Debra L. Martin, PhD
Associate Professor of Biological Anthropology

Violence Against Women: Non-Lethal Head Injury and its Behavioral and Cultural Implications in Ancestral Pueblo Populations (900-1300 AD)

Wenner-Gren (Gr. #6981) Funding for Field and Lab Research 2003-2004

1. Research Question and Focus of Study
Cases of healed traumatic head injury have been described in ancient and historic skeletal collections but usually in reference to patterns of warfare and combat involving adult males (e.g., Blakey and Mathews 1990; Bridges 1990; Milner et al. 1991; Wells 1964). Emphasis on head wounds in female subgroups has revealed that, in some cases, females were targets of violence (Martin et al. in press; Martin et al. 1991; Walker 1989; Wilkinson et al. 1993).  The proposed study will focus on non-lethal (healed) cranial depression fractures in females (and males) using newer non-invasive methodologies (e.g., x-ray, endoscopy, casting, and digitized photographs) for analysis (Chege et al. 1996).  Permission has been granted to conduct this study using skeletal material from several ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) populations (circa 1000 AD). Detailed analyses of head wounds can reveal the type, degree and severity of the injuries and these data then can infer a range of behavioral and neurological implications for the survivors (Courville 1962; Lewis 1994; McMurtry and McLellan 1998).  For example, the degree and type of head wound can suggest if the survivor suffered from migraine headaches, blurred vision, vertigo, depression or anti-social behavior, all possible side-effects of severe head wounds, even after the wounds themselves have completely healed (Bhootra 1985; Gurdjian 1973). 

These kinds of traumatic injuries and the proposed study become important in light of the recent focus on disarticulated and burned human bones, alleged to be due to widespread cannibalism.  Although there have been several volumes (Turner and Turner 1999; White 1992), numerous journal articles (e.g. Flinn et al. 1976; Lister and Lister 1961; Nickens 1975; Turner 1983; 1989; 1993, to name just a few), and extensive media focus (Lekson 1999) on cannibalism in these populations, other hypotheses exist that revolve around witchcraft persecution and ritual destruction of the body (Darling 1993; 1999; Ogilvie and Hilton 1993). 

In order to understand the patterns of widespread violence and ritual treatment of skeletons it is essential that researchers factor in the individuals with healed head lesions.  Darling (1999) has provided a thorough and detailed accounting of the ethnographic and historic information on witchcraft persecution in Pueblo societies.  Individuals determined to be witches were tortured, killed, burned and dismembered or they were beaten and returned to community life.  It is possible that the pattern of head wounds that we are seeing in some women in the burial populations were targeted as witches, beaten, and watched to see if they were rehabilitated or not.  Beatings can leave individuals with many side effects including antisocial behavior and it may be that individuals who exhibited these neurological abnormalities were accused of witchcraft and eventually killed. Thus, the major research questions being examined in this project include: Do head wounds support a theory of witchcraft persecution in the precontact Southwest and is violence differentially visited upon females (versus males)?  Do head wounds correlate with other types of bodily injury and disability? Do head wounds correlate with increasing environmental stress and decreasing resources? Do head wounds differ in size and severity across regions?

The empirical data garnered from a detailed and thorough analysis of cranial injuries in addition to post-cranial co-morbidity factors, mortuary and burial treatment, and type of weapon used, will be used to test the following hypotheses:

• Are all head wounds the result of violence?
• Do head wounds co-occur with other trauma or injury on the body?
• What is the patterning by age, sex, location and region?
• Is there variability in head wound type among and between groups?
• Is head trauma related to short- or long-term physical disabilities?
• Are subgroups at risk definable by political-economic or ideological factors

2. Literature Review and Potential Contributions
The Southwest provides a distinctive setting for the study of violence in antiquity because of the long-term residence by ancestral Pueblo Indians.  With thousands of years of habitation in the Southwest, the Pueblo groups offer insight into the mechanisms underlying adaptability and behavioral flexibility over time.  An impressive wealth of data exists for many aspects of Pueblo precontact history as reconstructed from the archaeological record (to name but a few, Cordell, 1984; Crown and Judge, 1991; Sebastian, 1992; Gumerman, 1984; 1988; 1994).  Since the 1930s, thousands of sites have been excavated, and the reconstruction of health, environment, climate, trade networks, population movement, settlement patterns, housing, subsistence activities, and other facets of prehistoric Pueblo existence to continue be documented and studied.  Therefore, the Southwest, as a multi-regional interactive area, provides an unusually rich data base for exploring relationships among availability of resources, resource allocation, alliance formation, risk-sharing, population density, settlement, health and other variables likely to have a role in the creation or maintenance of violence. 

The archaeological literature on conflict, violence and warfare in precolonial times in the Southwest is relatively small (Haas and Creamer 1997) and only recently have larger reviews and synthetic research surfaced which focus on this (Hegmon 2000; LeBlanc 2001).  Archaeological evidence exists for sustained inter-village conflict (e.g., fortification, palisades, towers, burned structures) that likely increased over time.  However, none of these studies have incorporated skeletal data on fractures and traumatic injury to any degree.  This study will help rectify this.

