












































Bioarchaeology International

Copyright © 2021 University of Florida Press

DOI: 10.5744/bi.2020.2001
Volume 4, Number 2: 75–88

Living and Dying in Mountain Landscapes: An 
Introduction
Jess Becka* and Colin P. Quinnb

aUniversity of Cambridge, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK, and 
Anthropology Department, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604, USA

bAnthropology Department, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY 13323, USA
*Correspondence to: Jess Beck, Anthropology Department, Vassar College, 124 Raymond Avenue,  
Poughkeepsie, NY 12604, USA

e-mail: jessicabeck@vassar.edu

ABSTRACT In this introduction to the thematic issue Living and Dying in Mountain Landscapes, we develop an analytical 
framework for the bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology of highland landscapes. We highlight new theo-
retical, methodological, and comparative contributions to the anthropological study of upland spaces. Theoret-
ical contributions include examining identity, connectivity, and adaptation from an explicitly biocultural 
perspective. By bridging the biological anthropological focus on the somatic with an archaeological focus on 
the long term, bioarchaeology allows for the development of an embodied understanding of “marginal” high-
land environments, investigating how such landscapes shape and are shaped by human action over time. Recent 
advances in bioarchaeological methods, including isotopic analyses of mobility and diet and ancient DNA stud-
ies of kinship and relatedness, are combined with traditional osteological examinations of age, sex, ancestry, 
and disease to reconstruct the lifeways of mountain communities. These methodological advances take advan-
tage of the topographical, geological, and ecological diversity of mountain landscapes. Finally, a comparative 
bioarchaeology of upland and lowland communities across space and time provides a deeper understanding of 
highland adaptations and identities. The papers share a number of unifying themes, including the impact of 
mountain landscapes on channeling resource control, creating or mediating diverse identities, and the impor-
tance of interdisciplinary investigations for developing an understanding of the relationship between people 
and place. As this issue demonstrates, the study of human remains must be situated within a holistic bioarchae-
ological approach to life and death in order to understand the dynamic relationships between people and the 
highland environments they occupy.

Keywords: mountains; marginality; identity

En esta introducción a la cuestión temática 'Vivir y morir en paisajes de montaña’ desarrollamos un marco 
analítico para la bioarqueología y la arqueología mortuoria de los paisajes serranos. Destacamos un conjunto de 
nuevas contribuciones teóricas, metodológicas, y comparativas al estudio antropológico de estos paisajes. Entre 
ellas destacan los análisis de la identidad, la conectividad y la adaptación, todos aproximados desde una per-
spectiva explícitamente biocultural. Al unir el énfasis bioantropológico en lo somático con el interés arque-
ológico en la larga duración, la bioarqueología favorece una aproximación corporizada a los ambientes 
“marginales” de las tierras altas, investigando cómo estos paisajes moldean y son moldeados por la acción hu-
mana a lo largo del tiempo. Los recientes avances en métodos bioarqueológicos, como los análisis isotópicos de 
movilidad y dieta o los estudios de ADN antiguo sobre parentesco y otros principios de existencia compartida, 
se combinan con los tradicionales exámenes osteológicos de edad, sexo, ascendencia y enfermedad para recon-
struir las formas de vida de las comunidades de montaña. Estos avances metodológicos aprovechan la 

Received 14 December 2019
Revised 29 May 2020
Accepted 1 June 2020



Introduction76

In his exploration of the paradoxes characterizing 
“remote areas,” social anthropologist Edwin Ardener 
(1987:41) underscores the importance of topography: 
“Mountains conventionally add to the ‘remoteness’ 
experience, but so very frequently do plains, forests, 
and rivers—so much so that the inhabitants of  
‘unremote’ places sometimes say that they do not 
have ‘real’ mountains, plains, forests, or rivers—only 
something else, hills (say), woods, or streams.”  
However, Ardener (1987:49) also cautions that “‘re-
moteness’ is a specification, and a perception, from 
elsewhere, from an outside standpoint; but from in-
side the people have their own perceptions.” The ten-
sion between the perceived marginality of mountain 
landscapes and the realities of their human occupa-
tion is one that has infused much of the recent litera-
ture on this topic in anthropology, human geography, 
and cultural ecology.

Mountain landscapes are apparently still deeply 
paradoxical spaces for anthropologists and other so-
cial scientists. Bates and Lozny (2013:2), in their ed-
ited volume on cultural adaptations to mountain 
environments around the world, emphasize that de-
spite their perceived status as “pristine” or “prime-
val” refugia, highland landscapes are historically 
contingent spaces, shaped by management practices 
ranging from road construction to mineral ex-
traction. Similarly, Kuklina and Holland (2018) stress 
that the perception of particular mountainous areas 
as remote or inaccessible can be a relatively recent 
historical phenomenon, rooted in the organization  
of state-imposed infrastructure (e.g., “distance- 
demolishing technologies” [Scott 2009:xii]) rather 
than inherent or long-standing inaccessibility. In-
stead of being ecologically marginal spaces, moun-
tains are important reservoirs of biocultural diversity 
(Stepp et  al. 2005), and even harsh climatic condi-
tions do not always prove a deterrent to upland occu-
pations by local human groups (Walsh 2005).

Depending on the topographic criteria used to de-
fine mountains, geographers estimate that between 
12% and 24% of all terrestrial land area outside Ant-
arctica is composed of mountains (Kapos et al. 2000; 

Körner et  al. 2011; Meybeck et  al. 2001). Given the 
prevalence of mountain landscapes and the fre-
quency with which humans interact with mountains 
across the globe, anthropologists are increasingly 
aware of the need to better understand these 
landscapes.

