Note – We are currently beta testing this textbook. If you are a student who has been assigned this reading, we would appreciate any feedback you may have. After finishing the chapter, please go to https://forms.gle/3QDm5QYi4ft4wbnXA to complete a short survey.

Samantha Blatt, Ph.D., Idaho State University

Amy Michael, Ph.D., University of New Hampshire

Lisa Bright, Ph.D., RPA, California Department of Transportation

In celebration of Juneteeth 2020, the Portsmouth African Burying Ground Stewardship Committee in Portsmouth, New Hampshire requested analyses of dental calculus, or hardened dental plaque, to reconstruct diet from the skeletal remains of individuals exposed during construction in 2003. The cemetery was actively used during the 1700s, when enslaved peoples were bought and sold along the city’s coastal docks. However, it was paved over as the city of Portsmouth, NH expanded (Sammons and Cunningham, 2004). The construction project exposed the coffins of early Black Seacoast inhabitants, providing a rare look at the lives of individuals in bondage in the American colonies. The cemetery and associated memorial today serve as a symbol of Black history, legacy, and perseverance during the terror of slavery. While bioarchaeologists can examine the dental calculus or the skeletal remains of these peoples, bones and teeth alone do not tell a complete story. Physical remains and burial sites cannot be understood without appreciating their deeper context and personal meaning to stakeholders — in this case, the modern Black descendant community of Portsmouth today.

Thousands of miles away, as part of the Central Belize Archaeological Survey, bioarchaeologists excavated a uniquely shaped skull in the sweltering humidity of the Caves Branch Rockshelter (CBR) in the jungles of Belize. Named simply Burial 99 by excavators, this individual was a Late Classic burial (AD 600-900) in a typically Late Preclassic / Protoclassic (300 BC – AD 300) rockshelter. The highly fragmented remains of Burial 99 laid next to a ceramic bowl, intermingled with the burials of others. Back in the lab, the individual was estimated to be an older female whose cranium had been intentionally shaped during childhood to appear more elongated. Head-shaping was commonly practiced among the urban Maya elite who buried their dead deep in caves rather than rockshelters. However, Burial 99 was the only individual with cranial-shaping in this space, possibly indicating that her geographic and social origins were quite different from the farming villagers she was buried with at the mortuary rockshelter. It would take chemical, microscopic, and other advanced laboratory methods to reconstruct her life (and death) to demonstrate what the broader meaning her presence in the rockshelter could mean about ancient Maya social dynamics (Biggs and Michael, 2017; Wrobel, 2018).

These examples demonstrate how bioarchaeologists can provide insight about past lives and experiences from a population and individual-level. Though far apart geographically and temporally, both rely on data from the human skeleton to expand inferences about human behavior in the past. Bioarchaeology is the study of human remains (e.g. bones, teeth, and mummified remains) from archaeological sites. It is a field of study that bridges two subdisciplines within anthropology– biological anthropology and archaeology (Figure 1).

The field of bioarchaeology is relatively new, the term being coined in 1977 by Dr. Jane Buikstra to exclusively refer to analysis of human remains. A bioarchaeologist is an expert in the analysis of human osteology (study of bones) and odontology (study of teeth), as well as the techniques and methods of mortuary excavation. While people have always been intrigued by the remains of the dead (as evidenced by the thousands of human skeletons in museum collections around the world), there has historically been little emphasis on studying humans from a biocultural context. The biocultural approach, or the study of humans through an understanding of the interconnectedness of biology, culture, and environment, is fundamental to bioarchaeology and indeed, to anthropology as a whole.

Integrating archaeological context into the study of human remains provides depth and cultural meaning to skeletal data. In bioarchaeology, context refers to the space, time, and culture within which the individual lived and died. The careful, contextualized interpretation of archaeological evidence alongside skeletal remains is integral in developing hypotheses and drawing inferences about humans of the past, including population dynamics, the human experience, and diverse adaptability of past societies. The study of human skeletons can reveal information about diet, stress, and lifestyle of individuals. This in turn, contributes to our understanding of social organization, social/cultural identity, gender roles, structural violence, and much more. Studying regional disparities in past populations’ health and diets sheds light on how behavior and societies change over time. Such shifts include intensifying agricultural production, political unrest and upheavals, colonization, and the impacts of past climate change. This affords insights into the possible challenges posed by our modern climate change.

This chapter will provide an overview of the main contributions and methods of bioarchaeology and the study of human remains from the past. We will first explore how analyses of skeletons are conducted in the laboratory, then how recording demographic information (like age and sex), diet, disease, stress, and related forms of data contribute to how we interpret larger questions in anthropology like migration, social stratification, human-environment interaction, and many other themes by combining biological data with burial data.

Laboratory Analyses

Much of the research and data collection that a bioarchaeologist does happens inside the laboratory. Depending on the type of analyses being performed or expertise of the bioarchaeologist, their laboratory has long tables with padding to lay out a skeleton in anatomical position (bones positioned as they are in the living body), equipment like calipers and other tools to measure bones, scales to weigh samples, bean bags, or cork rings to hold skulls in place, specialized lighting, and a collapsible camera studio.

Other bioarchaeology labs have chemical fume hoods for processing samples for isotopes, a digital light microscope, glass beakers or ceramic crucibles, petrographic saws often found in geology labs for making bone and tooth thin sections, hand-held saws, and shelves of archival boxes with human remains. Many times, these labs also have corners or closets stuffed full of archaeological field equipment like shovels, trowels, sieves, wooden dowels or bamboo sticks for excavating around bone, buckets, and personal protective equipment for recovering remains (Figures 1 and 2). Some bioarchaeologists either work in labs or bring their samples to labs with electron microscopes, laser ablation, mass spectrometers, and other precision tools, and clean rooms full of DNA extracting equipment. So, there is no one type of laboratory environment in which to find a bioarchaeologist since the techniques and methods used encompass skill sets and technology found in fields outside anthropology.