Osteological studies on the occurrence of human skeletal assemblages that are disarticulated, chopped and burned have been overwhelmingly interpreted to represent cannibalism (Turner, 1993; White, 1992). However, witchcraft retribution (Darling, 1993), warfare (Wilcox and Haas, 1994) or ritualized dismemberment (Ogilvie and Hilton, 1993) has been posited as alternative hypotheses.  Whatever the motivation behind presumed violent deaths and perimortem alterations of the victim's bodies, it does suggest some evidence for violent action directed against some individuals.

Injury and trauma on individual skeletal remains has been noted in the literature as well, but not always with much specificity and rarely linked to other aspects of local or regional dynamics.  For example, the Transwestern Pipeline series (circa A.D. 1200), Hermann (1993) notes that several adult females had depression fractures as well as a number of lower body healed fractures. At Carter Ranch (circa A.D. 1200) Danforth and colleagues (1994) report that ¼ of the adult population had healed fractures.  Stewart and Quade’s (1969) information on frontal lesions from several Southwestern sites show that 5.8% of the females had traumatic lesions.  Stodder (1989:187) compiled a frequency chart for a number of archaeological populations and she documents relatively high rates of cranial injury for several sites but these data were not intensively analyzed by age or sex. Thus, the proposed study will advance what is currently known regarding the rate, severity and community impact of violence severe enough to cause bone breakage. The additional information from radiographic and other techniques will yield information that complements and surpasses what is currently known.

In the Southwest, much variability exists in the ways that injurious actions sometimes occurred.  Mass slayings, individual dismemberments, burning, possible cannibalism, scalping, intentional injury, and limited hand-to-hand combat do exist in the Southwest archaeological record, and these span the height of occupation (circa A.D. 1000-1300). These cases of violence may represent relatively isolated examples, or they may be indicative of a more large-scale and integrated system of power dynamics, show of force, oppression, coercion, or conflict resolution.  It is possible that in order to maintain unanimity and harmony across diverse (economically, linguistically and ideologically) Pueblo communities, some show of force may have been necessary, but the degree to which this is the case needs much more systematic study. This project seeks to contribute both a new and reliable methodology as well as new data on violence and its potential impact on behavior.

3. Data collection and Methods of Analysis

This study involves a detailed analysis of the head wounds on skeletal remains from the American Southwest. Through X-ray analysis, endoscopy, casting, contour analysis and digitized photography, all non-lethal (healed) compression fractures and traumatic lesions will be analyzed for size, extent of involvement, location, severity, and weapon type. This aspect of the analysis involves primarily forensic and medical examination. In consultation with neurologists and head injury specialists (through the primary consultant, Ronald Beckett, Chair of diagnostic Imaging, Quinnipiac College), an estimation of the extent of the head wound will be made.

These data will be looked at in conjunction with other information on trauma from the rest of the body. Head wounds often co-occur with other kinds of lower body trauma such as broken rib or long bones, cases of lingering infections, and muscular irregularities (Martin 1997). This pattern of repeat injury, referred to as injury recidivism, has only recently been studied in contemporary populations (Williams et al 1997) and could easily be analyzed on the complete skeletons. As a result of repeat injury, individuals accumulate an aggregate of traumatic lesions over their lifetime and reveal more nuanced information about the motivation for and timing and patterning of violence.

Data from individuals with crania with traumatic injury will be systematically collected in the following manner:

1. Recording of age, sex, cultural affiliation and time period for each individual.
2. X-ray images of frontal and side views of all cranial fractures, injuries and lesions.
3. Endoscopic analysis of crania with lesions. This involves flexible lighting/digitized photos from inside the cranium in order to see the inside table of the crania and the surface of the inner table of bone.
4. Casts will be made for each lesions. Casts provide exact replicas of the original bone surface. The technique preserves an extremely accurate representation of bone surface morphology using polyvinyl rubber dental casting material.
5. Metric dimensions will be made of all cranial lesions.
6. Digital photographs will be taken of all cranial lesions.
7. Data on lower body trauma and disability will be collected to determine if head injuries co-occur with lower body injuries, and if there is a pattern of repeat injury (recidivism).
8. Data on treatment at death will be collected that include the mortuary component, grave goods, placement of the body, type of grave pit and location of the body in the community.
9. Data on head wounds, lower body injury and mortuary treatment will be entered into a spread-sheet for both qualitative and quantitative analyses.
10. Head wounds will be "mapped" by location on the crania, dimension and depth of each wound, amount of skeletal involvement, time-lapse (when did the injury occur and how long did the victim live after the assault), and etiology (neurological and behavior dysfunction).
11. Analysis of patterns of violence against women and the relating behavioral implications by region and within archaeological contexts

