Since the 1880s the archaeology of human remains in Brazil was most limited to the laboratory osteometric, osteologic and dental techniques. Currently, bioarchaeology progresses through more complex approaches, which start in the interpretation of funerary and depositional structures containing human remains. Methodologies that can be used not only by specialists but also by archaeologists are available, both in the field as in the laboratory, helping to identify, document, recover and interpret human bone deposition in archaeological sites. On the other side, there were changes in the paradigms concerning the interpretation of sites containing human remains. The interpretations of the processes and attitudes that preceded, followed and succeeded the funerals or deposition of the human remains require more integration between archaeology and bioarchaeology in the field. Bones in situ are the only evidences able to tell us about the way the remains were manipulated in past acts and gestures, and how the archaeological sites were built and changed around them along the time. Here we discuss why and how bones in situ may be more informative about the archaeological sites themselves than about the lives they represent, and why it is important for the archaeologists to know how interpret them still in the field.
Funerary archaeology; Field methods; Bioarchaeology; Taphonomy