The Human Skeleton

After human remains have been carefully excavated and brought to the laboratory (see Excavation chapter), bioarchaeologists take photographs and inventory the remains (Figure 3; Table 1). The next step is to build a biological profile of the individual, which includes an estimation of age, sex, ancestry, and stature using skeletal and dental traits (Figure 4). Additionally, signs of disease, stress, growth deprivation, or other anomalies are recorded. Due to the antiquity of many sites, remains are often not complete or well-preserved.

Bioarchaeologists use a combination of methods to generate ranges for age and stature or estimations (rather than determinations) for sex and ancestry. For instance, probability of sex or ancestry is calculated based on referring to the observations and measurements of thousands of skeletons, but can never be 100% known from skeletal analyses. Similarly, while dental eruption is a highly accurate way to estimate age from a child’s skeleton, there is enough individual variation and overlap in eruption ages, that an age range (e.g. 5 years ± 16 months versus saying 6 years) is more likely to be accurate and account for unknown individual variability. It should also be understood that these methods are often population-specific. For example, several formulae exist for estimating stature from the length of long bones (such as those bones in the arms and legs), but these are dependent on estimation of sex and ancestry first to use the most accurate formula.

Bioarchaeology uses similar methods as forensic anthropology when reconstructing a biological profile. However, forensic anthropology focuses on modern human remains in medicolegal contexts that usually represent individuals who died less than 50 years ago. This chapter will not cover osteology or the methods of estimating the biological profile from the skeleton in detail as there are already many resources available. Students can refer to the free Open Access texts Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology (specifically Chapter 15 and Appendix A) or Introduction to Human Osteology for details on skeletal anatomy terms, bone formation, and methods to develop the biological profile. Other resources include eForensics and eSkeletons, which provide introductory information about methods used to reconstruct a biological profile.

 

Major Research Themes

Paleodemography

Once a biological profile is generated for a skeleton, bioarchaeologists can begin to assess the data for population-wide patterns. Paleodemography is the study of past population dynamics, including distributions of age and sex either through time or during a specific time (Milner et al., 2008). Demographic reconstructions focus on vital statistics, such as life expectancy, probability of death at specific ages, mortality rates, and population size and density. Demographic analyses use hazard models, which are nonlinear mathematical functions that represent age-related changes in the risk of dying (Figure 5). Paleodemographers must deal with strong selection bias, as not only are they working with the remains of those who did not survive, but the vast majority of human remains decompose before archaeologists can recover them. Therefore, they may not fully represent the demographics of the once living population.

Mortuary Analysis

The dead do not bury themselves; it is the living that perform mortuary rituals for the dead. By investigating funerary sites, bioarchaeologists and mortuary archaeologists examine the context in which the individual was buried and attempt to reconstruct social structure and individual identity through the interpretation of grave goods (objects included in the burial such as jewelry, weapons, pottery, etc.), skeletal remains, and funerary structures. This may mean looking at burial position (e.g., flexed, extended, placed on side, etc.), location (where is this individual in relation to others), container (e.g., wrapped in cloth, wood box, embellished casket), grave goods, seasonality of burial, interment style (e.g., primary burial, cremation, secondary burial where the individual has been moved since the initial burial), and the burial area itself. All these variables can reveal information about the deceased individual, the living persons that buried the dead, and the complex interplay of ritual, material culture, and social memory. See Digging Up the Dead for one student’s reflection on what she learned working at an archaeological field school at a 400-year-old cemetery in Poland.

For instance, during the analysis of Burial 99 from Belize, mentioned earlier, it became clear to bioarchaeologists that rockshelters like those she was buried in were part of a large mortuary landscape. In the Maya world, the use of mortuary and ritual space is intentional and symbolic. Rockshelters in Belize containing burials served as memorial stops along a path that pilgrims would travel to memorialize their ancestors and legitimize physical boundaries of those in power. Placement of Burial 99 in the rockshelter also represents a return to a ritual location that had been largely unused for burial for several hundred years prior to her death. Therefore, understanding burial placement within archaeological landscapes can inform us about the ways people of the past constructed and used their environment, which reflect socio-political and ritual dimensions of a society.

Taphonomy

Taphonomy is the study of the decomposition, modification, and alteration of a body after death and before recovery. (See additional discussions of taphonomy in the Landscapes and Ancient Foodways chapters). The body can be affected by myriad environmental, biological, and cultural factors occurring after death (see examples at eForensics). A combination of extrinsic and intrinsic factors make each postmortem (after death) event unique. Extrinsic factors are those external to the body, while intrinsic factors refer to the nature of the body itself (Table 2). Bioarchaeologists rely on taphonomic analyses to establish time-since-death, distinguish human (e.g. trauma on the bone, ornamental modification of bones and teeth, ritualized dismemberment with stone tools, etc.) from non-human agents (e.g. animals scavenging, river flows pushing bones, etc.), understand decomposition rates and patterns of disarticulation, identify variables in preservation, and reconstruct events and circumstances long prior to death (antemortem), at or around the time of death (perimortem), and after death (postmortem) (Stodder, 2008).