I have been working on southwest skeletal populations for the last 20 years, primarily in the assessment of pathologies and traumatic lesions. This research provides partial answers to questions that I have regarding how precontact/precolonial farmers and agriculturalists make a go of it in marginal desert environments. All of my research has been focused on diet, health, age-at-death, treatment at death (mortuary behavior) and injuries due to trauma and violence. This has opened up questions about groups at risk, such as women during pregnancy and birth, and the role of nutrition in health and disease. To understand the frequencies of disease, the connection between political-economic and environmental factors become part of a model that integrates health indicators with the cultural and environmental context within which people live. To further explore these questions, I have analyzed skeletal material from desert regions including the American Southwest, Egypt and Nubia, the United Arab Emirates and northern Mexico. All of these regions had ancient communities that supported themselves through agricultural activities and lived in adobe/mud brick housing arranged around water sources and farming plots. I have conducted large-scale regional studies on skeletal populations from the United Arab Emirates (Tell Abraq, Jebel al Emalah, Mowahait), northern Mexico (La Quemada), Nubia (Meroitic, X-Group and Christians) and the American Southwest (Anasazi).

I became interested in the role of violence and trauma in the mid-1980s as I began taking a closer look at healed fractures and noticing that violence was not always directed at men. However, at that time, there were few systematic studies of healed fractures due to non-lethal violence. There also were little methodological descriptions of how to study and interpret healed traumatic lesions. I organized several sessions or gave papers in sessions on violence at the national physical (AAPA), anthropological (AAA) and archaeology (SAA) meetings throughout the 1990s. This led to a co-edited volume, Troubled Times: Evidence for Violence and Warfare in the Past (1997, Gordon and Breach War and Society Series), on methods for assessment of violence and warfare on ancient skeletal material from all over the world.

Preliminary analyses were conducted on all of the head wounds from Anasazi skeletal remains from La Plata, New Mexico using the traditional techniques for scoring (as suggested in the Standards for Osteological Data Collection) which involved observations of the size and placement of the head wound. A substantial number of women with cranial trauma due to non-lethal blows to the head were identified. It was determined that these women likely suffered a range of health problems as a result. They also died at a younger age (than women without head wounds) and were buried in an unusual and haphazard fashion. I would like to now expand this project to larger sample sizes and newer methodologies.

This preliminary study on violence against women led to a number of meeting papers and posters. Based on this early work highlighting violence in ancient communities, the AAA Executive Board asked me to put together a Presidential session at last year’s meetings on “Dead Bodies and Violent Acts” (see Anthropology News 42:8-9) and based on the high attendance, I was asked to organize another session this year entitled “Mass Graves, Civil Wars, Modern Catastrophes: Anthropologists and the Dead in (Un)Imaginable Contexts” to be held this November in New Orleans.

Laboratory techniques that I have training in include microscopy, histology, and radiography. I have 3 years of post-doctoral training from the University of Connecticut Medical School/Farmington in the Department of Metabolism and Hard Connective Tissue. There I learned techniques in thin section analysis of bone histology, analysis of x-ray images of bone, microscope analysis at all levels (stereoscopic, cellular), and bone densitometry (peripheral instantaneous x-ray imaging). In preparation for this study, I have consulted with colleagues on learning diagnostic imaging at the Bioanthropology Center at Quinnipiac College in Connecticut.

5. Relationship of this Research to Work of Others

Anthropologists in increasing numbers have approached the study of violence and often, as a result of the unique approach (interdisciplinary, evolutionary, historical and cross-cultural), anthropologists find themselves working in increasing numbers in regions of the world beset with civil wars, catastrophies, and mass graves (e.g., Croatia, Guatemala, Rwanda, Waco etc.). The work of skeletal biologists and forensic anthropologists contribute methodological as well as theoretical dimensions to the discussions of violence.

For the ancient Southwest populations, the combined biological/neurological and psychological/sociological data will provide a basis for analyzing subgroups within a population who become targets for violence. Theories about the origin of violence and its maintenance through the persecution of individuals identified as witches may be a particularly rich venue to explore. Violence in this context would become more pronounced with inequality and differential access to scarce resources such as food. Similar cultural dynamics often underlie violence in a number of cultures.

This research provides a model for integrating the biological and behavioral implications of violence particularly as it relates to both the neurological and psychological effects. It further integrates theories about the behavioral after-effects of trauma into archaeological research. The cultural and social consequences of intentional violence go well beyond the immediate physical trauma on individuals. Recent research suggests that once an individual has been beaten, power is maintained by sustaining a palpable threat of violence over the victim without ever having to produce more injury (Moore et al. 1994:178). Violence diminishes the daily life of those who are threatened, beaten or afraid. Studies of violence in contemporary society demonstrate that fear and victimization is not randomly distributed in a population (Warr 1994:11). Thus, the study of violence in historic contexts must go beyond the proximate causes of individual’s cases of traumatic injury to analyze the patterns of violence at the level of the population.

Bioarchaeology is the study of human biological remains within a cultural context and it is therefore a highly interdisciplinary enterprise. Violence continues to be one of the more poorly understood behaviors in human groups the world over. Understanding the long history of violence in human groups and its numerous expressions extends our understanding of how and why violence is maintained in groups, and this can lead to better ideas about how violence can be eradicated or prevented in human groups today.

Reference Citations available upon e-mail request to dmartin@hampshire.edu.