with skeletal stress, though this relationship is predicted to fluctuate over time. These fluctuations may represent the shifting social status of each group within a flexible form of hierarchy.
Podium presentation given at the 21st Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association. Hue, Vietnam, 2018
Social inequality is known to have deleterious effects on health and is a key feature of hierarch... more Social inequality is known to have deleterious effects on health and is a key feature of hierarchical social organisation. Archaeological debate has characterised the Iron Age of northeast Thailand as hierarchical and the recent reassessment of the timing of technological and social developments indicate a rapid and late transition towards this mode of social organisation. Bioarchaeological research demonstrates an associated deterioration of health at this time. Through a fusion of archaeological and bioarchaeological data within a biocultural theoretical framework, this paper presents a holistic overview of social inequality and health in the skeletal assemblage from the late Iron Age (420 BCE – 500 CE) site of Non Ban Jak in northeast Thailand. Archaeological analyses assessed inequality by exploring spatial patterning of burials using a Geographic Information System (GIS) and through analyses of the prestige value of mortuary offerings. Bioarchaeological analyses investigated health in the skeletal assemblage and comprised analyses of adult and child long bone length and developmental defects of the dental enamel. These different strands of bioarchaeological and archaeological evidence were then combined using the GIS to assess if there was any relationship between social inequality and health. Results suggested that overall health deteriorated throughout the late Iron Age at Non Ban Jak. Variation in health was visible across different areas of the site and these variations became larger over time, suggesting social inequality was present and possibly entrenched. Non Ban Jak may represent the final stages of the transition towards a hierarchical social structure over the course of late prehistory.
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Theses by Stacey M . Ward
Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry was used on 16 soil samples and 11 bone samples from the Iron Age 1, Bronze Age 4 and Bronze Age 2 mortuary phases, to determine if lead and copper was present in abnormal quantities. Soil lead was normal, but four of sixteen soil samples were above the normal range for Ban Non Wat. However, none of the lead or copper soil samples were near toxicity level. Bone lead was abnormally low and copper abnormally high. Since the health of the Ban Non Wat population is assumed to be good, it is not likely these soil and bone metal concentrations were harmful to human health.
Other research objectives were considered. It is possible that copper and lead are present at Ban Non Wat due to a combination of natural deposition, and leaching from human-made hearths and metal artefacts. Their presence in the soil may have altered the bones used in this study in a process called diagenesis. It was found that metal concentrations changed over space and time and that there were slight correlations between heavy metals and the age and sex of burials, with older women having more copper and men more lead in their bones. It has been proposed that these age and sex differences are caused by dietary variation and sex- specific phenomena such as menopause. Burial 549 showed osteophytes and joint deterioration in his knee and elbow, which is consistent with pathology shown by metal workers at Non Pa Wai (Agelarakis 1996). This, along with his higher bone metal concentrations, supports the suggestion that burial 549 was a metalworker.
In this way, cremation practices have been examined globally, but there is a dearth of information on past cremation methods in Southeast Asia. With the discovery of archaeological human remains in Vientiane in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in 2006 - 2007, an opportunity arose to investigate the cremation practices used in the Lan Xang period of Lao history (1353 – c. 1695 CE) (Evans 2002). The human remains, constituting a total of 25 people, consisted of individuals that had been cremated and interred in jars, cremated and scattered, or buried without cremation. While this was a small sample, it provided a rare opportunity to contribute to the limited knowledge on cremation practices in the Lan Xang Kingdom.
This thesis aimed to contribute to the clarification of the cremation process used during the Lan Xang period, to identify variations within this process based on age, sex, pathology, burial weight, burial goods, burial jars and geographic location, and to clarify the issue of the archaeological dating of the inhumation burial BHB01.
Results showed that Lan Xang people were often cremated after their bodies had decomposed for a short time. Patterns of which skeletal elements were represented suggested individuals were cremated in a supine position, and cremation temperatures, which ranged from 485 – 940°C, were consistent with cremation on a wooden pyre. Skeletal temperature patterns suggested the pyre was ignited around its edges.