Scientists who study taphonomy also perform actualistic and experimental studies to understand the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic factors in various burial scenarios. Actualistic studies aim to experimentally reproduce various circumstances of burial and decomposition. Systematically observing, recording, and describing the impact of specific extrinsic factors on a body can generate diagnostic criteria to identify and interpret those same factors and circumstances in the past. Aside from actualistic studies, bioarchaeologists also rely on uniformitarian principles. Actualistic studies often take place in “body farms” like those in Tennessee or Texas, and are experiments involving human cadavers placed in various scenarios and environments So, decomposition of bodies are examined to understand how factors such as climate differences, whether a body was clothed or unclothed, and whether it was found in the trunk of a car, in a lake, cement block, scattered on the ground surface, or buried, etc. impact the recovery and analysis of the body. These principles are based on an understanding that natural phenomena that occur today are the same that occurred throughout the past. So, an understanding of the impact and processes involved in soil erosion by modern scientists observing these phenomena allows bioarchaeologists to apply this knowledge to interpreting bone preservation, body positioning, etc. While environmental dispersion of remains is somewhat predictable, human dispersal is based on cultural beliefs, and thus to an outsider, may appear unpredictable; and this is exactly why a biocultural approach is necessary.

For example, many scholars have explored the markings on bones and patterns of placement of bones caused by animal scavenging, digestion, and human butchering practices in the past. Drs. Blatt and Michael have been applying knowledge from those studies to understanding coyote scavenging and to identify digestion of human bone by coyotes and other canids in order to understand why some bodies in forensic cases are not recovered.

While taphonomy is a fundamental part of bioarchaeology, there are still significant unknown intrinsic and extrinsic factors that may confuse even an experienced scientist. For instance, natural mummification often occurs in hot and arid environments, but can also happen in environments devoid of oxygen or in freezing temperatures. The discovery of Ötzi, also called the Iceman, found frozen in the Ötztal Alps, on the border of Italy and Austria is a great example of this. His body was found by hikers in 1991 and was so well preserved that both the hikers and experienced law enforcement officers believed him to be a missing person from modern times. However, radiocarbon dating revealed that he died in 3100-3400 B.C.E. Law enforcement and forensic personnel were also the first on call in 1979, when a girl discovered a mummified torso in a burlap sack in a lava tube in the small town of Dubois, Idaho. The remains were unidentified until 2019 when Dr. Amy Michael, Dr. Samantha Blatt, and members of the DNA Doe Project used anthropology and forensic genetic genealogy to identify the man who was known as Joseph Henry Loveless. (For more on this project, see Identification of a decedent in a 103-year-old homicide case using forensic anthropology and genetic genealogy or He Escaped from Jail… a Century Ago.)  Loveless’ mummified and headless remains were unidentified for over 40 years despite attempts by anthropologists, local law enforcement, and the FBI. Because the taphonomic factors in the cave were largely unknown, it was difficult to determine when the man had died. Incredibly, Loveless was found to have died in 1916, nearly 60 years before his mummified remains were recovered in the cave. In this case, the cave environment acted to preserve the remains (including the DNA used in his eventual identification). See Special Topics boxes below on Weathering and Staining, Cremains, and Commingled Remains for additional examples of how taphonomic processes affect bioarchaeology.

 

 

Disease

Paleopathology is the study of diseases in the past.  By analyzing data at the population, rather than individual, level, paleopathologists are able to theorize about the interplay between disease and other social phenomena. Thus, activity patterns, living environments, injuries, and social rank/roles can be added into the interpretation of skeletal markers of disease. Pathologies of the skeleton can be divided into eight categories (see Table 3). Grauer (2011) provides a detailed overview of pathological conditions in the human skeleton.

Complicating interpretations, the modern understanding of health and disease states cannot be directly imposed on the peoples of the past. Not all diseases have skeletal correlates, and not all individuals respond to disease processes in similar manners.

Today, bioarcheologists use the term health to include not only disease, but also stress. Health refers to the overall well-being of an individual, including emotional and mental health, which cannot be determined from skeletal remains alone. Stress refers to the physiological disruptions from homeostasis, or the normal functioning of the body. The immediate rush of adrenaline in the stress response alters the functioning of the body, though long-term exposure to this “adrenaline rush” can have cumulative effects on the body. This long-term stress response is called the allostatic load, or the long-term elevated or fluctuation endocrine responses related to stress. This allostatic load, if sufficiently severe and long-term, can impair cellular functions in the bones and teeth, resulting in pathologies that can be observed by trained bioarchaeologists.  For a video introduction to these ideas, see “Reconciling ‘Stress’ and ‘Health’ in Bioarchaeology”.

Bioarchaeologists can only assess issues of health and stress in a limited capacity for two reasons: 1) not all diseases and pathologies result in skeletal correlates; and 2) not all bones are recovered from any given individual or site. Bioarchaeological assessment, while limited to recovered remains, is underpinned by knowledge about how individuals typically respond to stress, interpretations of skeletal deformities or lesions, and an understanding of the healing process. However, skeletal tissue has a general response to issues of health and stress,  making the diagnosis of specific causes or pathogens difficult (Figure 16). To further complicate interpretations, the skeleton has a limited number of responses to diseases, and so multiple disease states may result in the same deformities. Bioarchaeologists document the type and distribution of bone lesions to create a differential diagnosis of which specific disease processes may have been present. For more information, view “The Archaeology of Disease Documented in Skeletons”.

Initially, bioarchaeologists studying disease in the skeleton interpreted the presence of bony lesions as direct evidence that an individual suffered from a disease, while the absence of lesions indicated that they were healthy (see examples of skeletal pathologies and traumas at Digitized Diseases and FOROST). In the 1990s, osteologists and paleodemographers began to realize that inferences based on this binary approach to disease were flawed. Bioarchaeologists named this problem the osteological paradox, or the reality that individuals without lesions may have been more ill than those with observable lesions (Wood et al., 1992; Wright and Yoder, 2003). Because it takes time for bone tissue to react to disease, individuals without lesions may have suffered acutely from a disease and died before any skeletal reaction could occur. Conversely, those with skeletal lesions had a normal bodily response to disease, and thus may have been successfully fighting off the disease. Indeed, the cause of death may have been entirely unrelated, such as a traumatic injury or homicide. Confounding this issue is the fact that it is difficult for osteologists to identify hidden heterogeneity, or the predisposed frailty of an individual to disease and stress due to genetics or other aspects of lifestyle.

