Medieval Academy of America Presentation!
Hi everyone! I’m heading off to Boston (if the weather cooperates) today for the Medieval Academy of American meeting. I’ll be presenting on some of my digital work, specifically the ieldran […]
Author Archives: Kate Meyers Emery
Upright Burial: A Mesolithic and Modern Phenomenon?
Recently, the popular news has been fascinated with the discovery of an upright burial from a Mesolithic cemetery site in Germany. Rightly so! Upright burials are an extremely rare phenomenon, […]
New Morbid Terminology: Phossy Jaw, The Occupational Disease of Matchstick Makers
There are a range of diseases, traumas and skeletal markers that can occur regularly with certain types of occupations. One historic example is called Tailor’s Notches. These are small indentations […]
Collective Burial: Emphasizing Community in Neolithic Spain
In the United States, historically we chose to bury our dead with our family and community. People would buy large plots within cemeteries where they could bury their relatives over […]
Investigating Funerary Rituals in a Multiethnic African Diasporic Cemetery
The Atlantic slave trade was a massive and horrific undertaking promoted by Europeans between the 16th and 19th centuries to forcibly move people from Africa to America to be sold as laborers. During this […]
New Morbid Terminology: Coffin Birth
Since I’m currently in the process of preparing to defend my dissertation (yay!), I’m going to be re-posting some of my favorite past articles! Recently, Caitlin Doughty of “Ask a […]
Bones Abroad: Rochester, New York
I am originally from Rochester, NY, and I head back here for the holiday season to spend time with family and friends. It was within this city that I became […]
Happy Holidays from the Saturnalia Skeleton!
Just kidding, its just an illustration of the Italian ‘vampire’ skeleton but with a present instead of a rock! Enjoy the holidays, and stay tuned for more Bones Don’t Lie […]
Buried with a Sickle: Death’s Scythe or Anti-Demon Protection?
Scythes and sickles have a very clear symbolic association for modern populations. The personification of death is traditionally pictured with a scythe (full size version pictured to the right) or sickle […]
Why Didn’t it Decompose? Embalmed Hearts and Bog Bodies
One of the questions I get quite a bit is “when do bodies turn to bone?” This may be a question relating to general curiosity about what has happened to […]
Bones Don't Lie 