Module code: ARC7008-B
To provide the student with an understanding of the analysis of human skeletal remains by appreciating theoretical and practical issues studied through lecture and laboratory sessions.
Lectures: Introduction; Bioarchaeological approaches to human remains; Introduction to the skeleton and anatomical terminology; Growth, development and ossification; Introduction to ethics. Sexual dimorphism and sex assessment. Growth and development: Age estimation in non-adults. Investigating longevity: Age estimation in adults. Age estimation and palaeodemography. Introduction to palaeopathology. Non-metric skeletal variation. Metric analysis and population variability. Excavating human remains. Skeletal taphonomy and the issue of biased samples.
Seminar: ethics in human osteoarchaeology.
Labs: Bones of the skull. The postcranial skeleton. Identifying bone fragments and calculating NMI; compiling a dental inventory. Sex assessment. Ageing of the non-adult skeleton. Age-related changes in adult skeletons. Transition analysis. Recognising pathological conditions. Non-metric traits and assessment of ancestry. How, when and why you measure a skeleton. Cremated remains. Case studies.