Status and How to Measure It...

'Status' - if one was to crack open an Anthropology textbook or look it up online, is defined as:
"the position one has in a social network. The name of a position given to a node."
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth370/gloss.html

In terms of death and burial, I think that status might be a bit more (and a bit less) nebulous.
In most cases, we - as modern Homo sapiens sapiens - come across a dead person in a grave and arbitrarily decide that they were either rich or poor and attribute similar 'rankings' and 'status' upon the remains by observation of the grave itself and the surrounding terrain, the size/shape of the grave and the non-human contents within. Are we using scientific evidence to support our claims, correct, or (at best) are we using empirical data to make 'educated guesses' based upon the fact that patterns of similar activity exist elsewhere in the world... and coincidences aren't all that common?

For the most part, I think archaeologists use the blanket-term 'status' to mean a rank within the community in which the deceased lived... and rely upon the grave markers, positions, trinkets and adornments interred with the remains and comparisons to other (possibly more mundane or 'average') graves as a litmus test against this one person's ranking within their society. larger grave, larger burial mound, more grave goods, separate location or location of significance, all of these have been used to measure the status of one individual versus another in the same location of the burial, and elsewhere and even across different cultures.
Is it accurate? Somewhat. In the absence of any better way to do things, it's the best way we have to make these assertions. It's much like painting a picture in the dark, not knowing either the colour of the paints we must use nor the size of the canvas.

The term status, I think, is therefore a little general in scope... Status can mean a rank within a community, a rank within a specific subset of the community (like age sets) or a religious, spiritual or socio-political ranking to separate the deceased from the 'common citizen' of his or her society. Status can mean a lot of things - depending upon the society, and a person can technically have been of more than one statuses, or have held different statuses - much like I an an 'uncle', a 'student', a 'medical professional', a 'cat-owner', a 'husband' and a 'son'.

The largest issue, I think that would interfere with the specific identification of a deceased's status is the open-ended definition of the term 'status' itself, and also our assumptions of what, exactly the deceased's culture was like.
According to Anthropological canon, 'husband' and 'wife' are deemed positions of status, in that, they are a defined position within a social network'. The problem comes when we find a pair of bodies in a grave... assuming one male and one female, most would immediately assume that the pair was a married couple, and append the statuses of 'husband and wife' onto them. Mostly for convenience, as it sews up everything into a nice little package... but what if the society was of a kind that encouraged the possession of slaves - perhaps it was a mark of status for a male tribe leader (or any male) to be buried with his favorite slave girl. Without context, we really have no true way of knowing for absolute certain.

Without actually having 'been' there, all we can do is make somewhat-educated guesses and assumptions.
All that being said and done, the picture looks alright so far...