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1 results

  • Disarticulation, evisceration and excarnation: Neolithic mortuary practices at Dingsishan, southern China

  • Ziqi Ye, Minghui Wang, Jay T. Stock, Fa-jun Li
  • Journal:
    Antiquity / Volume 98 / Issue 399 / June 2024
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    16 April 2024, pp. 616-635
    Print publication:
    June 2024
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  • The diversity of human mortuary practices and treatments in prehistory is widely recognised, but our understanding of the purpose and manner of corpse manipulation in many regions is limited. This article reports on unusual aspects of funerary archaeology at the Neolithic site of Dingsishan, southern China. Anatomical consideration of cutmarks on human bones and the positioning of bodies and body parts within burials suggests that mortuary treatments at this site included strategic and systematic disarticulation, evisceration and excarnation. Rather than signalling social differences, these practices may have resulted from the very practical need to save space.