Introduction

By examining human remains you can discover variety of things about human history. Human remains are just one of the many forms of tangible evidence that archaeologists excavate and analyse to find out more about human history. Human remains are defined by the National Museum of Wales as 'the bodies, and parts of bodies, of once living people from the species Homo Sapiens and any evolutionary earlier hominies with which modern humans today share a common ancestor.’ This comprises of osteological material, soft tissues and embryos, however the definition does not encompass hair or nails. Because of this enormity of evidence there is a great abundance of information we can find to determine things about ‘the record of the, infinite variety of human experience,’ (Livy). This information includes discovering pathologies and bones. Different activities people did based on the morphology of their skeletons. Chemical and archaeological science can be used to determine diet, nursing through childhood, origin, mobility and seasonality. Genetically we can also tie groups to other groups. It is with the information that archaeologists find by examining human remains that they can begin to understand who we are and where we come from and what it is to be human.

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