User:00Eve01/sandbox

I will help edit the funeral Wikipedia page.

I vow to publish my edits to my sandbox for Sunday's 4/30 assignment

Answers:

1. Our Wikipedia page was created on September 26, 2001.
2. The account seems like it is no longer available, all that is there is an IP number. the number is "194.196.73.xxx"
3. The last citation was added on April 21, 2017
4. The last citation was added by Suelee3.

- I am thinking of putting indigenous funerals right before euro ones start.

All of our edits combined, the same guy keeps deleting our stuff so this is what it would look like if he didn't keep deleting it.

Indigenous Americans[edit]

Funerals for indigenous people, like many other cultures, are a method to remember, commemorate and respect the dead through their own cultural practices and traditions. Understanding mortuary as a symbolism can generate a hypothesis about the practice of funerals as being of social significance to cultures.

Overview

When excavating a burial site, archaeologists look for things such as current culture’s attitudes toward the dead, positioning of the human remains, material artifacts that may have been buried alongside the body, and location. This all contributes to figuring out important insights of regional prehistory.

California

In the past, there has been scrutiny when the topic of indigenous funeral sites was approached. Thus the federal government deemed it necessary to include a series of acts that would protect and accurately affiliate some of these burials with their correct native individuals or groups. This was enacted through the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Furthermore, in 2001 California created the California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act that would "require all state agencies and museums that receive state funding and that have possession or control over collections of humans remains or cultural items to provide a process for identification and repatriates of these items to appropriate tribes." In 2020, it was amended to include include tribes that were beyond State and Federal knowledge.

Bay Miwok[edit]

Along the middle reaches of Marsh Creek near the modern day city of Brentwood lies land that was once occupied by the Bay Miwok speaking peoples more specifically the Volvon tribelet. Radiocarbon dates at the burial site estimate that the individuals were interred around 5,000 to 3,000 BP. In the earliest periods of the Black Marsh occupation, individuals were buried in an extended position facing north if on the east side of the site and south if on the west side. Observations by researchers suggest that individuals were not interned based on their sex or age, leading some archaeologists to assume a more culturally significant reason.

The people of Miwok tribe were either cremated or buried along with their personal possessions. Mourners would cut off pieces of their hair, and older women smeared charred laurel berries on their faces. People sometimes mourned for a whole year if the dead person was important, and widows remained secluded for several months or even for years. Most groups would not speak the name of the dead person. In the summer or fall the tribe held a mourning ceremony in memory of those who had recently died. The people would gather for three or four nights and wail until about midnight. On the last night they lit a large pyre and burned the dead person’s property.

A recurring issue that biological archaeologists face is, during the prehistoric/historic period and late period, Malibu was a common burial site for California Indians.  This makes it nearly impossible to separate the remains of individuals who lived during the historic period and those who were buried before the Europeans arrived.

Tongva[edit]

In the Los Angeles Basin, researchers discovered communal mourning features at West Bluffs and Landing Hill. These communal mourning rituals were estimated to have taken place during the Intermediate Period (3,000-1,000 B.P.). Archaeologists have found fragmented pieces of a large schist pestle which was deliberately broken in a methodical way. Other fragmented vessels show signs of uneven burning on the interior surface presumed to have been caused by burning combustible material.

In the West Bluffs and Landing Hill assemblages there are many instances of artifacts that were dyed in red ochre pigment after being broken. The tradition of intentionally breaking objects has been a custom in the region for thousands of years for the purpose of releasing the spirit within the object, reducing harm to the community, or as an expression of grief. Pigmentation of grave goods also has many interpretations, the Chumash associate the color red with both earth and fire. While some researchers consider the usage of the red pigment as an important transitional moment in the adult life cycle.

Western Yuman region

In the Ipai, Tipai, Paipai, and Kiliwa regions funeral practices are similar in their social and power dynamics. The way that these funeral sites were created was based off previous habitation. Meaning, these were sites were their peoples may have died or if they had been a temporary home for some of these groups. [1] Additionally, these individual burials were characterized by grave markers and/or grave offerings. The markers included inverted metates, fractured pieces of metates as well as cairns. As for offerings, food, shell and stone beads were often found in burial mounds along with portions human remains.

The state of the human remains found at the site can vary, data suggests that cremations are recent in prehistory compared to just burials. Ranging from the middle Holocene era to the Late Prehistoric Period. Additionally, the position these people were placed in plays a role in how the afterlife was viewed. With recent ethnographic evidence coming from the Yuman people, it is believed that the spirits of the dead could potentially harm the living. so, they would often layer the markers or offerings above the body so that they would be unable to "leave" their graves and enact harm.

Western Yuman region; California and Baja California