The primacy of upland landscapes for structuring 
and mediating social relationships has led increas-
ing anthropological attention to be paid to these en-
vironments, as evidenced by the popularity of 
Scott’s (2009) volume on the deliberate statelessness 
of highland communities in Southeast Asia, or the 
recent Institute for European and Mediterranean 
Archaeology (IEMA) conference at the University 
of Buffalo on the topic of the “Archaeology of Moun-
tain Landscapes” (IEMA 2017). While bioarchaeolo-
gists have grown more invested in elucidating the 
relationships between people and the social and en-
vironmental landscapes they inhabit (Austin 2017; 
Becker 2019; Berger and Juengst 2017; White et  al. 
2009), there has not been an edited volume or jour-
nal issue devoted to the bioarchaeology of mountain 
landscapes. This absence has contributed to an in-
complete understanding of human-environment in-
teraction at a time when such approaches are 
growing in importance within the field (see Robbins 
Schug 2020). For example, mountains are among 
the regions most susceptible to climate change  
(Adler et al. 2019; Kohler et al. 2014). Understanding 
how people in the past navigated mountain land-
scapes can provide critical insights into the role of 
landscapes in affecting human behavior, add to 
emerging scholarship on migration and human mo-
bility, and contribute to broader examinations of 
human responses to environmental change in the 
past and present.

The scholarship in this issue addresses three over-
arching themes in order to work toward building a 
new theoretical, methodological, and comparative 
framework to deepen our understanding of the bio-
cultural context of mountain communities. First, 
mountain landscapes have been approached from a 
variety of theoretical perspectives. What are the most 

diversidad topográfica, geológica y ecológica de los entornos serranos. Finalmente, una comprensión más pro-
funda de las adaptaciones e identidades de las serranías requiere de una aproximación bioarqueológica compar-
ativa de las comunidades serranas y de las que habitan las tierras bajas a través del tiempo y del espacio. Todos 
estos trabajos comparten una serie de temas comunes: la manera en la que los paisajes de montaña canalizan las 
formas de control de los recursos, la creación o mediación de distintas identidades y la importancia de las inves-
tigaciones interdisciplinares para desarrollar una comprensión de la relación entre personas y lugares. Como se 
demuestra a lo largo de este número, el estudio de los restos humanos requiere de un enfoque bioarqueológico 
holístico de la vida y la muerte que permita comprender las relaciones dinámicas que se desarrollaron entre las 
personas y sus respectivos entornos serranos.

Palabras clave: montañas; marginalidad; identidad



Beck and Quinn 77

promising existing approaches and future develop-
ments in theorizing a bioarchaeology of mountain 
landscapes? For example, archaeological approaches 
to upland landscapes often focus on issues of mobil-
ity and marginality. In what ways do upland commu-
nities use and manipulate their local topographies, 
and in what ways are such groups constricted by 
mountain landscapes? Mountains can be arenas in 
which people contest and assert claims to territory, 
resources, and power. Visibility and accessibility 
within such landscapes affect communication, inter-
action, and engagement with other features of local 
social topographies. Second, what are the method-
ological opportunities and challenges for a bioar-
chaeology and mortuary archaeology of mountain 
landscapes? For example, the geological diversity of 
mountain landscapes can be an asset to isotopic stud-
ies of mobility, but limitations on sampling and ac-
cessibility may inhibit our ability to construct 
adequate base maps. How do new methods elucidate 
the lives and funerary practices of people buried in 
mountain landscapes? Finally, how do mountain 
communities compare with contemporaneous groups  
in the lowlands? Isolation must be demonstrated, 
rather than assumed. To understand highland adap-
tations, lifeways, and ideologies, mountain commu-
nities must be situated within a larger macroregion to 
identify the extent to which the landscape uniquely 
structured the social lives of upland communities.

This issue presents a novel approach to these ques-
tions by bringing together nuanced case studies from 
eastern Europe (Beck, Ciugudean, and Quinn), 
southeastern Europe (Zavodny), and central Asia 
(Eng and Aldenderfer) (Fig. 1, Table  1). In this 

introduction we contextualize these case studies 
within broader archaeological approaches to moun-
tainous landscapes across the globe. Recurring 
themes include the biocultural implications of moun-
tains as channels of resource control, the use of mor-
tuary ideology to unify or distinguish upland 
identities through mediating relationships between 
the living and the dead, and the importance of multi-
ple lines of evidence—from paleoclimatic to textual 
to skeletal—for understanding the complex relation-
ships between upland peoples and the landscapes 
they inhabit.

1.  Approaching Mountain Landscapes 
from a Biocultural Perspective

There is no simple way to define mountains. Re-
searchers in the natural sciences have relied upon 
ruggedness, the maximal elevation differences within 
a specified distance, to characterize mountains by 
their one common feature: steepness (Körner et  al. 
2011). Other factors, such as elevation, climate, and 
biodiversity, are unable to fully encapsulate the vari-
ability in mountain landscapes (Körner et  al. 2011). 
While some researchers have tried to quantitatively 
classify landscapes based on elevation and rugged-
ness (e.g., Kapos et  al. 2000), others have used rug-
gedness alone (e.g., Meybeck et  al. 2001). Such 
parameters, however, may lead portions of foothills 
or less rugged mountain chains, such as the older 
Apuseni mountain range (Beck et al. 2020), to be ex-
cluded from this kind of classification. As a result, no 
globally accepted definition of mountains exists 

Figure 1. Map of mountainous landscapes across the globe (black). Examples of bioarchaeological research in mountain landscapes are marked on  
the map with numbers that correspond to the entries in Table 1. Case studies from this special issue are surrounded by gray circles: (6) Beck et al.,  
(8) Eng and Aldenderfer, (9) Zavodny (based on Körner et al. 2011:Figure 1).



Introduction78

(Gerrard 1990; Körner et  al. 2011; Smith and Mark 
2003).

As anthropologists, we argue that mountains are 
not only defined by their physical characteristics; 
they are also understood as socially mediated cul-
tural landscapes. Consequently, it is not possible to 
draw strict definitional boundaries between moun-
tainous and non-mountainous landscapes. We ac-
knowledge that complex ontologies within past 
societies could have defined such landscapes in myr-
iad ways (Smith and Mark 2003). Here, we employ a 
more holistic conceptualization of mountain land-
scapes as spaces with topographic ruggedness where 
human behavior and interaction are shaped by the 
physiological and environmental complexity the 
landscapes encompass.

