Researchers specializing in the study of arthropods associated with archaeological sites—a field known as funerary archaeoentomology—have developed best-practice recommendations for the emerging discipline that examines insects preserved in burials for clues about past lives, environments, and historical communities. Shown here are insect remains from the Philip Calvert coffin (1683) excavated at Historic St. Mary’s City, Maryland, United States: A vacated fly puparium (A); a partial beetle elytron (B); a pair of betle elytra (C); the head capsule of a fly (D); head capsule of an ant (E); and head capsule of a beetle (F). Grid lines on surface are 1 millimeter part. (Figure originally published in Monzón et al. 2026, Annals of the Entomological Society of America)

By Melissa Mayer

This paper started with coffins.

Melissa Mayer

Not just any coffins: posh, lead-lined coffins. They were common among the upper crust in Victorian England, but few known to exist in the New World—until the excavation of the Philip Calvert coffin assemblage from the first permanent English colony in what’s now Maryland.

That lead lining creates a seal, slowing decomposition and excluding insect visitors. It also creates a unique artifact for scientists like Purdue University doctoral student Michael Monzón. His field—funerary archaeoentomology—looks at arthropods associated with archaeological sites to investigate historical burial practices, living conditions, and insect-human interactions. Given the chance to study the assemblage, Monzón set out to uncover best practices and identify gaps in the literature in the field of funerary archaeoentomology along the way. The results were published this week in Annals of the Entomological Society of America.

“Because it’s such a rare, valuable opportunity, one of the things I really wanted to do was make sure that we got this right,” says Monzón. “And when Annals put out the call [for papers] last May … that call is what inspired us to formalize this into a very structured analysis.”

Tombs as Time Capsules

Michael Monzón

The team looked at 76 papers to identify common methods, recommendations, and gaps in current practices in funerary archaeoentomology. They found a wide variety of techniques—collecting from human remains or grave materials, dry or wet-sieving sediment, looking for trace impressions left by insects on human bones, comparing contemporary survey data with the historical record, and conducting experiments.

Back at the Philip Calvert coffin assemblage, which had been excavated in the 1990s, Monzón installed pitfall traps around the chapel and at a nearby farm where the coffins had been stored. And his team built replica coffins in which they entombed dead piglets—ethically sourced from land-grant universities that raise swine—to investigate how lead-lined coffins alter the environment insects encounter during decomposition.

A major focus of the review is surface-dwelling insects: arthropods common in forensics like blow flies and carrion-associated beetles, pests of stored foods and products, species associated with the landscape or incidentally included in the burial.

“The assumption is that surface-dwelling insects accidentally or in some way find their way into the coffin. The coffin gets shut, it’s buried or interred somewhere—and now you have a snapshot of what were on the surface at the time,” says Monzón.

It’s a time capsule that offers clues about the remains or the circumstances of the burial. But it also yields insight into bigger questions—the climate (especially for sites from before the Industrial Revolution), ecosystems, seasonality, and the historical distributions of species.

A lead-topped coffin replica used for a funerary archaeoentomology field experiment. (Photo courtesy of E. Crawford)

A pair of Anobium cf. punctatum elytra from the coffin of Philip Calvert (1683), excavated at Historic St. Mary’s City, Maryland, United States. (Photograph courtesy of Michael Monzón and A. Meeds)

A pair of beetle elytra from a Roman-era well excavated at the Zuccarello Estate in Macron, Venice, Italy. (Photo courtesy of Michael Monzón)

The review highlights the value of making and executing a well-organized sampling plan and offers recommendations for sediment collection (how much and from where). The authors discuss technical considerations like how to deal with corroded metals or difficult soil and how to best process samples (like dry versus wet sieving). They note the utility of entomology conventions, like reporting sample metrics and characters used for species identification or using specific calculations as a proxy for abundance, especially for fragmented samples. The authors suggest that excavating scientists with different specialties—like entomologists and botanists—can increase the value of limited samples by learning to recover each other’s evidence during processing.

“What we’re seeing from this data is that folks who aren’t strictly entomology are doing a really good job at extracting insect remains,” says Monzón. “This is kind of a broader thing in entomology—where entomology is for everybody, and you don’t have to be a degree-carrying entomologist to be welcomed within the wider entomology profession and community—this is really illustrative of that.”

The Stories We Tell

For Monzón, archaeoentomology combines his longtime interests in insects and history. But it’s more than that.

While elite remains receive a lot of attention for the historical data and artifacts they provide, the review found that only about one-third of sites were associated with wealthy individuals. If death comes for all of us, so do insects.

Right now, he’s finishing up another project at the Nathan Russell House in South Carolina, investigating the living quarters of enslaved people who worked in the kitchens there. The insect data he’s collected may help flesh out previously unrecognized people—their living conditions and how they lived their lives, maybe even meaningful ways they found joy and resilience.

There aren’t many archaeoentomologists out there, but their work helps us understand ourselves, our histories, and how we’re shaped by (and shape) the natural world—even the smallest insects.

Melissa Mayer is a science writer and the human behind Washington State University’s science cat, Dr. Universe. Email: [email protected].