Though bioarchaeologists have studied infectious epidemics and plagues in the past for decades, the Covid-19 pandemic certainly brought to light the value of such research in the modern world. Specifically, bioarchaeologists have contributed to understanding infectious diseases that originated and spread among ancient peoples. For instance, they can document patterns in the age distributions of cemeteries during previous epidemics. The 1918 flu pandemic, for example, caused the highest mortality among young adults, while Covid-19 has targeted older more vulnerable groups. Studying the plagues of the past gives clues about the impact of socioeconomic and infrastructure factors, hygiene and social-distancing practices, medical waste practices of cultural material to inform environmental practices, and the evolutionary development of globalized diseases today. What do you think the archaeology of Covid-19 will reveal?

Markers of Activity and Stress

Mechanically demanding activities can leave distinctive marks on bone, especially those of a repetitive nature (e.g. rowing, sewing, etc). Table 4 provides examples of some of the most frequently recorded features in the skeleton used to make inferences about activities and stress in life. These markers of activity can give insight into aspects of gender, socioeconomic class, social status, occupation, and more, including interpopulation comparisons and comparisons through time. Bone is dynamic and adaptable tissue, constantly being broken down and reformed in response to mechanical loads placed upon it. Generally, activity makers fall into two categories; degenerative and biomechanical.

Degenerative activity markers result from activity (or a lack thereof), such as osteoarthritis, in which bone and cartilage wears away with age and use, impacting movement (Figure 17). On the other hand, biomechanical markers, or those that modify the shape and structure of bones through function/use and motion generally build, rather than wear away bone. Entheses are a good example of biomechanical markers on bone. An enthesis in this sense is the location on a bone where a muscle attaches and therefore the size and shape of an enthesis can indicate regular body movements and associated occupations. Unlike bone, however, teeth do not have a cycle of repair, so their activity markers are permanent and occur only during fetal development and the first few years of life. Some studies have linked arduous labor to bone conditions, like osteoarthritis, but more recent work (Rando & Waldron, 2012) has failed to support this in modern populations. Currently, bioarchaeologists do not link the conditions seen in bones to specific activities, but rather associate them with lifestyle factors such as kneeling a lot while working, which could be associated with kneeling while grinding grain on a ground stone in preparation for eating.

Growth and Development

Other features of the skeleton can allow bioarchaeologists to make inferences about the impact of stress and disease on the skeletons of children during growth. Studying the remains of children from the past allows archaeologists to measure the impact of stress (both physical and psychological) on those remains. This information can be combined with other types of archaeological evidence to build a picture of the stressors affecting peoples of the past. Understanding how stress-during-growth impacts the appearance and later health of adults is important for understanding paleodemographic patterns and, ultimately, the evolutionary adaptations different populations utilize. Lengths and widths of long bones have been used to estimate physiological age of children. Physiological age refers to the maturity of body structures, rather than a specific reference to time (chronological age). Conversely, age estimation from the eruption or development of teeth provides a more accurate chronological age in terms of ranges of days, months, and years. Assessing age of individuals in this way allows growth rate and delays in growth to be examined in cultural context. Some researchers have used frequency of stress markers in childhood, such as linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) in teeth, along with presence of periosteal reactions, cribra orbitalia, and porotic hyperostosis that appear on the skeleton, to predict mortality in adulthood. Studies have shown that individuals with more LEHs (or earlier forming LEHs) who experienced stress during childhood tend to die earlier than those individuals exhibiting fewer LEHs (Temple, 2014). You can practice analyzing skeletal stress in the third activity listed in Additional Exercises at the end of this chapter.

Diet & Migration

Reconstructing past diet can provide additional context for evaluating the effects of nutrition or malnutrition on growth, development, stress, and disease. There are many archaeological approaches to studying paleo-diets, including analysis of plant and animal remains from archaeological sites, microwear related to food processing on tools, analyses of coprolites (fossilized feces), or residue from pottery and ground stones. However, these methods do not demonstrate the effect of food processing (grinding, cooking, fermenting, etc.) on growth and development. This is made more complicated by the general lack of plant and animal remains at gravesites.

Chemical analyses using isotopes from bones and teeth has become a standard practice in bioarchaeology (Ambrose and Krigbaum, 2003; Jaouen and Pons, 2017). Isotopes are atoms of the same element but have differing atomic masses. Atomic mass is the (number of protons) + (number of neutrons), but the atom’s chemical properties are determined by the number of protons alone. Thus, isotopes are two atoms of the same element (same number of protons), but differing numbers of neutrons. In archaeology, the most commonly used isotopes are carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, strontium, and sulfur. Bioarchaeologists can examine isotope ratios in hair, teeth, bone, and fingernails. Using stable isotopes, or isotopes that are not highly radioactive, bioarchaeologists can study issues of disease, cultural affiliation, migration, and diet. Because you literally are what you eat, carbon and nitrogen levels in bone protein (mostly collagen) and bone mineral (hydroxyapatite) reflect the plant, animal, and fish sources consumed by the individual eaten. However, bone is constantly being built and destroyed by the skeletomuscular system, so these analyses only reveal what was eaten in the last decade of life. Unlike bone, dental tissues do not remodel after growth in childhood; therefore isotopes from teeth archive childhood diet when tooth formation was active. When ratios in teeth are compared to ratios of the same elements in bones, it can show changes in diet over the individual’s lifespan. Studies of migration and provenience use the oxygen and hydrogen isotopes that occur in drinking water. Because oxygen ratios vary by region, the rates in bone reflect the region the individual lived in or traveled to near the time of death, while these same ratios in teeth reflect the region of drinking water during their growth in early life.

