Bioarchaeology is clearly all about the people. A human bone, although technically anartifact, is conceptually different than ceramic sherds, lithics, or even animal bones.It is us. The notions of embodiment and culturally-embedded interpretation intersectsall the articles in this special issue, where authors take a detailed contextualapproach to tackle diverse and complex themes such as mortuary practices, pre- andpostmortem treatment, corporeal and skeletal modifications, individual and corporateidentities, ethnic affiliation, social memory, violence and interpersonal conflict,trauma, gender and childhood, ancestral veneration, daily activities, nutritional andoccupational stress, social organization, social relationships, and local, regional,continental, and global connections.

And while the research presented here is novel and exciting, the ancient Oaxacans wereequally fascinated with similar questions and, quite often, invoked the dead foranswers. From the onset, as a literate civilization, their writing had focused onpeople, the human body, and personhood. In fact, the very first known inscription on SanJose Mogote’s monument 3 was no other than a personal appellation of a sacrificialvictim. Dated to 600 BCE, this makes ‘1 Eye’ the earliest known named individual in theAmericas, if not the Western Hemisphere. This anthroponymic trend continued all throughOaxacan recorded history, and further sets it apart from other early Mesoamericanliterate societies. Because we can cross-reference named individuals and follow lineagesthrough document types and media starting from at least the 9th century AD,we can now reconstruct elite genealogies which are among the longest ever recorded inthe world. In ancient and modern-day Oaxaca, the human body further serves as acorporeal metaphor to anything from lineage to social organization to settlementpatterns to entire natural and cultural landscapes (Monaghan, 1994).

Perhaps not surprising then, this embodied and gendered corpus of Indigenous literacyechoes many of the themes that are also discussed within these pages. For example,interpersonal and institutional violence is a recurring leitmotif from theaforementioned San Jose Mogote’s monument, through the Middle and Terminal Formativeso-called danzantes orthostats and ‘conquest slabs’ in Monte Alban (seealso Mayes et al., this issue), the Classic Period narrative programsand the Ñuiñe inscriptions, the Postclassic Mixtec codices, and the numerouslienzos and mapas that are more abundant in Oaxacathan in any other Mesoamerican culture area (see Zborover, 2015 for an overview and relevant literature). These conflictsbetween people, communities, and polities seem to have been intimately tied toconflicting territorial claims, resulting in a violent legacy that is sadly stillendemic to Oaxaca of today.

A quick survey of the Mixtec codices, for instance, shows depictions of dozens ofinterpersonal conflicts and resulting trauma ranging from spear wounds to the chest,knife stabbing, scaffold sacrifice by arrows, blows to the head, heart extraction, anddecapitation (the last two surely fatal). Other forms of involuntary and voluntarybodily harm and modifications included limb-binding, nose-piercing, and blood-letting.Females and males are usually easy to distinguish, so we know that it is mostly thelatter who are portrayed as involved in these conflicts although it is a female deathdeity, Lady 9 Grass, who often orchestrates those human agents (Figure 1). There are also a few births depicted, and the pictorialnarratives combined with the calendrical dates confirm that some of these individualsdied naturally or killed at a young age, tying it back to themes of gendered identitiesat death (see also Higelin et al., this issue).

Mortuary practices are also a common theme in the codices, and range from formal flexedand extended burials to mortuary bundles; some bundles are shown as interred in theearth, fields, or in constructed compounds alongside offerings, while others in the actof being cremated. Most, however, are shown out in the open (most likely kept inaccessible places such as shrines and caves), and as such served as conduits between theliving and the dead, the present and the past. This form of ancestral veneration wastied to specific royal lineages and provided a vehicle for political legitimacy andcommunity building in the highly factionalized geopolitical landscape of thePostclassic. Earlier on, the Classic period Zapotecs similarly used personified effigyvessels, many of which carrying calendrical glyphs that may represent deities orancestors, as an accompaniment to the dead.

The ancient Oaxacans were not just preoccupied with recording cause of death and ensuingrites, but also embedded their writing and practices in postmortem transformations. Forthe Classic period Zapotecs, mausoleums decorated with genealogical registers served asplaces for repeated interments, bone curation, legitimacy building, and reflection(Feinman et al. 2010; Urcid, 2018; see also Ausel and Faulseit, thisissue). The Postclassic Mixtecs, in particular, were fascinated with the concept ofskeletonization. Skeletal figures in the codices are shown as piercing mountains,heading to war in full battle regalia, and converse in length with the living (Figure 1); some of these represent deities, spirits,or ancestors, while others impersonated by priests. Disarticulated skulls, mandibles,long bones, and rib cages are commonly depicted framing and decorating vessels, articlesof clothing, heavenly bodies, temples, palaces, and mountains, some of which were realplaces while other metaphorical (Frassani, 2006;McCafferty & McCafferty, 2015; Pohl, 1994). Long bones, possibly human, are alsoshown reused as bundles, offering, symbols of political authority, and even musicalinstruments (see also Higelin and Sánchez 2014).For the Mixtecs, bones were not signifiers for the dead but rather possessed“life-giving and life-sustaining qualities” (Furst, 1982,p. 221).

