Archaeologist reveals factors affecting application of ocher in ancient burials at Khok Phanom Di

A study by Dr Sarah Elizabeth Paris published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology studied the connection between ocher burials and chronology, age, sexual mobility and burial tradition at the site of Khok Phanom Di (~4000-3500 BP), Thailand.

The study examined around 150 skeletal remains excavated in 1985 by Professor Charles Higham, Dr Rachanie Thosarat and a team of local and international excavators. The remains which cover the use of the site were found to have a significant correlation between chronology, burial type and age, with ocher burials becoming the dominant burial practice after the initial settlement phase.

According to Dr. Paris, the remains of Khok Phanom Di are particularly incredible because of their excellent preservation; she says: “One of the most incredible things about the human remains at Khok Phanom Di is the level of preservation. In order to fully understand bone surface coloring patterns across the body and between individuals, they must be comprehensive.

“That’s never the case in the archaeological record; you’re always dealing with missing data, but the KPD assemblage is about as good as it gets. This allowed me to record and analyze the coloring models with a greater degree of confidence that I see this as a reflection of pigment application and taphonomy, rather than preservation bias.

Ocher is a natural iron-rich mineral that has been used around the world for thousands of years. Some of the earliest examples of ocher are associated with burials around 92,000 years old.

Expanding on this point, Dr. Paris says: “The best-known examples of pigmented burials come from the Gravettian in Europe, where the selective application of ocher in burials and on specific parts of the body was linked to gender and pathology. did not anticipate that the absence of pigment would be more culturally significant than its presence.

“My research demonstrates that ocher is largely a unifying aspect of funerary traditions at the site, more so than any other material aspect.”

According to the study, while the initial phase of occupation had only one ocher burial, subsequent phases were dominated by more ocher burials, with mortuary phase 5 having 100% ocher burials.

This indicates that during the initial colonization, where, based on isotopic evidence, individuals migrated to Khok Phanom Di, most individuals would likely have brought their different burial customs with them. This included burial practices that did not include ocher.

Over time, however, the practice of using ocher was more widely adopted, indicating that the people of Khok Phanom Di were likely to have begun to gather as a community. Furthermore, sharing the same funeral practices could have helped to highlight a sense of belonging and shared identity and perhaps facilitate the maintenance of links with the deceased.

Additionally, the study found that there was an almost equal split in burials with ocher between men and women, indicating that gender was not a determining factor in which burials received ocher pigment.

Likewise, individuals with grave goods tended to be associated with ocher burials. However, those without grave goods had an almost equal distribution of graves with and without ocher. This potentially indicates that social status and grave goods were not the only factors that may have influenced who received ocher burials.

Surprisingly, however, the study found that age may have been a determining factor in the ocher burials. According to Dr. Paris, “the absence of pigment is almost exclusively reserved for some of the younger individuals who, notably, are also absent from other site-wide funerary traditions, such as grave goods or formal incisions in the graves.”

These younger individuals, such as infants, neonates (up to one month old), perineums (died around birth), were usually buried in shallow graves. These non-formal tombs were easy to dig and required less energy than formal rectangular tombs.

Dr. Paris elaborates further by stating, “I currently have a follow-up article under review that focuses more specifically on the perineums and personality. I don’t want to say too much because it has to go through the peer review process, but the results of my doctoral research demonstrate that about a fifth of perineums were buried without pigment and that they were, on average, physically smaller than those buried with pigment.

Although these infants, perineums, and newborns did not benefit from ocher burials, their inclusion within the cemetery boundaries indicates that they were still recognized as part of the community.

Furthermore, it was found that unlike contemporary and later sites, ocher burials were not as common at Nong Nor (3,100-2,700 BP) and Non Ban Jak (~1,400-1,700 BP), with only about 5% of their individuals buried with ocher.

Additionally, at some sites, including Ban Non Wat (~3,700-1,450 BP), locals modified the way they used ocher during their burial practices. Here, the first burials used powdered ocher; however, later this was modified with ocher pellets placed near the head or between the ankles, which was more akin to a funerary object.

This discovery makes Khok Phanom Di unique because not only were the majority of its burials ocher burials, with the exception of the first phase of settlement. But at Khok Phanom Di, burials continued to use ocher powder to be sprinkled on the body throughout its 500 years of use.

Looking ahead, Dr Paris says: “I am currently studying distribution patterns across the body and whether this differs between individuals, and working more broadly on understanding transitions from ocher use to through prehistory. »

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