The common conceptualization of mountains as 
marginal areas is partially related to the very real 
physiological constraints on human high-altitude oc-
cupation. High-altitude (> 2,500 m above sea level) 
mountainous landscapes present significant obstacles 
to human habitation, ranging from decreased levels 
of oxygen (hypoxia) to weather extremes, high levels 
of solar radiation, and the low primary productivity 
of local ecologies (Rademaker et al. 2014; Aldenderfer 
2019). Such harsh environments require major ge-
netic, physiological, and cultural adaptations in the 
human groups occupying these landscapes. Research 
focused on the populations of three areas—the  
Tibetan Plateau, the Ethiopian Plateau, and the 

Andean Altiplano—has revealed measurable differ-
ences in the hematological, circulatory, and respira-
tory features of high-altitude groups (Beall 2001, 
2006; Beall et al. 2001; Bigham et al. 2013). Cultural 
adaptations include the use of particular kinds of 
technology and material culture, as well as residen-
tial, resource, and subsistence strategies that allow 
human groups to overcome the problems of hypoxia, 
seasonality, and cold stress with which they are con-
fronted within high-altitude environments (Alden-
derfer 2006).

Despite the undisputed harshness of life at high al-
titudes, archaeological research demonstrates that 
humans have deliberately exploited mountainous 
landscapes for thousands of years. The foothills of the 
North Caucasus have been occupied since the Middle 
Paleolithic, between 70,000 and 30,000 years B.P. 
(Skinner et al. 2005), while the foothills of the South 
Caucasus have been inhabited since the Upper Paleo-
lithic, some 33,000 to 27,000 years BP (Bar-Yosef et al. 
2011), with occasional evidence of higher-altitude oc-
cupations, as at the site of Hovk 1 Cave in Armenia 
(Pinhasi et  al. 2008; Sagona 2017). Recent research 
has extended the human occupation of the Tibetan 
Plateau, one of the highest human-occupied environ-
ments on Earth, from ~12,700 years B.P. (Meyer et al. 
2017) to at least 30,000 to 40,000 years B.P.  
(Zhang et al. 2018). The earliest archaeological sites in 
the high Andes of Peru and Bolivia have been dated 
to over 12,000 years B.P., though widespread and 

Table 1.  Mountainous landscapes referenced in bioarchaeological case studies discussed in text. Bolded numbers and asterisked references denote 
case studies introduced in this thematic issue. 

Number Mountainous Landscape Region Research Topics References

1 Acacus Mountains North Africa Isotopic analysis of mobility Tafuri et al. 2006

2 Alps (Central) Western Europe Isotopic analysis of mobility Holden 2003; Müller et al. 2003

3 Andes (Central) South America Isotopic analysis of mobility Tung and Knudson 2011;

4 Andes (South Central) South America Analyses of osteoarthritis; isotopic analysis of 
mobility; analyses of artificial cranial deforma-
tion, nonmetric traits, and demographic profiles

Becker 2019; Blom et al. 1998; 
Knudson et al. 2005

5 Cardamom Mountains Southeast Asia Mortuary archaeology, radiocarbon dating Beavan et al. 2012

6 Carpathians (Western) Eastern Europe Mortuary archaeology, bioarchaeological 
analysis of mortuary treatment

Beck et al. 2020*

7 Caucasus (Greater) Eurasia Isotopic analysis of diet Knipper et al. 2018

8 Himalayan Arc Central Asia Genomic, isotopic, bioarchaeological, anthropo-
logical, and archaeological analyses

Eng and Aldenderfer 2017, 2020*

9 Lika region of Croatia Southeastern 
Europe

Mortuary archaeology Zavodny 2020*

10 Sierra Madre (South) Mesoamerica Isotopic analysis of mobility Price et al. 2015

11 Vosges Mountains Western Europe Isotopic analysis of mobility Bentley et al. 2003



Beck and Quinn 79

year-round occupations did not occur until several 
thousand years later (Capriles et al. 2016; Rademaker 
et al. 2014).

Bioarchaeology has the potential to make major 
contributions to debates about mountain communi-
ties through the use of a biocultural and embodied 
perspective. By combining skeletal evidence with 
mortuary archaeology, bioarchaeology allows us to 
embed our understandings of mountain communi-
ties within explicit discussions of human choice and 
agency in order to explore how, when, and why hu-
man groups occupy highland areas.

2.  Theorizing a Bioarchaeology of 
Mountain Landscapes through 
Interrogating Marginality

Mountain landscapes are commonly framed as so-
cially and environmentally marginal spaces, as evi-
denced through the vocabulary used to describe 
them: upland regions are “remote” (Kuklina and 
Holland 2018), “inaccessible” (Hammond 1976), 
“low-yielding” (Guillet 1983), “risky” (Walsh 2005), 
“on the fringe” (Walsh 2005), “rugged” (Salomon 
2018), and “forbidding” (Cole and Wolf 1974) areas 
characterized by extreme “isolation” (Galaty 2013). 
This reputation often has long-lasting effects; as 
Drummond (2018) notes, the economic and historical 
marginality of highland areas often has led to delays 
in toponymic recording, so that in addition to being 
viewed as inaccessible, many of these areas remained 
officially nameless until relatively recently.

As a result of the presumed marginality of upland 
environments, archaeological approaches to “periph-
eral” landscapes are particularly helpful for guiding 
the development of bioarchaeological understand-
ings of mountain communities. Much of the vocabu-
lary used to describe peripheral regions is rooted in 
disciplinary adaptations of world systems theory 
(Wallerstein 1974), which have applied various itera-
tions of core-periphery frameworks to the prehistoric 
past (Kardulias and Hall 2008; Peregrine 2000; Sher-
ratt 1993a, 1993b). The overarching goal of such anal-
yses entails situating social and economic networks 
within a broader regional or extra-regional core-pe-
riphery framework that structures interactions at a 
variety of scales. Many of these core-periphery rela-
tionships are at least partially defined by environ-
mental factors. In his discussion of the intersection 
between physical and social geographies, Hall 
(2000:251) specifies that “the interaction between val-
ley people and hill people is perhaps the earliest form 
of world-system formation,” emphasizing that eco-
logical borders, such as those between the steppe and 

arable lands or between plains and mountains, are 
key areas for studying the social tensions and trans-
formations precipitated by intergroup interactions. 
Such approaches are not without their detractors 
(e.g., Harding 2013; Stein 2002). However, what is 
most relevant for our purposes is that mountains  
are often assumed to be marginal areas, and useful 
archaeological interrogations of the concepts of 
“margins” and “peripheries” have been developed in 
response to early applications of world systems 
theory.