So far, it is probable that none of these hundreds of named individuals commemorated inthis millennial historical record have been identified archaeologically (with the likelyexception of Lord 5 Flower of the Zaachila dynasty). Still, much of the above can betied directly to the archaeological record, either through the study of trauma and othermarks left on the bones or the interpretation of funerary rites, including treatment ofthe dead and associated offerings. The frequent depiction of cremation of recentlydeceased individuals and mummy bundles in the Mixtec codices indicates that we should bepaying closer attention to burned contexts on the macroscopic and microscopic levels(e.g., Duncan et al. 2008). And while theIndigenous historical record is mostly concerned with the life and death of specificindividuals, their depicted actions often meant to represent the larger population. Forexample, when Mixtec Lord 8 Deer is repeatedly shown conquering a town by piercing thethoracic cavity of its vanquished ruler with his spear, this is understood tosemiotically stand for the armies of thousands of individuals who did the same thing onthe actual battlefield.

The historical record also demonstrates how intricate the connections between thesepeople actually were. In fact, if anything it questions the notion of Oaxaca as ahomogenous culture area, since the stelae, codices, lienzos, andmapas clearly show that battles, conquests, marriages, giftexchange, and alliances often crossed ethnic and political lines into regions as distantas the Valley of Puebla and the Basin of Mexico (Fieldset al. 2012; see also Butler, this issue). Identity inthe past was likely community-based and following flexible membership in largersociopolitical entities, rather than fixed on ethno-linguistic affiliations. Yet, inOaxaca and elsewhere we are still struggling with ethnonyms that are, for the most part,a simplification imposed by the Spanish Colonial administration on the Indigenouspeople.

Accordingly, assigning ethnonyms to the osteological, archaeological, and historicalrecords is ever more problematic as it runs the risk of obscuring the intricate mobilityof people between regions and fluid identity constructs. And while we have long acceptedthat raw materials and artifacts traveled well beyond the Oaxacan culture area since theArchaic period and definitely by the Early Formative (Hepp, 2019; Hepp et al., this issue), and later beyond the boundaries ofMesoamerica to connect the American Southwest and Central America (Pohl, 2016), we are only now catching up on (or coming back to?)the notion that Prehispanic people journeyed or migrated long distances as well. Duringthe Spanish Colonial period, Oaxaca became one of the first global hubs to connect theAmericas, Europe, Asia, and Africa (Konwest et al., this issue), so inpost-1521 contexts, we should be ready for the possibility of identifying individualsfrom any of those populations. In such a dynamic environment, recent advances inbioarchaeological methods can surely contribute greatly. As a case in point, the newcontextual, chronological, historical, isotopic, and genetic analysis of Monte Alban’sTomb 7 occupants, and especially the possibility that the human ‘donor’ of the famousturquoise skull had originated far in northern Mesoamerica is provocative in itsimplications for human mobility in the past (Jansen andPérez, 2017; see also Granados and Márquez, this issue; and Ortiz etal., this issue).

The Prehispanic historical record is indeed quite useful when it comes to the life anddeath of the elite, but it is quite limited about what it can tell us regarding theequivalent of today’s “99%.” This is where bioarchaeology can contribute much, andespecially when joining forces with ethnographic observations. While no society is everfrozen in time, it is also quite clear that much of the Indigenous lifestyle and generalliving conditions in the rural areas had changed only at a moderate pace. For thatmatter, ethnographic observations today can inform the bioarchaeological record when itcomes to health and diet of people in the past, as with such daily activities and traumathat may leave their mark on the bones (e.g., Alfaroet al. 2017). As further illustrated by Gallegos andRamón in this issue, other meaningful symbolic references can be gleaned throughethnographic documentation. Poignant new frontiers are being explored on conceptions offunerary practices among transnational Oaxacan communities in urban spaces (Gutiérrez and Alonso, 2019).

But the people and communities with which we work are not simply a mine for data. In manycases they are also the direct descendants of the people we dig up, and as stakeholdersare entitled to access any information gained from their study (Blakey, 2001; Juengst & Becker,2017; see also Gallegos and Ramón, this issue). All of us who have worked inOaxaca will recognize that fascination with which our local field collaborators beholdhuman remains. Some approach it with great reverence, while others with great terror.Very few remain indifferent, and in most cases healthy curiosity takes over. It iscrucial, therefore, to ensure that our research results find their way back to thecommunity in physical, written, and visual forms. Generating content on the Oaxacan pastin Indigenous languages is particularly a priority. Much knowledge has already beenproduced in academic circles and, if anything, this should also be ‘repatriated’ to thehost communities.

For this purpose, we should collectively reflect on how the information presented in thisspecial issue is relevant to the descendants of the people that we study, and how bestto make it accessible. Although it is often common practice, handing article imprints orcopies of technical reports will simply not do. This is especially true forbioarchaeology, with its robust scientific stance still deeply rooted in positivistframeworks (Blakey, 2001). The jargon-ladencontent needs to be adapted to the target audience and towards pedagogical ends, butwithout being stripped of its cultural meaning. The science of it all will especiallyappeal to the school kids, who are often more attuned to such developments.

Much like the ancient Oaxacans, bioarchaeologists collect skeletons in repositories,order and reorder them according to culturally-defined categories, and consult them toget informed about the past (see also Kakaliouras,2014). But the people of Oaxaca did not just record genealogy, contacts,conflicts, and mortuary practices for historical purposes alone. For them, these openeda window into ontological preoccupations such as crime and punishment, death andregeneration, life and the afterlife, and one’s place in the world. Coming literallyface to face with the predecessors, contemporaries, and decedents of these recordedpeople add much substance to our research, where the conjunction of bioarchaeologicalstudies with historical documents and decedent communities promises to create a morecultural, social, and humanistic-grounded practice.