Small sample size and poor representation of the remains made the identification of variation within the sample difficult. However, it appeared that age and type of death, as indicated by skeletal pathology, were most likely to have caused the variations observed in the Vientiane sample. Age was a main variation because Lan Xang children were cremated when modern children are not. It is also possible that pathology, and therefore the type of death, explains why some cremation burials included burial items or were buried in different jar types to their contemporaries.
Analysis of the inhumation burial BHB01’s burial position, burial goods and burial depth suggested an archaeological date of the Iron Age (420 BCE – 500 CE) (Higham and Higham 2009), but radiocarbon dating was suggested in order to clarify this issue.
It was concluded that Lan Xang cremation practices were similar to modern Thai practices, but were influenced by age at death and type of death. Despite the inherent flaws identified in the methodology used for analysing cremation burials, this thesis shows that cremation burials can nevertheless provide valuable information on a culture."
Books by Stacey M . Ward
This paper introduces on-going research by presenting the original proposal for this work. This research seeks to combine archaeological and bioarchaeological analyses, as well as theoretical perspectives from these fields, to obtain an integrated and holistic perspective of social change and its effect on health in prehistory. This approach will be tested on the archaeological and human skeletal remains from the late Iron Age site of Non Bak Jak in northeast Thailand. Social organization prior to the advent of state society in mainland Southeast Asia has long been a focus of archaeological research. The Iron Age of northeast Thailand (420 BCE-500 CE) has received particular archaeological attention, as rapid social and technological change has been identified in this region during this period. These changes include increasing social complexity, which is often associated with inequality between social groups and deterioration of population health. In contrast, bioarchaeological research in northeast Thailand has largely focused on the periods prior to the Iron Age, leaving the biocultural consequences of these late social changes relatively less well understood. Excavations at Non Ban Jak, a moated settlement and residential burial site with two distinct mounds, have been undertaken from 2011 to 2017. These have provided a well-preserved skeletal sample, unusual for this period in Thailand, making it ideal for investigating health and social change. The project underway aims to explore how a putative rise in social inequality might have affected levels of physiological stress at Non Ban Jak using holistic approach presented. Social groupings will be identified through spatial analyses of grave wealth, burial practice and location in the Esri ArcGIS programme. This programme uses statistics to identify and explore the patterning and relatedness of spatial data. Dental enamel defects and long bone lengths will provide information on physiological disruptions in growth. It is expected that this work will inform on health and social organization during a period of rapid social transition.
Papers by Stacey M . Ward
News Article by Stacey M . Ward
Conference Presentations by Stacey M . Ward
System analyses of the spatial patterning of burials and archaeological analyses of mortuary goods are used to identify different social groups within the site. It is expected that there will be variation in stress levels and the material culture associated with each group, indicating social inequality. The prestige value of the mortuary goods will relate to with skeletal stress, though this relationship is predicted to fluctuate over time. These fluctuations may represent the shifting social status of each group within a flexible form of hierarchy.
Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry was used on 16 soil samples and 11 bone samples from the Iron Age 1, Bronze Age 4 and Bronze Age 2 mortuary phases, to determine if lead and copper was present in abnormal quantities. Soil lead was normal, but four of sixteen soil samples were above the normal range for Ban Non Wat. However, none of the lead or copper soil samples were near toxicity level. Bone lead was abnormally low and copper abnormally high. Since the health of the Ban Non Wat population is assumed to be good, it is not likely these soil and bone metal concentrations were harmful to human health.
Other research objectives were considered. It is possible that copper and lead are present at Ban Non Wat due to a combination of natural deposition, and leaching from human-made hearths and metal artefacts. Their presence in the soil may have altered the bones used in this study in a process called diagenesis. It was found that metal concentrations changed over space and time and that there were slight correlations between heavy metals and the age and sex of burials, with older women having more copper and men more lead in their bones. It has been proposed that these age and sex differences are caused by dietary variation and sex- specific phenomena such as menopause. Burial 549 showed osteophytes and joint deterioration in his knee and elbow, which is consistent with pathology shown by metal workers at Non Pa Wai (Agelarakis 1996). This, along with his higher bone metal concentrations, supports the suggestion that burial 549 was a metalworker.
