Description: This essay presents a unique forensic / bioarchaeological investigation of the traumatised remains of an older male from Thasos, exploring the nature of the executing weapon reconstructed in bronze, the archaeometry on the trajectory and factors of speed and force at the deliverance of the deadly strike.
Brief description: ANAGNOSTIS P. AGELARAKIS is Professor of Anthropology at Adelphi University in New York. He studied Classical Archaeology and European Ethnology as an undergraduate, and as graduate Environmental Studies at Lund University and Lund Polytechnic Institute in Sweden. He holds a M. Phil. and Ph.D. (1989) in Anthropology from Columbia University, New York. In the earlier years of his career, he carried out field and/or lab archaeo-anthropological research projects focusing on the organizational abilities, capacities, and adaptations of the human condition during the Holocene in SE and SW Asia, the Middle East, the American Northeast, and the Caribbean. The central area of his research remains however the Eastern Mediterranean with emphasis on the ancient world of the Greeks, at the cross roads and sea routes between Africa, Asia, and Europe. Under the domains of Anthropological Archaeology, Funerary Archaeology, Bio-Archaeology and Forensics he studies the biological profiles, the demographic dynmics, and palaeopathological records of human skeletal populations from prehistoric periods to the late medieval era. Based on the skeletal record, he investigates issues relative to the changing dynamics in ancient warfare, the developments of the art of medicine particularly as it related to battle trauma surgery and healing regimens, as well as aspects on the decipherment of kinetic and occupational changes permanently recorded on bones and teeth. Further, he searches through archaeological anthropology for evidence that may fine-tune our knowledge on gender roles, and of the decorum and symbolism of burial customs and practices, always considering and juxtaposing where available with literary and historic records, as well as the rest of the archaeological record.