Another innovative way that bioarchaeologists may study diet is from dental surfaces. Researchers have analyzed the textures and depths of micro-scratches on the chewing surfaces of teeth to identify hard or soft food consumption. The calcified dental plaque (dental calculus) on the enamel is another direct means of examining diet (Figure 22). It is in this way that bioarchaeologists were approached by the Poutsmouth African Burying Ground Stewardship Committee in New Hampshire to examine phytoliths in dental calculus from those skeletons recovered. The stakeholders of this project were particularly interested in understanding the rich cultural history of certain foods and meals to modern African Americans. Bioarchaeologists can scrape calculus from teeth and, through a series of washes and different microscopy methods, identify food particles and other items like fibers and bacteria. When eating plants, silica micro-fossils from plant tissue, called phytoliths, can become embedded in the enamel and dental calculus. These phytoliths are morphologically variable, allowing not only the type of plant to be identified, but the specific tissue of the plant that was consumed. Similarly, pollen, starch, and diatoms (single-celled algae like plankton) can also be identified in dental calculus, opening up a new world of examining both the living and burial environment of the individual.

Taphonomy of starches from dental calculus has given clues to food processing and heating of foods. Researchers even study the DNA from oral bacteria in dental calculus to understand the impact of disease and co-evolution with changes in diet and subsistence practices. One of the first studies examining dental calculus from humans from an archaeological site (Blatt et al. 2011) found bacteria, phytoliths, cotton fibers in calculus from prehistoric Ohio. Interestingly, cotton cannot grow in Ohio! In order for these people to have had cotton in Ohio, they would have had to trade with other people in a different region where cotton could grow or travel there themselves. This discovery from the calculus had implications for early trade routes and crafting practices in prehistoric populations.

Aside from the dietary uses of isotopes, they can also inform bioarchaeologists about geographic origins and migrations of individuals. Dr. Lesley Gregoricka and colleagues (2014) at the University of South Alabama, used strontium isotopes in the dental enamel to test the geographic origins of six individuals believed to be vampires, buried in a Polish cemetery dating to the 17th and 18th centuries. These villagers placed iron sickles across their necks and stones below their jaws. These items are apotropaic or symbols of a vampire burial in an attempt to prevent the undead from reawakening and biting another victim. These vampires were not those portrayed in film (though inspirational to such portrayals), but in real life would have been individuals that would have been feared as monstrous and/or suspected of taboo behavior. Dr. Gregoricka and her co-workers (2014) found that all of the individuals marked as vampires in the cemetery were local to the region, so while it is not likely they were feared as unknown foreigners to the regions, they could have been some of the first villagers to die of cholera, believed to have supernatural causes at the time.

Listen to Dr. Gregoricka on this NPR interview discussing her research or read the article here.

In bioarchaeology, the transition from foraging (hunting and gathering) to agricultural (farming) communities has been examined across the globe. Of particular interest is how the diets of farmers resulted in disease and stress reactions that varied from the lifestyle of foragers. In North America, increased consumption of maize has often been correlated with an increase in dental disease and infectious diseases simultaneously accompanying sedentary lifestyle. Consumption of certain foods, like maize versus meats, have also been shown to distinguish the diets of males and females (implying gendered differences), members of social and ethnic classes, and age or life stage at some sites. Conversely, consumption of rice in the agricultural communities of Southeast Asia, did not have the same impact on dental health and increased dental cavities as maize or corn did elsewhere (Halcrow et al., 2013). So, bioarchaeologists seek to understand foodways to capture aspects of culture and lived experiences within context, but also comparatively.

NAGPRA and a History of Ethics in Bioarchaeology

In the United States and other countries, archaeologists who recover, curate, or study human remains and funerary artifacts do so while abiding by state and federal laws aimed to protect the civil and spiritual legacies of descendant communities. But these laws have not always existed. In the late 19^th century, the cultural and biological remains of Native Americans were often looted and put on display or sold without consideration of how Indigenous peoples were harmed by these actions. During that time, museums like the Smithsonian Institute, the Army Medical Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History were opening and competition grew among them to fill their exhibit halls and storage shelves. Most of these artifacts were obtained by anthropologists or untrained archaeologists.

The founders of American anthropology played unfortunate roles in perpetuating the disregard for Indigenous remains under the guise of their own cultural and temporal biases. For instance, Franz Boas, “father of American anthropology,” not only bought and sold Native American remains, but helped orchestrate the invasive study of living Indigenous peoples. At the request of Boas, Lieutenant Robert Peary brought six Inuit from Greenland to New York in September of 1897, to live at the American Museum of Natural History. Thousands of visitors to the museum paid a quarter to view them. Within a few weeks, the Inuit began to get sick. By February of 1898, they began to die from tuberculosis. Within eight months only two Inuit had survived, one an orphaned boy named Minik (Figure 23).

Minik remained in New York and was adopted by the museum superintendent. When his father died, the museum staff and Boas staged a mock funeral in Central Park. There was no body buried; instead Minik’s father was dissected and his remains were stored at the museum.  Minik later learned the truth about his father’s remains through newspaper articles and demanded the return of his father’s body. Many years later, in 1992, the body of Minik’s father was returned to Greenland, but was met with hesitation by some of the Inuit who did not venerate, but rather reviled dead bodies. Reburial and return of remains in this case called for an individualized approach to the situation, an approach that was beginning to be realized among all anthropologists in North America at the time.

Civil Rights and the Road to NAGPRA

In the early 1970s, Native American groups sparked a civil rights movement in response to the long history of looting and destruction of the cultural and biological remains of Indigenous peoples. Among many others fighting for protection of Indigenous rights at this time, Maria Pearson protested the unequal treatment of Native American remains compared to those of white Americans being uncovered during road construction in Glenwood, Iowa.  The remains of the white Americans were immediately reburied, while those of the Native Americans were sent for study. Her activism following this incident led to the passage of the Iowa Burials Protection Act in 1976. This was the first legislative act passed in the United States specifically protecting Native American remains. Her work started a cascade effect in legislature and anthropological acknowledgment of the civil rights of Native Americans regarding their cultural and biological remains.

