A Journey Back to the Past #4: Archaeology of the Dead

This is a very long overdue post that I almost gave up writing on, but I guess it would be something fun to talk about - not because of my bias towards human bones but I think it's going to be another (hopefully) insightful entry on the fact that archaeologists don't only dig the ground or look at stones and fossils for their lifetime, so here we go!

I love beaches, and that's why I love Cyprus :D

Last spring (that was in April, which feels like a long time ago right), I had taken part in the Human Bioarchaeology Field School organised by the Heritage and Archaeological Research Practice (HARP) in Kato Paphos, the historical city of Cyprus. The field school is led and supervised by Michelle Gamble, a bioarchaeologist of the practice, assisted by Kieran, who is a staff from the same institution. I had been working on human remains excavated as part of the Paphos Agora Project which is conducted by the team of Professor Ewdoksia Papuci-Wladyka from the Department of Classical Archaeology of the Jagiellonian University Institute of Archaeology in Krakow, Poland.

A small part of the excavation site of the project

The project has been carried out since 2011 with the aims to explore and reconstruct the public space of the agora of Nea Paphos. The first phase of the project (2011-2014) focused on searching for the Hellenistic agora of the island’s capital, while the subsequent phase that began in 2015 continues the research on the Agora, and also other material infrastructures related to the economic activity of the city using interdisciplinary methods, including bioarchaeological or palaeoanthropological analysis. 

Hold on a second, mind explaining what bioarchaeology is?

Bioarchaeology, I guess would have came from the combination of the words bio-, archaeo-, and -logy, which respectively means 'life', 'ancient things' and 'study'. When put together, it makes sense to say that bioarchaeology means 'the scientific study of 'life' (aka biological materials) of the past'. However, Jane Buikstra had redefined the term in 1977; where bioarchaeology no longer comprises other biological materials like animal bones (because that is now referred to as 'zooarchaeology'), but only refers to the scientific study of human remains from archaeological sites, also known as osteoarchaeology or palaeo-osteology in some parts of the world. (Having said that, there will be pictures of human remains coming up in this post but I don't think they will be in any way traumatising or disturbing - they are individual human bones, no deteriorating flesh with insects around the bodies like you would expect to see in a crime scene. But if you're not up for it, I would recommend not scrolling further as I don't want to be held responsible for any psychological defect afterwards huehue)

Finding purpose: Why study human remains - understanding bioarchaeological questions

Bioarchaeologists and forensic anthropologists study human remains to understand their life history - answering the question of who are they? - by looking at morphological variation, ancestry, age, context of burial, cause of death and trauma (how did they die?), activity or occupational markers (what did they do for a living - an athlete, surgeon?) and bodily modifications. From the field school, we have gained the hands-on experience of working with archaeologically-derived human skeletal material, while using Cyprus as the case study that had allowed rooms for conversations on aspects of mortuary practice, taphonomy, method of excavation and its impact on osteological analyses. 

What did I do during the field school? (and things that I learnt)

Generally, throughout the field school, we were given a one-hour lecture first thing in the morning, followed by osteological work for the rest of the day (with exception for days when field trips were organised). We were allocated to work with the bones in pairs, and each pair was assigned a box of bones to work with at one particular time. The first box that I worked on with my partner was indeed a fairly challenging one as not only it was filled with a lot of dust, but the bones in it were also very heavily fragmented that most of the pieces were smaller than our own thumb, making the process of cleaning and identifying very taxing for beginners like us. 

First thing first: Getting to know what are human bones (and what are not)

The task of identifying human bones from a pile of human and animal bones as well as non-osseous materials starts from the beginning of the cleaning process. Removing dirt from the piles needs to be done with extreme care so that the lump of dry dirt is not to be confused with the fragmented spongy materials from the bones. While bones from ruminants are usually much thicker than human bones and rodents’ bones are usually much smaller and thinner, I still find unfused human long bones can sometimes still be confused with chicken bones. Plus, not everything is as crystal clear as the ones we see in textbooks and reference notes. Yes, all humans do have the same type of bones but they don't look the same individually (don't lie to me; I am not the only one who thinks that the juvenile femur - the bone in your thigh - on the most left in the picture below does look like a chicken bone right?)

Femurs at different growth stages - first two on the left are from infants, third from left haven't had the head fused while the one at the most right is probably from an individual who was at least 16 or 19 (depends on the sex) at the time of death.