Such interventions began during the 1990s, with 
Sherratt (1993b:250) pointing to marginal regions in 
Bronze Age Europe as areas that were “culturally 
transformed, but structurally independent” of Near 
Eastern urban centers and their peripheries. He high-
lights the independence and agency of marginal 
communities in picking and choosing elements of ur-
ban society—be they technological, political, or ideo-
logical—to reinterpret in new social contexts. This 
foregrounding of choice and agency on part of actors 
on the margins is also encapsulated by the notion of 
“negotiated peripherality” (Kardulias 2007; Morris 
1996), whereby actors in peripheral zones are not pas-
sive recipients in thrall to external forces but rather 
“active players” (Kardulias 2007:76) in intergroup in-
teractions. These framings are echoed by other work 
that highlights the status of “peripheries” (Stein 2002) 
and “frontiers” (K. G. Lightfoot and Martinez 1995) 
as productive areas of cross-cultural contact, where 
microscalar analyses of human agency and macro-
scalar understandings of broader socioeconomic 
systems both affect the outcome of interactions and 
events.

Just as mountains are assumed to be politically 
marginal spaces, they are also assumed to be envi-
ronmentally hazardous. As Walsh (2005:298–299)  
argues, “There is little doubt that mountain environ-
ments are risky . . . and many of these risks increase 
with altitude.” Researchers working with contempo-
rary mountain communities emphasize that life in 
such landscapes is difficult due to the demands of 
making a living in a harsh and unpredictable envi-
ronment, though it is worth noting that these charac-
terizations are based on high altitudes in temperate 
zones where climate and ecology are subject to large-
scale seasonal changes (Cole and Wolf 1974; Schon 
and Galaty 2006). Mountain communities cope with 
environmental challenges through a variety of cul-
tural adaptations ranging from seasonal migration, 
to the development of a range of agropastoral strate-
gies, to the diversification of productive activities and 
their scheduling (Lozny 2013:396). As Halstead (1990) 
demonstrates in his study of transhumant pastoral-
ism in the Pindhus Mountains of northern Greece, 



Introduction80

such strategies are often dependent on complex inter-
connections that link those living at high altitudes to 
other communities. In the Pindhus, transhumant 
pastoralism was underlain by a variety of overlapping 
strategies, including access to both extensive summer 
and winter pasture, reliable means of converting ani-
mals into agricultural staples, participation in over-
land trade networks allowing for a degree of economic 
specialization, and irrigated summer crops that could 
be used to buffer risks in the winter months. 
Halstead’s work reveals that pastoralists in the 
Pindhus were not relics of a stubborn prehistoric 
self-sufficiency but were instead deeply connected to 
modern economic systems of land management and 
exchange.

Archaeological work in Alpine France likewise 
highlights the importance of historical context for 
understanding how environmental risk was per-
ceived in mountain landscapes in the past. Through a 
program of combined survey and test excavations, 
Walsh (2005:289) demonstrates that human occupa-
tions of the Faravel Plateau “waxed and waned” in 
patterns that did not correspond predictably to re-
gional climatic shifts. During the Roman period, 
when climatic conditions were optimal, the high-
lands were relatively empty. During the medieval and 
post-medieval periods, which coincided with the cli-
matic deterioration wrought by the Little Ice Age, 
these alpine environments were at their busiest. Such 
patterns are the result of culturally and historically 
mediated perceptions of risk, folded into larger so-
cial, economic, and political frameworks. Walsh ar-
gues that people did not avoid the highlands during 
the Roman period because the mountains were 
viewed as economically or ecologically marginal 
spaces, but instead because patterns of land occupa-
tion were shaped by Roman policies and attitudes to-
ward land management, territorial boundaries, and 
population control.

While the Romans provide one example of a larger 
imperial power acting to keep people out of the 
mountains, there are many documented upland 
communities whose presence within mountain land-
scapes is rooted in resistance to larger systems of con-
trol. Scott (2009), in particular, reads the continued 
occupation of the Zomia—the massive expanse of the 
Southeast Asian Massif which spans ten countries—
as an explicit response to the expanding power of 
lowland states and empires: “Virtually everything 
about these people’s livelihood, social organization, 
ideologies, and (more controversially) even their 
largely oral cultures, can be read as strategic posi-
tionings designed to keep the state at arm’s length” 
(2009:x). Schon and Galaty (2006) highlight the de-
ployment of similar strategies in the Shala Valley of 

northern Albania, one of the last refugia of tribal so-
cieties in twentieth-century Europe. Shala Valley 
communities have occupied this upland region since 
the fifteenth century in response to both internal and 
external factors, including changes in settlement pat-
terns and land use within Albania and the ever-en-
croaching influence of the Ottoman Empire. Galaty 
(2013) argues that occupants of the Shala Valley took 
advantage of the opportunity for autonomy afforded 
by the relative isolation and inaccessibility of the 
mountain landscape, maintaining their negotiated 
peripherality through a program of violence, feud-
ing, and warfare, supplemented by intermittent  
political interaction with the larger powers that sur-
rounded them. In this case, while politics were local, 
decisions and alliances were still embedded within 
an understanding of external political frameworks: 
here, “‘isolation’ was not so much a condition to be 
endured, but was rather a strategy engaged, one used 
to fend off conquest and incorporation by external 
powers and preserve a degree of autonomy” (Galaty 
2013:145).