In this way, cremation practices have been examined globally, but there is a dearth of information on past cremation methods in Southeast Asia. With the discovery of archaeological human remains in Vientiane in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in 2006 - 2007, an opportunity arose to investigate the cremation practices used in the Lan Xang period of Lao history (1353 – c. 1695 CE) (Evans 2002). The human remains, constituting a total of 25 people, consisted of individuals that had been cremated and interred in jars, cremated and scattered, or buried without cremation. While this was a small sample, it provided a rare opportunity to contribute to the limited knowledge on cremation practices in the Lan Xang Kingdom.
This thesis aimed to contribute to the clarification of the cremation process used during the Lan Xang period, to identify variations within this process based on age, sex, pathology, burial weight, burial goods, burial jars and geographic location, and to clarify the issue of the archaeological dating of the inhumation burial BHB01.
Results showed that Lan Xang people were often cremated after their bodies had decomposed for a short time. Patterns of which skeletal elements were represented suggested individuals were cremated in a supine position, and cremation temperatures, which ranged from 485 – 940°C, were consistent with cremation on a wooden pyre. Skeletal temperature patterns suggested the pyre was ignited around its edges.
Small sample size and poor representation of the remains made the identification of variation within the sample difficult. However, it appeared that age and type of death, as indicated by skeletal pathology, were most likely to have caused the variations observed in the Vientiane sample. Age was a main variation because Lan Xang children were cremated when modern children are not. It is also possible that pathology, and therefore the type of death, explains why some cremation burials included burial items or were buried in different jar types to their contemporaries.
Analysis of the inhumation burial BHB01’s burial position, burial goods and burial depth suggested an archaeological date of the Iron Age (420 BCE – 500 CE) (Higham and Higham 2009), but radiocarbon dating was suggested in order to clarify this issue.
It was concluded that Lan Xang cremation practices were similar to modern Thai practices, but were influenced by age at death and type of death. Despite the inherent flaws identified in the methodology used for analysing cremation burials, this thesis shows that cremation burials can nevertheless provide valuable information on a culture."
This paper introduces on-going research by presenting the original proposal for this work. This research seeks to combine archaeological and bioarchaeological analyses, as well as theoretical perspectives from these fields, to obtain an integrated and holistic perspective of social change and its effect on health in prehistory. This approach will be tested on the archaeological and human skeletal remains from the late Iron Age site of Non Bak Jak in northeast Thailand. Social organization prior to the advent of state society in mainland Southeast Asia has long been a focus of archaeological research. The Iron Age of northeast Thailand (420 BCE-500 CE) has received particular archaeological attention, as rapid social and technological change has been identified in this region during this period. These changes include increasing social complexity, which is often associated with inequality between social groups and deterioration of population health. In contrast, bioarchaeological research in northeast Thailand has largely focused on the periods prior to the Iron Age, leaving the biocultural consequences of these late social changes relatively less well understood. Excavations at Non Ban Jak, a moated settlement and residential burial site with two distinct mounds, have been undertaken from 2011 to 2017. These have provided a well-preserved skeletal sample, unusual for this period in Thailand, making it ideal for investigating health and social change. The project underway aims to explore how a putative rise in social inequality might have affected levels of physiological stress at Non Ban Jak using holistic approach presented. Social groupings will be identified through spatial analyses of grave wealth, burial practice and location in the Esri ArcGIS programme. This programme uses statistics to identify and explore the patterning and relatedness of spatial data. Dental enamel defects and long bone lengths will provide information on physiological disruptions in growth. It is expected that this work will inform on health and social organization during a period of rapid social transition.
System analyses of the spatial patterning of burials and archaeological analyses of mortuary goods are used to identify different social groups within the site. It is expected that there will be variation in stress levels and the material culture associated with each group, indicating social inequality. The prestige value of the mortuary goods will relate to with skeletal stress, though this relationship is predicted to fluctuate over time. These fluctuations may represent the shifting social status of each group within a flexible form of hierarchy.