Status

 Anthropologists and archaeologists are commonly interested in studying the "status" of individuals and cultural groups. Status is the hierarchical ranking of persons or groups in relation to others, which can be based on several differing aspects of their lives.  The kinds of status that anthropologists and archaeologists generally talk about are economic, religious, political, and status based on age. Other kinds of status that might be talked about are social status, biological status, status within the household, and status based on gender.

Example of elite grave goods
from Varna Necropolis
4500-4000 BC

The question then becomes, how might we measure this status?  Status can usually be measured based on the quality, rarity, and abundance of grave goods.  The more they have, the more possibility there is of a high economic and political status.  If there is evidence that the grave has had continual modification and up-keep, monuments are present, or there is an abundance of space allotted for that grave, this could be an indication of high status.  Status can also be measured based on the osteology of the remains.  By looking at the bones you can usually tell the overall health of the individual; if they have healthy bones, they probably had a better diet, which means they had a higher status.  It can also be measured on whether or not there was shaping of the cranium and feet. Often, individuals of high status had their craniums elongated slowly over the course of their life, or had their feet bound to keep them small.  However, measuring status is never cut and dry.  According to John Robb et. al. (2001) in the article Social "Status" and Biological "Status": A Comparison of Grave Goods and Skeletal Indicators from Pontecagnano, the relation between status in life and treatment in death is mediated by many factors.  These can include the circumstances of death, the political situation of the surviving community, and the specific ideologies of death and identity.  Hence, grave goods can never easily be translated into living status. There are far too many variables that could effect this interpretation.