In 1986, the Society for American Archaeology devised the Statement Concerning the Treatment of Human Remains, which prompted the need for communication and understanding among archaeologists and Indigenous peoples. In 1986 (and recently updated in 2021), the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation outlined six principles regarding the treatment of human remains and grave goods, including consideration of preserving rather than excavating burials, treatment of remains during study, and reburial or repatriation considerations on a case-by-case basis. In 1989, the World Archaeological Congress adopted clauses concerning the science and treatment of human remains put forth by the Vermillion Accord developed by archaeologists and Indigenous peoples together. Many federal laws seeking to preserve and protect archaeological artifacts had been enacted and revised prior to and during this time period. For example, the 1970 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) conventions also sought to regulate the import and export of cultural objects in museums and public institutions and the return of objects. Yet, it was not until 1990 that the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was passed.

NAGPRA requires federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American cultural items to their descendants and culturally affiliated tribes (Table 5). “Cultural items” include human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects that have ongoing cultural significance that can be shown to have lineal descent. This law requires that agencies holding such remains provide inventories and written summaries of their holdings and consult with descendant populations to agree upon the repatriation, or the return and disposition of the artifacts and remains. NAGPRA provides guidance for repatriation, long-term care of items, and federal funding. Agencies must work to establish cultural affiliation of a descendant population with artifacts or remains. Once cultural affiliation is established, those descendant groups are granted the final determination about the disposition of the artifacts and remains. Cultural affiliation is established based on overall examination of historic and prehistoric evidence of group identity including biological, archaeological, linguistic, and oral tradition to a geographic area. Any claim considered “reasonable” is valid as it is recognized that claimants may face an unfair or impossible task to absolutely prove their connection with cultural items. In this respect, historic and archaeological gaps in knowledge about Indigenous peoples’ history and migrations are not considered to be strong enough evidence against a claim for cultural affiliation. Even so, some tribes have struggled to obtain federal recognition as Native Americans, which has precluded their role in the dialogue of NAGPRA and in claiming cultural affiliation.

 

NAGPRA also requires that Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations be consulted whenever archaeological investigations encounter or may expect to encounter cultural items on federal or tribal lands. In the case that cultural items are excavated or removed, specific procedures according to the 1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) must be followed. For example, if human remains were unexpectedly recovered on federal or tribal lands or lands transferred by the federal government to states under the Water Resources Department Act, excavations must stop and culturally-affiliated groups must be contacted. Any further excavation plans would then need to follow ARPA and come under tribal review. Violation of ARPA, Section 106 is considered a felony and involves fines and other punishments. Violation of NAGPRA is similarly a criminal offense which can result in 12 months imprisonment and a $100,000 fine. The first major test of NAGPRA was “The Ancient One” (see Special Topics box below).

Current Issues in Bioarchaeology

While bioarchaeologists study the past, they use modern methods. As in any science, research trends change over time. Current trends in bioarchaeology reflect the desire to learn more about the specific individual life experience, as well as the influence of larger environmental and social processes on the individual and population across the course of life. These larger environmental and social processes can inform current problems that affect communities around the globe. Just like uncovering the remains of The Ancient One had repercussions for Native American tribal members today and future NAGPRA cases, bioarchaeological research today is driven by current issues.

Osteobiography and the Individual

Osteobiography, a term used to define the exhaustive collection of all information about a given individual, was coined in the 1970s but has regained popularity recently in bioarchaeological research. Through the careful investigation of all evidence related to the individual (e.g., skeletal remains, grave goods, historical records, mortuary data, etc.), a detailed life narrative can be developed. Understanding the individual does, in effect, helps researchers to understand and humanize the population data that bioarchaeologists have traditionally analyzed. For instance, an individual with significant healed fractures may signal to the bioarchaeologist that the population cared for this person during their healing process. Osteobiographies result in more sophisticated understandings of personal identity during life (Hosek and Robb, 2019) and can result in more empathetic and sensitive portrayals of past people (Boutin and Callahan, 2019). Osteobiographies, in this way, serve as a bridge between qualitative and quantitative social science research. Alexis Boutin provides a fictive osteobiography sample in “An Osteobiographical Narrative in Alalakh” or you could learn more about the Bioarchaeology of children in the video Osteobiography: Human Studies from the Bones.

Histology and Molecular Studies

Histology, or the study of microscopic tissues, can be applied to both bone and dentition. Bioarchaelogists may elect to use histological methods to address different research questions. For instance, dental histology can reveal data about incremental growth patterns and health disruptions that cannot be known by examining the dental enamel with the naked eye (Michael, 2016; Moes and Blatt, 2018). Bone histology may help bioarchaeologists to understand patterns of decomposition and burial environment within and between individuals at a cemetery site (Turner-Walker and Jans, 2008). Looking within the bone to see bacterial or fungal changes/invasions can help bioarchaeologists reconstruct the postmortem burial environment.

Molecular studies similarly use a fine-grained approach to understanding the past (Lambert and Grupe, 2013). Ancient DNA can be used to understand varied experiences of the human past including migration patterns, food exchange and consumption, changes in diet and composition of ceramics, and even soil analysis and land use.