Bones in your hands! Most of them are the finger bones, except from the one at the bottom right - that's a bone in your wrist

Other things you need to be able to identify as a bioarchaeologist: 

• the side of the body the bone is from: right ulna? left tibia? Is that a left or right patella? 
• different types of teeth: Deciduous or permanent? Canine? Premolar? Incisors...? Is that the first, second or third molar?
• palaeopathological sign: Abnormal feature on bones, which can be a sign of disease, or trauma, or growth issues etc, therefore it's very important to discern what is a 'normal' bone and what is not

What's next?: Understanding age estimation - is that a juvenile or an adult?

There are a number of ways to estimate the age at death of an individual. Age at death of juvenile skeleton can be determined from the epiphyseal fusion, closing of cranial suture, symphyseal face of the pubis, auricular surface of the os coxa, or even from the dental eruption and dental wear (there's more for the adult skeleton but that should be enough for now haha). Anyway, I have only managed to work with epiphyseal fusion during the field school for age estimation. Bones from different parts of the body fuse at different age, and it even differs in females and males so it can be useful in estimating age at time of death. Below is an example of the range of age where the ends (epiphysis) of a humerus (your upper arm bone) begin to fuse to the center (diaphysis).

Source: http://www.yorku.ca/kdenning/images/bioanthropology/longbonegrowth.jpg

The guideline on dental eruption: looking at which tooth has erupted at the time of death to estimate the individual's age.

Source: http://www.academia.dk/Blog/wp-content/uploads/AgeEstim_Teeth.png

Next up: Understanding ways to estimate the sex of an individual

[Note: Anthropologically speaking, sex is a biological term which refers to 'female' and 'male' while gender, on the other hand, is a social construct that refers to 'man' and 'woman' most of the time. Don't get them mixed up - or a biological anthropologist would get extremely annoyed XD]

In estimating sex of a skeleton, forensic anthropologists or bioarchaeologists would be looking for sexual dimorphism; the distinct characteristics that are different in size or appearance between the sexes in their bones. In humans, this can be done by looking at some features on the skull and also on the pelvic or innominate bone (also known as os coxa). Sex estimation, like age estimation, is not always possible especially if the bones are fragmented and in poor condition.

In the image below, we can see that females tend to have wider subpubic angle, with sacrum tilted back (well actually from the side or lateral view, females' sacrum are more straight and the males' ones are more curved). Females also tend to have bigger pelvic outlet, and - not annotated in the image - wider greater sciatic notch. All these characteristics are adapted in females for the process of giving birth as the 'wide' features are necessary to provide space that allow foetus to pass through.

Source: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/75/49/0f/75490fc3de1f789985572bea694d69da.gif

(I'm gonna save sexual dimorphism in skulls for another time - maybe - hehe)

Bioarchaeologists don't only estimate age and sex, they can also estimate stature - how tall a person was at the time of his/her death. This can be done using a regression equation, by incorporating the length of a complete long bones into the equation; usually the lower limb bones ie. femur, tibia and fibula give a more accurate estimate. That said, stature estimation is only possible if a complete long bone is present. 

p/s: there are different regression equations for different ethnic groups and sexes

Jumping to the writing stuff: Basic inventory of skeletal material

Keeping good record of things is the most important component in any kind of work. In our case, producing inventory involves the recording of each individual type of bones that we found. For each bone, the completeness, the side of the body it is from, the number of fragments and any pathological signs are noted in the inventory. Age estimation is an important feature in an inventory because it will help to assess the minimum number of individuals a bioarchaeologist is working with. For example, if there are two radii, one is right radius and another one is a left, we can say that we may be working with one individual. But if both radii seem to be at different growth stages, have different lengths or sizes etc, we may be able to conclude that there are at least two sets of human remains we are working with from one specific box or collection.

Apart from producing inventory, bioarchaeologists are also required to possess the skill to write a skeletal report. This report includes the description of the method used in age and sex estimation, the inventory, the photographs, discussion on the relevance to the subject in focus or research question, conclusion, and suggestion for further analysis.

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There's a lot more that I want to share - on bioarchaeology and also Cyprus! - but I should probably consider writing a 'Part 2' or else, this is gonna get wayyyyyyy too long. I guess it's a sign that it's time for me to get back to my essay writing!

[No say of when it is going to be but I'll catch up with you guys in the next post insha Allah!]