Mackenzie Masters
Research
Social Entanglement in Death: Interpopulation isotopic analysis between a mass grave and an attritional assemblage to assess social reactions to catastrophe from Medieval Leicester, England and Roman-Byzantine Ibida, Romania
Supervisors: Michelle Alexander and Malin Holst
My PhD research will utilise, at the very least, Carbon and Nitrogen isotopes with the potential of Strontium and Oxygen isotope analysis to conduct a comparative assessment between two mass graves with associated contemporary attritional assemblages. The mass graves will derive from two catastrophic contexts, an epidemic (11th century from Leicester, UK) and a conflict event (Late Roman period from Slava Rusă, Romania). Through isotopic analysis I will examine the diet of each assemblage and identify patterns that set apart the mass grave individuals from the attritional individuals. I will then contextualise the results through the chaîne opératoire model I have developed (from my MSc dissertation). I aim to identify the social motivations which may explain why a mass grave was a warranted course of action, gain a better understanding on migration and diet of these populations, identify correlations between diet/migration and catastrophic events, and understand the socio-cultural implications a mass grave may have had on the living community.
Through this study I intend to demonstrate: (1) the application of an interdisciplinary approach can produce a holistic evidence based understanding of complex funerary sites; (2) how the chaîne opératoire interpretive model reduces subjectivity, standardises how archaeologists interpret complex burial sites and makes the archaeological record more transparent; (3) how isotopic analysis is a vital tool in reconstructing an individual's life and death history, and (4) how mass graves provide an unparalleled snap shot into social relationships and communal reactions to catastrophe.