Even a cursory survey of the existing literature de-
voted to mountain communities thus demonstrates 
that marginality is relative, and careful consideration 
of cultural and historical context is necessary before 
characterizing highland spaces as the wastelands of 
“freezing privation” often imagined by outsiders, as 
is the case in the Andes (Salomon 2018:24). Impor-
tantly, bioarchaeology can make key contributions to 
theorizing marginality, whether social or environ-
mental, in mountain landscapes. Many of the cri-
tiques of world systems theory hinge on problems of 
scale and focus (i.e., Harding 2013:385), with archae-
ologists resisting sweeping, top-down economic ex-
planations of cultural transformations that treat 
peripheral communities as passive recipients of 
change fomented by external systems. Such critiques 
call for more fine-grained, microscale examinations 
of how outside influences are received, reconfigured, 
or resisted at the level of individuals and communi-
ties. As K. G. Lightfoot and Martinez (1995:483–485) 
emphasize in their research on fur-trading in western 
North America, the “backgrounds, interests and mo-
tivations” of individuals inhabiting frontier zones 
vary as a result of ethnic, socioeconomic, and gen-
dered identities, creating a rich potential for individ-
uals and factions to participate in intercultural 
interactions to further their own agendas. Tica (2019) 
likewise highlights the dynamic fluidity of social re-
lations at borders and frontiers, while Tica and Mar-
tin’s (2019) geographically and chronologically 
wide-ranging edited volume provides a demonstra-
tion of the ways in which bioarchaeology can investi-
gate areas that are either spatially or symbolically 



Beck and Quinn 81

liminal. Bioarchaeology is well positioned to explore 
these marginal dynamics through investigating how 
dimensions of social identity (e.g., age, gender, class) 
and lived experience (e.g., disease, violence, stress) af-
fect how intergroup interactions are received at the 
level of individuals (Quinn and Beck 2016).

In addition to providing a more fine-grained  
understanding of the social dynamics of the “periph-
ery,” bioarchaeology can also make unique contri-
butions to theories of marginality through the 
investi  gation of social connectivity and environmen-
tal risk from an embodied perspective. Lived experi-
ences of travel, intercommunity relationships, 
resource consumption, and physiological stress can 
become “literally incorporated” into human skeletal 
remains (sensu Krieger 2005). All of these experi-
ences and the individual and/or communal choices 
that they entail—deciding where to move, what to eat 
and drink, what kinds of labor to undertake, and 
whom to interact with—are important consider-
ations for comprehending the biosocial context of 
marginal landscapes. As we outline in the next sec-
tion, recent techniques in archaeological science, 
ranging from isotopic analyses of mobility and diet 
to ancient DNA (aDNA) studies of kinship and relat-
edness, can be combined with traditional osteologi-
cal examinations of age, sex, ancestry, disease, and 
stress to deepen our understanding of the ways in 
which marginality is incarnated or resisted in moun-
tain communities.

Finally, the mortuary practices of mountain com-
munities have the potential to illuminate the ways in 
which distinct upland identities are maintained, ne-
gotiated, and communicated to others (Parker Pear-
son 1995). All contributions to this issue highlight the 
ways in which the treatment and placement of the 
dead can convey particular messages about resource 
ownership (Beck, Ciugudean, and Quinn), territorial 
control (Zavodny), or regional cultural identity (Eng 
and Aldenderfer). Beavan et al. (2012) report similar 
practices for the Cardamom Mountains of Cambodia 
in the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries A.D. 
Archaeological research in this region has docu-
mented multiple mortuary sites on mountain cliffs 
and ledges, where the bones of the dead were depos-
ited in imported ceramic vessels that were then 
placed in coffins carved out of local wood. These ani-
mistic upland funerary practices were distinct from 
the predominant mortuary rituals of the lowland 
Khmer Empire and highlight the strategies by which 
people “whose lives were contemporary with, yet a 
world apart, from Angkor” maintained distinct iden-
tities in both life and death (Beavan et  al. 2012:20). 
Theoretical attention to the ways in which upland 

mortuary practices act as forums in which com-
munity identities are affirmed or contested provides 
greater anthropological insight into the ways in 
which mountain communities distinguished them-
selves from, or incorporated themselves into, wider 
social networks.

3.  Methodological Opportunities and 
Challenges of Mountain Landscapes

While bioarchaeology has the ability to contribute to 
the development of new theoretical approaches to 
mountain landscapes through a focus on the embod-
ied dimensions of marginality and identity, expand-
ing methodological toolkits have also increased the 
scope of osteoarchaeological research. New develop-
ments in bioarchaeological and archaeological sci-
ence make it possible to investigate multiple aspects 
of lived experience from a biocultural perspective, 
including mobility, diet, disease, stress, and kinship.

The geological and topographical complexity of 
mountains makes them ideal contexts in which to 
use isotopic analyses of strontium and oxygen to ex-
amine patterns of individual and regional mobility. 
These techniques have been profitably employed in a 
series of studies comparing upland and lowland 
landscapes in South America (Knudson et al. 2005; 
Toyne et  al. 2014; Tung and Knudson 2011; White 
et  al. 2009), North America (Price et  al. 2015),  
Europe (Bentley et al. 2003), and North Africa (Ta-
furi et al. 2006). There is also a rich and expanding 
literature that uses such techniques to document an-
imal mobility, particularly in areas where questions 
persist about the origins and organization of pasto-
ral practices (Chazin 2018; Chazin et  al. 2019; see 
Ventresca Miller and Makarewicz 2018 for a sum-
mary of recent research). Because oxygen isotope ra-
tios are influenced by many environmental 
factors—including latitude, altitude, climate, precip-
itation levels, and seasonality (Knudson 2009;  
E. Lightfoot and O’Connell 2016)—many of the most 
promising new studies combine oxygen isotope 
analysis with a reliance on geological distinctions 
between mountains and lowlands, as materialized in 
different ranges of strontium isotope ratios, in order 
to identify migrants and locals. Indeed, Bentley’s 
(2006) foundational and highly cited overview of 
strontium applications in archaeology itself uses a 
case study from a mountainous region, the Upper 
Rhine Valley of Germany, to illuminate the potential 
of the strontium isotopic approach for identifying 
migrants in geologically and topographically vari-
able landscapes.