Bioarchaeologists explore the pressures that resulted in human migration, competition, and resource exhaustion in the past, though these issues are becoming increasingly important to examine in our increasingly global world (Harrod and Martin, 2013; Schug, 2011). Through isotope studies, human movement and migration can be mapped in the past. Cross-disciplinary data from geographers, geologists, and historians can help bioarchaeologists interpret skeletal evidence of violence and disease. Archaeological evidence for collapsing or transitioning social networks and mass spread of disease can sometimes be linked to changes in environment, climate, and resources that may have pushed a population to the brink or sped up clashes between populations. To learn more, you can read The Long View of Climate Change and Human Health and/or watch “Bioarchaeology and Climate Change 103.”

Gender and performance in the past

Bioarchaeologists necessarily are concerned with examining gender and potential gender roles in the past. Gender should not be conflated with sex estimation, but rather seen as a lived performance (Walker and Cook, 1998). Gender roles and expectations can shift over an individual’s lifetime, so “seeing” gender in the archaeological record can be a complex interpretive task. Feminist scholarship in bioarchaeology has greatly improved how we envision gender roles, performance, expectations, and identity in past populations (Agarwal and Wesp, 2017; Sofaer, 2009).

Current conversations and research into LGBTQ2S+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, Two Spirit, and more), nonbinary, and intersex individuals in the past is starting to be explored in the field. While these terms are modern and may not exclusively reflect gender or sexuality diversity of past societies, gender identities outside of just masculine and feminine are not a modern invention. Gender identity is fluid and a personal experience and both gender and sex run along a spectrum (there are chromosomal combinations beyond XX and XY and hormonal effects than can modify trait expression of sexual characteristics). So, there may not be material correlates left behind for archaeologists to interpret gender or sex from a skeleton alone. Deeper investigations into skeletal morphology, DNA, grave goods, and any existing historical records may provide further context.

A recent example, the re-analysis of the Revolutionary War general Casimir Pulaski, illustrates how detailed explorations of skeletal biology, sex, and gender can result in broader understandings of gender performance in the past across cultures (Estabrook and Powell, 2016). The circumstances surrounding Pulaski’s death and burial in 1779 were unclear, leaving the identify of the person buried at the associated monument uncertain. When the skeletal remains were examined, they appeared to be consistent with Pulaski’s height, age at death, and known injuries, however had traits most consistent with a female. So, scholars have debated whether Pulaski was in fact intersex. Pulaski’s identity was later confirmed through DNA. Additionally, Pulaski was found to have a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, in which a genetic XX chromosome female is exposed to high testosterone during fetal development and is born with male sex characteristics. For more on Casimir Pulaski, see Revolutionary War Hero’s Skeleton Suggests He Was Intersex.

The incorporation of gender theory into bioarchaeological analyses have now started to be applied in forensic anthropology and law enforcement with some scholar’s work focusing on identification of LGBTQ2S+ individuals from gender-affirming surgeries, contextual evidence, strategies to understand and reduce harm to LGBTQ2S+ victims and incorporating a holistic approach. The theories and methods used and developed within archaeology are, therefore, useful in the modern world, not just in interpretations of the past

Interested in seeing how gender is important to reconstructing the identity of unknown individuals in forensics? Explore the resources available through the Trans Doe Task Force.

Violence and Skeletal Evidence of Trauma

Skeletal evidence of trauma, in association with mortuary and archaeological evidence, may help bioarchaeologists reconstruct singular or pervasive intra- and inter-group conflict in the past. Injury patterns, rates and types of injuries throughout life, and differences between males and females may all be important pieces of information to consider in groups with documented or suspected warfare, raiding, and conflict histories. Broader narratives about the cultural and ritual aspects of violence can be illustrative in understanding human behavior in the past (Martin and Harrod, 2015; Walker, 2001).

Forensic and archaeological evidence of trauma on the skeleton can reveal a lot about complex social issues and structural violence, a form of violence in which social structure and institutions mandate and perpetuate inequality thereby causing harm, beyond simply documenting evidence of cause of death. Harm from structural violence can include physical harm visible on the skeleton including skeletal trauma evidence resulting from marginalization of a group of people impacting their growth, diet, health, health care. When patterns emerge in the form of varying frequencies of disease, stress, malnutrition, and trauma by comparing skeletons from different social classes or groups, societal measures inflicting (intentionally or unintentionally) structural violence may be the root cause. Bioarchaeologists can document both the skeletal result of such violence and the societal parameters from cultural-historical evidence.

Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921 witnessed one of the most violent racially motivated events in United States history. In the past 75 years, this massacre that took the lives of 300 Black community members, was swept under the rug of history. Mob violence erupted at a courthouse when shots were fired at a wrongfully accused Black teenage boy that after two days left the otherwise prosperous, peaceful, and primarily Black Greenwood community, called the “Black Wall Street,” was destroyed. Beginning in 2020, Dr. Phoebe Stubblefield began excavations of the unmarked graves of the Tulsa Massacre to help identify the victims of that tragedy and rebury them honorably for their families. Dr. Stubblefield, herself, is a descendant of Tulsa Massacre victims and her work has opened a stage for very public discussions amongst bioarchaeologists about the history of racism in the field, the methods that biological anthropologists use to estimate ancestry, and the disproportionate use of persons of color and marginalized bodies in skeletal collections used for research. As Dr. Stubblefield said herself, “I work with the dead, but this can help the living.” In a very real sense, bioarchaeologists and forensic anthropologists can impact modern lives by coming to grips with the violence of the past.

You can learn more about the massacre here and watch Dr. Kary Stackelbeck speak about her archaeological work at the site here.

Collaboration with Descendant Communities

An important part of honoring the past is connecting material culture to living descendant communities (Colwell, 2016; Tully, 2007). Community-based archaeological projects actively engage descendants to guide, inform, and/or lead bioarchaeological research about ancestors. While not all community members may want to be part of the excavation process, all bioarchaeologists must respect the wishes of descendant communities when developing their research plans. Importantly, if community members have not been consulted, bioarchaeologists should contact these groups and open meaningful dialog about research questions and practices. Bioarchaeological research should always center the wishes of the communities most affected by the archaeological discoveries and have begun working towards research questions most meaningful and relevant to descendant communities.

