Dealing with death in late neolithic to metal period nagsabaran, the Philippines

One of the densest areas of known prehistoric, Neolithic through to Metal Period settlements in the Philippines can be found along the lower Cagayan River valley in northern Luzon Island. From the early 1970s, over 30 Neolithic and Metal Period midden sites have been documented in this region. One site in particular, Nagsabaran, has proven to be particularly significant in documenting direct contact, entailing significant levels of human migration, with Austronesian-speaking populations originating from Taiwan c.2000 cal bce. The purpose of this chapter is to explore aspects of the mortuary behaviour of the Late Neolithic to Metal Period inhabitants of Nagsabaran in order to reconstruct aspects of this community’s attitudes to a range of bio-social constructions including gender, age, status and, of course, death. In addition to this, we provide an osteobiography of a severely disabled adult Metal Period burial in order to determine the nature of the injury or disease that led to his condition as well as to use this opportunity to further explore possible community attitudes to disability some 2000 years ago in the northern Philippines.