Introduction82

Strategies that sample multiple teeth from a single 
skeleton to reconstruct patterns of mobility over the 
course of individual life histories (Hrnčíř and Laf-
foon 2019) have particular potential for deepening 
our understanding of lived experience in mountain 
environments. These methods take advantage of the 
developmentally staggered formation times of the 
permanent teeth in order to compare strontium iso-
tope ratios that were taken up at different times 
during an individual’s life. One well-publicized 
demonstration of the utility of these fine-grained 
strategies is the interdisciplinary approach to tracing 
the lifetime mobility of “Ötzi,” or the “Iceman,” the 
famously well preserved Late Neolithic individual 
found in the Ötztal Alps along the border of Italy and 
Austria. In this case, researchers used a multidisci-
plinary toolkit including strontium and oxygen iso-
topes sampled from a variety of tissues to demonstrate 
that this individual’s lifetime movements were likely 
restricted to a 60 km radius of where his body was 
found (Holden 2003; Müller et al. 2003). Importantly, 
Stojanowski and Duncan (2015) suggest that these 
kinds of deeply textured reconstructions of individ-
ual life histories are one way to attract public atten-
tion to archaeological research, an observation that 
has been echoed by other scholars focused on osteo-
biographical approaches to the human past (e.g., 
Boutin and Callahan 2019; Hosek and Robb 2019; 
Robb 2009; Robb et al. 2019).

Recent advances in aDNA research provide an-
other avenue for understanding migration and  
interaction in mountain landscapes. For example, 
paleogenetic studies have documented large-scale 
patterns of prehistoric migration in the study of  
European prehistory (e.g., Haak et al. 2015; Kristian-
sen et al. 2017). At the same time, research in late pre-
historic central Europe has demonstrated the value of 
archaeogenetic studies for understanding patterning 
in kinship, mobility, and social relations at a more lo-
calized scale. Mittnik et  al. (2019) examine Bronze 
Age inheritance and inequality in southern Ger-
many, bringing together aDNA, mortuary archaeol-
ogy, and isotopic analysis to elucidate the links 
between kinship and control over metal resources 
over the course of the Neolithic to Bronze Age transi-
tion. Knipper et al. (2017) employ similar methods—
embedding local paleogenetic and isotopic analyses 
within a well-established regional archaeology—to 
explore patterning in patrilocality and exogamy in 
Bell Beaker Complex and Early Bronze Age southern 
Bavaria. Such interdisciplinary initiatives highlight 
the potential of aDNA approaches for informing bio-
cultural research design in mountain landscapes. As 
Walsh (2005:300) indicates, the presence of larger 
numbers of people is one strategy that can be used to 

reduce risk in mountain environments. Relationships 
between individuals and communities that occupied 
mountain landscapes and new migrant communities 
are one kind of interaction that could be identified 
through aDNA research.

In addition to providing a deeper understanding 
of mobility at the individual and community level, 
isotopic approaches are also useful for understanding 
other distinctions in lived experience between high-
land and lowland groups, particularly when it comes 
to subsistence. Knipper et al. (2018), for example, ex-
plicitly compare the diets of groups exploiting the 
Caucasus uplands and groups exploiting the adjacent 
humid steppe in their diachronic exploration of the 
Russian North Caucasus region. Here, isotopic anal-
ysis of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotopes pre-
served in the human bone collagen of “mountain 
dwellers and valley residents” (135), combined with 
GIS analyses of land type and use, revealed dietary 
shifts that appear to have been linked to changes in 
settlement patterns and subsistence practices. In this 
case, the explicit collection and comparison of sam-
ples from a variety of habitats and time periods 
(Knipper et al. 2018:Table 9.1) helped to provide a de-
tailed cultural and ecological framework within 
which to examine the diet of upland communities.

As the aforementioned studies demonstrate, bio-
molecular analyses can provide insight into differ-
ences in diet, mobility, and connectivity between 
upland and lowland communities. However, stan-
dard skeletal indicators of dietary or physiological 
stress are also important for reconstructing moun-
tain lifeways. Eng and Aldenderfer’s bioarchaeologi-
cal research in the Himalayas of Nepal offers a useful 
template for exploring multiple aspects of lived expe-
rience in the highlands. Through examining patterns 
of dental disease and childhood stress markers  
in a sample of three sites in the Mustang District  
of Nepal, the authors outline evidence for intersite 
differences in oral health in tandem with low fre-
quencies of stress markers across all samples, identi-
fying a “complex picture of adaptive responses  
among high altitude communities” (2017:11) whose  
lifeways are adapted to, but not determined by, their 
environment.

Traditional forms of skeletal analysis can be em-
bedded within an understanding of archaeological 
context to provide deep insights into patterns of dis-
ease, labor, ritual practices, and ethnicity in moun-
tain communities. For example, in their diachronic 
study of influence and colonization within the Tiwa-
naku polity, Blom et  al. (1998) assess the frequency  
of nonmetric cranial, dental, and skeletal traits,  
as well as patterning in demographic profiles and  
artificial cranial deformation styles to provide a 



Beck and Quinn 83

bioarchaeological test of archaeological models of in-
teraction between the highland Tiwanku heartland 
and local groups from the lowlands of the Moquegua 
Valley. As Torres-Rouff (2002) emphasizes, practices 
such as artificial cranial deformation can be used as a 
form of physical and symbolic demarcation or as a 
means of signaling and materializing social ties to 
other communities. Such somatic manifestations of 
social practice could be used to denote various social 
identities—whether religious, ethnic, or status-re-
lated—within mountain groups.

While multiple social identities can thus be read 
through treating the body as a form of material cul-
ture (Sofaer 2006), human skeletal remains also en-
code unconscious information about the daily 
practices of past societies. In her investigation of la-
bor practices in the Tiwanaku state, Becker (2019) 
profitably borrows from Ingold’s notion of “task-
scapes” to explore the ways in which human skeletal 
remains preserve a record of habitual activities in the 
past. Through comparing the frequency and anatom-
ical patterning of osteoarthritis in a large sample of 
individuals from the highland Tiwanaku state core 
and a lower-elevation colony, this research identifies 
regional differences in activity patterns between the 
core and colony, as well as gendered and occupational 
differences in labor practices at varying scales. Such 
studies provide valuable models for bioarchaeologists 
tasked with understanding the social lives of moun-
tain communities.

