Kinship as social strategy: A contextual biodistance analysis of the Early Mycenaean Ayios Vasileios North Cemetery, southern Greece

Abstract

The Early Mycenaean era in mainland southern Greece is characterized by radical social transformations. The changes observed in the mortuary sphere include the introduction of new practices that stressed group identity alongside traditional modes of burial. Our hypothesis is that these mortuary choices should be seen as a social strategy for redefining kinship relations.

Here, we examine the extent to which the adoption of specific mortuary practices was based on biological or social affiliation by using the Ayios Vasileios North Cemetery, southern Greece (ca. 1700–1500 BCE) as a case study. We collected cranial and dental phenotypic data (measurements and non-metric traits) recorded for 69 individuals. Interindividual Gower distance coefficients were used to combine these metric and nonmetric data in the estimation of biological relationships.

The results show a biologically related burial group that shared relatively homogeneous mortuary practices. Therefore, biological kinship was not a determining factor in the adoption of different mortuary practices; instead, social kin ties were constructed by being buried together, and by sharing practices, experiences and choices. Finally, the burial of such a group in the same ground over a long period of time implies social strategies of exclusion and inclusion based on age and kinship divisions.