Libraries of the Dead: Early Bronze Age Charnel Houses and Social Identity at Urban Bab edh-Dhra', Jordan

Extensive ethnographic and archaeological research demonstrates that primary and secondary mortuary rituals provide people with a richly textured context to reweave the social fabric of the community following the death of one of its members. The nature, timing, and communal participation in secondary mortuary ceremonies, in particular, allow individuals and groups to reiterate the broader moral and social ethos of the community, while reaffirming, renegotiating, or even severing bonds of social, political, and economic life. Drawing on this anthropological foundation, this study explores the powerful changes in household structures and systems of kinship during the first period of urbanization in Syro-Palestine by examining the skeletal, architectural, and artifactual evidence from the cemeteries at the Early Bronze Age settlement of Bab edh-Dhra', Jordan. Dynamic changes in mortuary practices through time at Bab edh-Dhra', specifically the shift from shaft tomb burials to charnel houses, were associated with the transition from a non-sedentary lifestyle to settled life in a fortified town and a subsequent return to non-urban living. This research demonstrates that each of these profound shifts in lifestyle involved fundamental changes in the societal bonds of the community, particularly structures of kinship.