Date of Award
Summer 7-20-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
July 2026
Department
Anthropology
College Granting Degree
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Department Granting Degree
Anthropology
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Meredith Ellis
Abstract
In 1969, excavations at Banwari Trace in Trinidad uncovered a shell midden, and at least one intentionally interred individual described as ‘the oldest human remains in the Caribbean’ (Harris 1976; Boomert 2000). This individual was eventually removed, named, curated, and made into a national cultural icon and embodiment of antiquity. The ‘Banwari Man’ case study interrogates identity formation as its primary analytic problem. It asks how identity is constructed, stabilized, and circulated when skeletal material is contained, and the documentary record is restricted or non-existent.
To address this, I introduce two frameworks: Embodied Histories in Containment, which diagnoses how naming, heritage governance, and citation practices produce an institutional identity that substitutes for—and forecloses—biographical recovery; and Osteobiography in Absence, which reframes restricted access and not-knowing as analytically significant rather than methodological failure.
The naming of the Banwari skeletal remains illustrates both frameworks. The biological sex designation continues to circulate despite a contradicting assessment for which no independently verifiable documentation exists. Therefore, I use Banwari Person (they/them) as a deliberate methodological refusal of gendered designation except when citing original work. By treating institutional containment as constitutive and biographical recovery as possible, despite it, this project is in conversation with current discussions about custody, authority, access, and the political production of identity in the afterlives of human remains.
Recommended Citation
Chong, Trina, "EMBODIED HISTORIES IN CONTAINMENT, OSTEOBIOGRAPHY IN ABSENCE: THE CASE OF THE ‘BANWARI MAN’ OF TRINIDAD" (2026). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 360.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general/360