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Introduction: The study of age-at-death continues to be a principal criterion of analysis when assessing and exploring the health and soci-cultural practices of prehistoric populations. Unfortunately, a greater understand and knowledge of the experience of being 'old' or 'elderly' in prehistory remains broadly elusive in archaeological discourse. It has been suggested that this reluctance to deal with the issue of old age may be a function of methodological barriers, limited ample sizes or intrinsic bias towards particular subject groups, i.e. the elderly (Welinder, 2001
Lucy, 2005
Sofaer, 2006
Gowland, 2009
Appleby, 2010, 2011
Cave and Oxenham, 2014). The lack of research in archaeology with regards to the study of the elderly and the aging process is in contrast to that of other disciplines such as history (Johnson, 2005), sociology (Ginn and Arber, 1995
Fry, 1996
Carr and Moorman, 2011), psychology (Cohen, 1994
Hess, 2006
Hummert, 2011), social gerontology (Marshall and Bengston, 2011) and anthropology (Arber and Ginn, 2005
Yee, 2009), which have sought to understand and explain the experience and expectation of the aging subject in the latter phase of the life-course through time and across multiple cultural settings (Lucy, 2005
Sofaer, 2006
Gowland, 2009
Appleby, 2010). In recent decades, archaeologists, building on theoretical and methodological advances across the social sciences, have continued to develop theoretical approaches related to aspects of culturally constructed identity (e.g. gender-identity, age-identity), providing an insight and greater understanding of prehsitoric inter-personal behaviour (Lillehammer, 1989
Conkey and Gero, 1991
Sofaer Derevenski, 1997
Gilchrist, 1999
Sørenson, 2000
Bazter, 2005
Díaz-Andreu, 2005
Lucy, 2005
Wileman, 2005
Gowland, 2009). However, the analysis of age-based identities, especially for those individuals who may have been regarded in prehistory as elderly, based on an assessment of their skeletal (or biological) age, continues to remain under-researched (Lucy, 2005
Gowland, 2009
Appleby, 2010, 2011). This chapter aims, through the examination of mortuary data from the Early (terminal Neolithic-early Bronze) and Middle Periods (Bronze Age) at Non Nok Tha on the Southeast Asian mainland (see Figure 2.1, Chapter 2), to begin to redress the void of research related to the elderly in this region and identify, explore and discuss the following issues: How was 'old age' conceptualised, signified and communicated through burial treatment? At what age did individuals at Non Nok Tha transition into the status of elderly, if such a transition occurred? How does the interaction between gender and old age manifest? Was the burial treatment of the old, horizontally and vertically, normative or atypical across the cemetery? Non Nok Tha was selected due to the presence of higher than normal proportions (n=43/180, 23.9 per cent) of bioarchaeologically assessed older adults (40 years or older) in comparison to other Southeast Asian sites such as Khok Phanom Di (n=13/154, 8.4 per cent) and Ban Lum Khao (n=10/110, 9.1 per cent) for instance. The type of questions asked and methodological approach employed here could be as readily applied to any cemetery site. Apart from addressing questions regarding the treatment of the elderly in the past, a further objective of this chapter is to present a methodological approach to addressing such questions. Undoubtedly there is a range of challenges and limitations which currently affects biarchaeological considerations of the elderly in prehistory. These challenges are well documented in the literature and encompass issues related to age-at-death assessments (Lampl and Johnston, 1996
Bello et al., 2006
Cunha et al., 2009
Nawrocki, 2010), sampling (Bocquet-Appel and Masset, 1982
Loth and Işcan, 1994
Ackroyd et al., 1999
Chamberlain, 2000
Bello et al., 2006
Bello and Andrews, 2009
Gowland, 2009
Cave and Oxenham, 2014) and variable aspects of genetics, environment and behaviour affecting degeneration and remodelling (Schmitt et al., 2002
Cunha et al., 2009
Nawrocki, 2010). This results in individuals assessed at 40+ or 50+ years of age being classified as biologically 'old' and therefore potentially socially old (i.e. biological age reflecting social age) by default. Such an approach may not be applicable in the historical-cultural context of a site under review and risks biasing, or misrepresenting, the age-identity of elderly subjects, if such a classification existed in its cultural context, in prehistory. We recognise that these issues are serious barriers, currently, towards obtaining an accurate categorisation and a deeper understanding of older cohorts. However, just as other methodological obstacles in bioarchaeology have been overcome or managed through diligence, creativity and patience, we would argue that with sufficient focus and energy similar results could be achieved where the elderly are considered for future research programs. What we do understand is that burials are idealised forms of transformation (e.g. liminality, succession etc.), negotiation and communication, expressed through culturally informed burial treatment and related either directly to the buried subject or, more broadly, to internal or external groups, and provide a representation of how that individual, or participating mourners, were perceived socially (McHugh, 1999
Parker Pearson, 1999
Chesson, 2001
Kaufman and Morgan, 2005
Sofaer, 2006
Charlier, 2008
Tsaliki, 2008
Appleby, 2010). When we consider this in relation to the elderly we may, potentially, observe that the subject's longevity may contribute, for example, to affording them differential (i.e. elevated or decreased) social status within their community and subsequent burial treatment.
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