Ancestral bones : Early bronze age human skeletal remains from Tell Banat, Syria

Excavations at Tell Banat in the upper Euphrates valley of Syria uncovered an early Bronze Age mortuary complex that has been interpreted as the visual representation of an ancestral belief system. This article adds bioanthropological data, gained from the human skeletal remains found at the site, to the archaeological data in further confirmation of this interpretation. It discusses the different types of burials, their status and demographic makeup as well as individual pathologies and their implications on the health and lifestyle of the population as a whole.