While methodological developments in bioarchae-
ology thus demonstrate the novel insights and rich 
detail that analyses of human remains can provide 
into the experiences of individuals living in moun-
tain landscapes, significant challenges remain. As 
Beavan et al. (2012:1) indicate, archaeological research 
focused on upland cultures is faced with particular 
obstacles, including issues of archaeological preser-
vation, accessibility of samples, and researcher access 
to sites. In their paper in this issue, Eng and Alden-
derfer likewise point to the potential need for low-
land-adapted researchers to acclimate physically to 
high-altitude study sites and the limited laboratory 
infrastructure available in many highland regions. 
Also problematic is the concentration of salvage ar-
chaeological work in lowlands due to the predomi-
nance of infrastructural projects in these areas; the 
highlands often lack the rich cultural and historical 
backdrop such an existing record can provide (see 
Beck, Ciugudean, and Quinn’s paper in this issue). 
Research-focused excavations are thus often a pre-
requisite for understanding mountain communities 
from a biocultural perspective, but such research 
programs come with a particular set of financial  
constraints and ethical considerations, including 

questions about when and why it is appropriate to 
embark on new excavation campaigns. However, 
without targeted programs of upland bioarchaeologi-
cal research, the spatial distribution of archaeological 
research will produce biased samples which exclude 
mountain communities as a result of their remote-
ness in modern infrastructural contexts. The geolog-
ical and topographic complexity of mountains also 
requires that we increase the quantity of samples 
used to create baseline maps of bioavailable stron-
tium when compared with less geologically complex 
landscapes. Such challenges require careful consider-
ation moving forward and underscore the impor-
tance of this special issue for developing clear and 
effective strategies for mountain bioarchaeological 
research.

4.  A Global Bioarchaeology of Mountain 
Landscapes

The contributions to this thematic issue highlight the 
emerging potential for a global bioarchaeology of 
mountain landscapes. Zavodny’s investigation of 
mortuary practices in Bronze and Iron Age Lika, 
Croatia, demonstrates the utility of incorporating 
previously excavated data into new theoretical frame-
works. Her research uses a novel and systematic ex-
amination of mortuary evidence—including grave 
goods, body treatment, and cemetery type—to 
counter culture-historical narratives that portray the 
Iapodian culture as appearing fully formed in the re-
gion during the Late Bronze Age. Her work shows 
that the emergence of a coherent Iapodian identity 
was a complex process that played out differently in 
different valleys, relative to localized distinctions in 
geography that may have been linked to the ability to 
control and channel exchange networks. Zavodny 
highlights the ways in which treating mortuary com-
ponents as a “discrete comparative package” can as-
sist archaeologists and bioarchaeologists untangling 
the complex patterns of interaction and integration 
that permeate the social geography of mountain 
regions.

Similarly, Eng and Aldenderfer use genetic analyses 
to unpack the “mosaic” population history of high-
land Nepal, arguing that this region has been a nexus 
for intergroup interaction and movement for long pe-
riods of time. Their archaeogenetic evidence provides 
new data against which to evaluate long-standing his-
torical and archaeological claims about the human 
inhabitation of the area, leading them to forcefully 
underscore that “a modern perception of the ‘remote-
ness’ of these valleys should not be projected uncriti-
cally into the past” (Eng and Aldenderfer 2020:143). 



Introduction84

Importantly, Eng and Aldenderfer emphasize that 
different lines of evidence tell different, and incom-
plete, stories about the human past. It is only through 
bringing together archaeological, bioarchaeological, 
genomic, ethnohistoric, and paleo-environmental ev-
idence in a comparative framework that a holistic and 
detailed picture of migration and biocultural adapta-
tion begins to materialize for Himalayan prehistory.

Our own research in Transylvania, presented in 
this issue, has begun to explore the degree to which 
upland mortuary practices during the Early Bronze 
Age—which incorporated different forms of mortu-
ary treatment and structural elements than lowland 
tombs—may have been one way local communities 
signaled a distinct cultural and ethnic identity (Beck, 
Ciugudean, and Quinn). Here, our explicitly biocul-
tural approach will provide a fine-grained anthropo-
logical framework for understanding the local impact 
of the “massive migrations” that have been argued to 
characterize European late prehistory (Haak et  al. 
2015). In this region, evaluating how lowland and up-
land communities maintained or negotiated distinct 
identities through mortuary practice has important 
implications for examining how “peripheral” regions 
responded to the larger-scale social transformations 
that characterized the European third millennium 
B.C. (Harris et al. 2013).

The papers in this issue also demonstrate the multi- 
scalar potential of bioarchaeological approaches to 
mountain landscapes. Our case study in Transylva-
nia is locally focused, comparing the bioarchaeologi-
cal and mortuary evidence from two sites that could 
have been accessed in a day’s journey on foot in pre-
history. This local scale allows us to examine the ways 
in which mortuary practices may have acted as a 
venue for signaling differences in community iden-
tity, even between groups located in close geographic 
proximity to one another. Zavodny tacks back and 
forth between the local scale and the regional scale, 
situating her analysis of the important center of 
Gacka within an examination of other Late Bronze 
Age sites in the Caput Adriae, assessing how pattern-
ing in the material culture incorporated into mortu-
ary practices can provide new information about 
patterns of exchange and resource control. Eng and 
Aldenderfer pursue a regional approach, drawing 
upon biocultural evidence from six sites in the Mus-
tang and Manang districts of Nepal to explore varia-
tion in migration, adaptation, and lived experience 
over space, time, and altitude.