Chapter Highlights and Conclusions

In this chapter, you were introduced to the work of bioarchaeologists analyzing the human skeleton to interpret broad anthropology themes about demography, gender, disease, diet, stress, migrations, behavior, and lifestyles of past peoples. We opened the laboratory doors to help you peak in and see reconstruction of a biological profile to identify the age, sex, ancestry, and stature of an individual from their skeleton and how taphonomy and practices like cremation can help archaeologists understand mortuary rituals and environmental stressors. Then we explored the six categories of bone disease that can help narrow down answers for questions about malnutrition, human-environment interaction, care-taking, violence, and childhood. We also saw how technologies in microscopy and histology, chemical analyses like isotopes, GIS applications, and the integration of multidisciplinary methods beyond anthropology can all be applied to understanding life in the past.

Perhaps most importantly, you saw how bioarchaeology is the study of life from death and is both influenced by and can influence current issues in the modern world. The lives and people of the past that bioarchaeologists study are important to their living descendants today and it should be a prime focus of bioarchaeologists to consult with, collaborate with, and honor the legacies of the ancestors of descendant communities by following federal laws like NAGPRA and archaeological ethics. Bioarchaeology is dependent on the field methods of archaeology and the theories and interpretive procedures of anthropology as a whole just as it attempts to extract multiple levels of data from a single component of human existence — the skeleton.

 

About the Authors

Dr. Samantha Blatt is currently an Assistant Professor at Idaho State University. Originally from the East Coast, she received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in biological anthropology with an emphasis in bioarchaeology and dental anthropology. Her research interests have focused on the histological microstructures of dental and skeletal tissues, disease, growth, and childhood in ancient North America, forensic and archaeological taphonomy of teeth, and individualizing skeletal traits. She is particularly interested in using innovative methods and strategies to revitalize cold cases and has worked to repatriate numerous NAGPRA-related skeletal remains. Her work with museum collections and preservation offices includes analyses of 40,000 year old canids, shrunken heads, prehistoric and historic dental calculus, cannibalized remains from the Cook Islands, and an Incan mummy. She has two bulldogs, Falkor and Atreyu, and loves thrifting, 80s films, exploring old museums, and once went on a vacation to try 200 types of cheeses.

Amy Michael is a biological anthropologist specializing in the investigation of human tooth and bone microstructure in an effort to answer questions about past and modern bodies. Using the principles of skeletal biology, Michael asks questions about health, pathology and age-at-death to better understand people in the past and present. With training in bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology and historical archaeology, Amy has worked on field projects in the United States, Belize and Albania. Dr. Michael is passionate about bringing a social justice perspective to her work on forensic cold cases. She is a founding board member and Director of Professional Collaboration for the Trans Doe Task Force, a grassroots organization led by forensic genealogists and supported by anthropologists, which works to identify transgender and non-binary decedents in forensic cases. Outside of work, Michael enjoys collecting obscure horror movies, hiking through the mountains, and doting on her senior pug.

Further Exploration

The Archaeology of Disease Documented in Skeletons, a lecture by Charlotte Roberts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTcMCCP_Lkg

Bioarchaeology and Climate Change 103, a video lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkAIfW54KXA

Central Belize Archaeological Survey: http://anthropology.msu.edu/cbasproject/

Digging Up the Dead, by Joanna Pearce: https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/mortuary-archaeology/

Digitised Diseases: http://www.digitiseddiseases.org/alpha/

DNA Doe Project: https://dnadoeproject.org/

eForensics: https://eforensics.info/learning_module/index/

eSkeletons: http://eskeletons.org/

See especially the Taphonomy module (https://eforensics.info/learning_module/taphonomy/)

Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology: https://explorations.americananthro.org/

See especially Chapter 15 – Bioarchaeology and Forensic Anthropology (https://explorations.americananthro.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Chapter-15-Bioarchaeology-and-Forensic-Anthropology-3.0-1.pdf) and Appendix A – Osteology (https://explorations.americananthro.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Appendix-A-Osteology-V-2.0.pdf)

FOROST: http://forensicosteology.org/buscar.php?language=en

He Escaped from Jail After Allegedly Killing His Wife a Century Ago. Now His Headless Torso Has Been Identified Through DNA: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/01/02/he-escaped-jail-after-killing-his-wife-century-ago-now-his-headless-torso-has-been-identified-through-dna/

Introduction to Human Osteology: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=books

Kennewick Man Finally Freed to Share His Secrets, by Douglas Preston: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/kennewick-man-finally-freed-share-his-secrets-180952462/

Leveraging Anthropology, Forensic Genomics, and Genealogy to Restore Identity to Human Remains, by Samantha Blatt, Amy Michael, and David Mittelman: https://promega.foleon.com/theishireport/may-2020/holistic-approaches-to-case-work-leveraging-anthropology-forensic-genomics-and-genealogy-to-restore-identity-to-human-remains/?fbclid=IwAR2vRM21xNzrsnNnrKtPm975jNP6t5ZwXBKkq2QnBQ_MNo5URSS4JS7DHe8

The Long View of Climate Change and Human Health, by Gwen Robbins-Schug: https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/the-long-view-of-climate-change-and-human-health/

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, National Park Service: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nagpra/index.htm

Portsmouth African Burying Ground: http://www.africanburyinggroundnh.org/story.html

Reconciling “Stress” and “Health” in Bioarchaeology, a lecture by Gwen Robbins Schug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAZWDUJb_uA

Revolutionary War Hero’s Skeleton Suggests He Was Intersex, by Kristina Killgrove: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2019/04/08/revolutionary-war-heros-skeleton-suggests-he-was-intersex/?sh=1866b00422da

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