CHAPTER 1
The anthropology of violent death and the treatment of the bodies: an introduction

Roberto C. Parra1,2* and Douglas H. Ubelaker3

1Technical Assistance Team. United Nations Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO), MONUSCO, Democratic Republic of Congo

2Unité mixte de recherche d'Anthropologie bio-culturelle, Droit, Éthique & Santé (UMR 7268 - ÁDES), Aix Marseille University, Marseille, France

3Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, USA

Anthropological approaches to death abound in the classical literature (Bloch and Parry 1982; Dreyfus and Anstett 2017; Ferguson 2006; Hertz 1960; Laqueur 2002, 2015; Martin et al. 2012; Metcalf and Huntington 1991; Carr 1995; Parker Pearson 2016; Robben 2018a, 2018b; Ucko 1969; Van Gennep 1960; Verdery 1999; Whitehead 2002, 2004a, 2005, 2007; among others). On the one hand, the anthropology of death has focused on elucidating how the dead continue to live in the collective imagination through a wide variety of mortuary and funerary rites. These rituals reinforce the meaning of death as an alternative way of living, prolonging their bonds, facing loss, and turning that death into a "good death." On the other hand, the representation of the body carries a symbolic load of meanings, such as the "brute stuff of death itself",1 and it sets up a wide range of traditions and customs for an appropriate commemoration. Hertz (1960) contributions have constituted the starting point to address both issues, and they have strongly driven the advancement of knowledge in the field of the anthropology of death. According to Engelke (2019, p. 31), "what we can take from Hertz is that the anthropology of death always begins and ends with the stuff of death, above all the materiality of the corpse, but more generally speaking the things that matter to making death good." Additionally, Hertz's approach does not focus only on how people remember their dead but also on how the dead prompt the living to remember them (Robben 2018a). These memories can be good to think about, but they can also be damaging, disturbing, and intrusive, and they can even be politically used to dominate or destroy others (Anstett and Dreyfus 2014; Dreyfus and Anstett 2017; Stepputat 2014; Verdery 1999).

Throughout its history, humanity has been closely - and somewhat ironically - linked to violent episodes that have resulted in the death of millions of people (Fry 2013). In the twentieth century alone, between 170 and 230 million people have died violently as a result of human actions (Hobsbawm 1994; Leitenberg 2006; Robinson 1998; Rummel 1996). Between 1990 and 2017, lethal violence in the form of criminal activity in particular and armed conflicts in general have produced nearly 14 million victims as well as countless social, humanitarian, economic, and cultural consequences. Paradoxically, all this has happened during an era distinguished by the positioning of science and technology, as well as the solid defense of human rights, but at the same time, it is clear that profound issues of disrespect for life, death, and human dignity still persist. This reality does not concur with those arguments stating that we have become less violent as we have become more civilized, as proposed, for example, by Pinker (2011). Rather, as Whitehead (2004c) and Sorel (1999) have highlighted, there is no straightforward correlation between violence and progress; violence always takes different forms and emerges in diverse contexts, and anthropologists have been exploring these expressions for quite a long time (Domínguez 2018).2

Pinker's arguments gathered support from popular sources, such as the recommendations made by Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg in 2018,3 but they also sparked opposing reactions, including the criticisms expressed in John Gray's (2011) Delusions of Peace4 and later (2015) in "Steven Pinker is wrong about violence and war".5 In both pieces, Gray offers a series of solid reasons to doubt that violence is declining. Ferguson (2013) also contradicted Pinker's thesis, arguing that what Pinker points out might be actually true but in the complete opposite direction. Other critiques point out Pinker's inappropriate use of statistical information to build his case (Cirillo and Taleb 2016; Falk and Hildebolt 2017) as well as the limitations and exaggerations in his use of data regarding violence in the prehistoric past (Ferguson 2013; Martin and Harrod 2015; Martin and Tegtmeyer 2017; Martin et al. 2012).

Historical documentation has played an important role in establishing and understanding the magnitude of violent episodes as part of armed conflicts (Hobsbawm 1994, 2002, 2008; Keegan 1976, 2012; Leitenberg 2006), and archaeology has contributed to the interpretive analysis of these events of prehistoric violence through the collection of data from the various bodies and contexts observed (Arkush and Allen 2008; Anderson and Martin 2018; Arkush and Allen 2006; Ferguson 2008; Martin and Anderson 2014; Ralph 2013; Redfern 2017; Nielsen and Walker 2009; Smith and Knusel 2014). Likewise, forensic anthropology6 has dealt with the analysis of violent events in recent history (Baraybar 2015; Doretti and Fondebrider 2001; Ferllini 2003, 2007; Fondebrider 2002, 2016; Kimmerle and Baraybar 2008; Komar and Lathrop 2012; Márquez-Grant and Errickson 2021; Rosenblatt 2010; Schmitt 2002; Snow 1984; Snow et al. 1989; Ubelaker 1996, 2017; Ubelaker et al. 2019; among others). Other anthropological approaches have also formulated explanations regarding the meaning of violence dynamics (Domínguez 2018; Ferguson 1984; Ferguson and Whitehead 1999; Fry 2013; Riches 1986, 1991; Schmidt and Schroder 2001; Whitehead 2004a, 2005, 2007; among others). However, the dissemination of anthropological knowledge regarding death and endemic violence is still a pending challenge and highly relevant in order to inform the opinion of the non-specialized public community (Buikstra 2019).

Evidence shows that the causes and processes behind violent deaths extend far beyond warfare; currently, intentional homicide due to criminal activities, interpersonal relationships, and a myriad of sociopolitical and cultural factors are the leading causes of death worldwide (UNODC 2019).7 Violent death, played out in all these different scenarios, has catapulted societies across the world into a humanitarian crisis, with tens of thousands of clandestine dump sites.8 In most situations, these places present a devastating image that is difficult to grasp due to the harshness of its cruelty and misery. Humans are experiencing a period of history that has accelerated to a "dizzying pace" and advancing at a speed that endangers our species (Hobsbawm 2008). All evidence indicates that political, ideological, racial, and religious motivations have been exacerbating our own destruction (Anstett and Dreyfus 2014). According to Parra and colleagues (2020, p. 79), "all these bloody episodes require new thoughts for humanitarian action to be conducted in an appropriate way. In many ways, social sciences and forensic sciences need to unite to face such humanitarian challenges". Within this context, the anthropology of violent death aims to become a framework for understanding what we should avoid as humanity and what we should embrace in terms of humanitarian action looking forward. During the first decades of the last century, Boas (1928, p. 11) argued "that a clear understanding of the principles of anthropology illuminates the social processes of our own times and may show us, if we are ready to listen to its teachings, what to do and what to avoid". Certainly, anthropology must keep contributing to this task by drawing attention to and explaining various events that have involved violent deaths, as well as their multiple forms of expression, the reasons behind them, and the meanings that these deaths hold within the affected communities (Anstett and Dreyfus 2014; Ferrándiz and Robben 2015; Fontein 2014; Kwon 2006, 2008; Robben 2018a, 2018b; Rojas-Pérez 2017; Uribe 1990).

Cruel or extreme violence has been a predominant behavior in many different times and contexts, and it has caused a strong impact on the living, the dead, and their symbolic environment (Sémelin 2007; Sofsky 2006; Whitehead 2002, 2004a, 2005, 2007). Apparently, when people exert extreme violence, the biological death of their victims is not the end of their aggression, much less the types of behaviors expressing surrender and submission that in other species - even including chimpanzees, which have shown a high rate of intragroup lethal aggression (Wilson et al. 2014) - would...