Finally, all of the studies included in this issue em-
phasize the utility of interdisciplinary approaches 
that incorporate multiple lines of evidence and com-
pare bioarchaeological data from the human skeleton 

to data drawn from archaeological, historical, and 
paleoclimatic records. Whether examining resource 
access and control (Beck, Ciugudean, and Quinn), 
channels of exchange (Zavodny), or high-altitude ad-
aptation (Eng and Aldenderfer), the research pre-
sented in this issue is careful to compare not only 
lowland and highland communities but also the re-
sults from a range of studies and specialities. That di-
verse lines of evidence are consistently incorporated 
into mountain bioarchaeological research from a 
wide variety of regions and time periods suggests 
that collaborative, interdisciplinary projects that in-
volve multiple anthropological subfields and aca-
demic disciplines will provide key insights into the 
lives of mountain communities moving forward.

5. Conclusions

As Lozny (2013:395) emphasizes, social scientists have 
taken two essential approaches to mountain land-
scapes: “(1) the comparison of the adaptation of simi-
lar cultures or similar technological systems to 
different environments, and (2) the comparison of the 
adaptations of different cultures to similar ecosys-
tems.” The tension between seeking human universals 
and highlighting cultural particularity is not new 
within anthropology, but bioarchaeology is capable of 
contributing to both dimensions in an anthropologi-
cal study of mountain communities through fram-
ing new theoretical and methodo log ical insights 
within an explicitly comparative approach.

Bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology offer 
unique theoretical contributions to an anthropologi-
cal understanding of mountain communities. First, 
both specializations provide an opportunity to assess 
marginality from an explicitly biocultural perspec-
tive. By combining isotopic, aDNA, and morphomet-
ric approaches to the analysis of human skeletal 
remains, while embedding such investigations in a 
nuanced understanding of archaeological and cul-
tural context, bioarchaeologists can examine connec-
tivity and adaptation through a biosocial lens. 
Second, bioarchaeology bridges biological anthropol-
ogy’s emphasis on the somatic with an archaeological 
focus on the long term. This dual approach allows for 
the development of an embodied understanding of 
“risky” or “remote” environments and allows anthro-
pologists to explore how such landscapes shape and 
are shaped by human action over time. As the articles 
in this issue demonstrate, such examinations can be 
undertaken at a variety of scales, ranging from the 
local (Beck, Ciugudean, and Quinn) to the regional 
(Eng and Aldenderfer; Zavodny). Finally, the unique 



Beck and Quinn 85

relationship between skeletal and mortuary evidence 
(Quinn and Beck 2016) permits a focus on commu-
nity identity as communicated through mortuary 
practice. Examining how the “lived” identities and 
experiences materialized in human remains intersect 
with the “performed” identities reified through fu-
nerary treatment allows for a holistic understanding 
of life and death in mountain landscapes.

The methodological strategies and considerations 
outlined in this issue highlight the new opportunities 
afforded by recent developments in archaeological 
science and the necessity of framing such approaches 
within an appropriate research design. Insights into 
the lives and deaths of individuals in mountain com-
munities are generated both through the use of mul-
tiple lines of evidence and through bioarchaeological 
participation in truly interdisciplinary projects that 
incorporate the perspectives of multiple disciplines. 
The research described here includes work from bio-
archaeologists, archaeologists, biomolecular anthro-
pologists, ethnographers, cultural ecologists, and 
climate scientists, and the knowledge and contribu-
tions of each discipline cannot be siloed. Multidisci-
plinary collaborations like the High Himalayas 
Archaeological Research Project (Eng and Aldender-
fer) provide a model for this kind of research moving 
forward.

Finally, the research undertaken in this issue un-
derscores that mountain communities cannot be 
considered in isolation. Both ethnographic (Cole and 
Wolf 1974; Galaty 2013; Schon and Galaty 2006) and 
archaeological research (Beavan et  al. 2012; Walsh 
2005) reveal the extent to which the dynamics of up-
land living are affected and structured by events in 
the lowlands. That highland and lowland communi-
ties are often tightly socially and politically inter-
linked, however does not mean that mountain 
communities are merely “passive object[s] to be  
manipulated by outside forces” (Harding 2013:385). 
Instead, a recurring motif in anthropological exam-
inations of these landscapes is the extent to which 
upland occupations balance participation in larger 
systems with human agency in response to economic 
(Halstead 1990), political (Scott 2009), or social 
(Walsh 2005) factors. It is therefore important that 
bioarchaeological investigations of these communi-
ties are attentive to patterns of both reciprocity with 
and resistance to lowland agendas. Although moun-
tain communities may be conceived of as socially and 
environmentally peripheral, we must remember that 
this peripherality is often intentional and negotiated 
(Kardulias 2007; Morris 1996).

Understanding the interplay between social prac-
tice and the environment is a critical avenue for 

bioarchaeological research. The risks and opportuni-
ties provided by the topographic, geological, and eco-
logical characteristics of mountain landscapes are 
part of the daily lives and ideological systems of com-
munities that inhabit them. The articles in this issue 
demonstrate that through examining how identity 
and lived experience shape social dynamics in “re-
mote” regions and investigating marginality from an 
embodied perspective, bioarchaeology can provide 
unparalleled insight into living and dying in moun-
tain landscapes.

Acknowledgments

This thematic issue is based on the 2019 Society for 
American Archaeology podium session “Living and 
Dying in Mountain and Highland Landscapes,” and 
all participants in this session offered valuable insight 
into the challenges and potential of developing a bio-
archaeology of mountain landscapes. The two session 
discussants, Michael Galaty (University of Michigan) 
and Douglas K. Charles (Wesleyan University), also 
provided thoughtful and valuable summary com-
ments on this topic. Hannah Chazin (Columbia Uni-
versity), Sara Juengst (UNC Charlotte) and Alicia 
Ventresca Miller (University of Michigan) provided 
advice and assistance regarding current research and 
resources for their respective regions of speciality. 
Pedro Díaz-del-Río (CCHS, CSIC Madrid) assisted 
with the translation of the abstract into Spanish. We 
are grateful for the detailed comments and sugges-
tions by two anonymous reviewers and the editorial 
staff at Bioarchaeology International that substan-
tively improved this introduction and special issue. 
This research has received funding from the Euro-
pean Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation 
program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant 
agreement No. 746216 and has also received support 
from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Re-
search at the University of Cambridge and the Dean 
of Faculty at Hamilton College.

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