What information can we derive from human remains?

What information can we derive from human remains?

There is an abundance of knowledge that we can attain by analysing human remains. We can learn all sorts of things about the individual their physical attributes, diet, activities, health, age and cause of death. However we can go further, examining multiple individuals from the same area can tell us about a group/species and this information can teach us how they lived and what did and didn’t work for them.

Identifying Physical Attributes:

Determining Sex:

There is no single characteristic that indicates with certainty whether an individual was male or female and indicators can differ depending on the condition and preservation of the remains. If the bodies are fully in tact then sexing is straightforward from the genitalia, if these are not present, then secondary characteristics such as breasts and beards provide fairly reliable indicators. However, when the remains have no soft tissue on them (bones), the most common and accurate ways in which archaeologists employ to work out the gender from an individual’s remains is to observe the pelvis, skull and overall rusticity of the entire skeleton. With the skull alone sex should be determined accurately about 90% of the time. With the pelvis alone, thee sex should be determined accurately 95% of the time and with both it is believed that 99% of the time archaeologists can correctly determine the gender. The pelvis is so good at identifying sex because the female pelvis typically has many features to facilitate carrying and delivering babies.

For example the female pelvis is wider and more basin shaped. Whether the male pelvis is narrow and is pointed. The sub pubic angle is the key indicator with the females described commonly as U-shaped and the males usually as V-shaped. With children however (if the remains have no tissue), it is very difficult to determine gender as they have no developed enough to have the stark differences in physicality. Sometimes teeth can be a clue as to what sex, but otherwise it depends on individual cases and circumstances as to whether the child’s gender can be identified.

Picture Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Male_vs_female_pelvis_LT.PNG

Life Expectancy: How long did they live?

It is difficult to determine precisely how old an individual was when he or she died, based solely on skeletal remains. Instead individuals are usually classified into general age categories. The categories most commonly used are fatal (before birth), infant (0-3 years), child (3-12 years), adolescent (12-17 years), young adult (18-30 years), middle adult (30 – 50 years) and old adult (over 50). Determining age at death includes examining both bones (which focus on closure of individual bones) and dentation. However the best indicator of age, are the teeth. We can study the eruption and replacement of milk teeth, the sequence of eruption of the permanent dentation, and finally the degree of wear. This analysation of bones and teeth in particular usually provides us with a relatively accurate idea of the age of an individual.

Appearance: What did they look like?

Archaeologists and anthropologists used to have to rely on either the quality of preservation of remains or the art surrounding the remains to give them an idea of their physical appearance. However during the ninetieth century German anatomists began attempts to reconstruct faces in order to produce likeness from the skulls of celebrities such as Schiller, Kant and Bach.

Today anthropologists go through a process of using computerized techniques for matching facial proportions and features to create a realistic portrait of the individual.

Diet:

There are several kinds of evidence which are used to determine the particular foods that people were eating. These are human skeletal remains, human waste and human soft tissue.

Human Skeletal Remains:

‘Through an analysis of isotopes and trace elements in bone, human skeletal remains provide a good indication of the kinds of foods eaten. The ratio of carbon to nitrogen isotopes is different among various kinds of plants and animals, and when food are eaten as a regular part of people’s diet, those ratios are imprinted.’ However diet can also be found by analysis of human teeth. Wear patterns of teeth can be used to make broad inferences. A diet with a lot of hard, gritty food for example would wear down the teeth more than one that isn’t.

Human Waste:

Human coprolites are usually found in dry caves and although rare, they can provide us with some of the best and most reliable information on the individual’s diet.

This is because human coprolites contain the remnants of food products such as partially digested seeds or leaves as well as small bones from birds and fish. Indicators of also include plant stalks and roots as well as other parts of animals. These samples of plant remains can tell us the type of plant it is and therefore give us an idea of the climate, environment and perhaps local area in which in the individual lived.

Human Soft Tissue:

“The absolute best method of determining diet is from food found in the stomach and intestines of human remains preserved through extreme environmental conditions.”1

Cause of Death:

Cause of death can be found by examining both the remains and the site in which they are discovered. By determining cause of death we can find out about many things that were happening within certain groups/species at particular points in time.

Dating the Remains:

Radiocarbon dating is perhaps one of the most commonly employed methods to determine the age of remains. The method involves calculating the measurement of carbon 14, (a radioactive form of carbon) in material. This procedure works because all living organisms have a certain amount of carbon 14; however when the organism dies the carbon 14 gradually decays. This gradual disintegration can be measured to expose the age of remains.

[1] Robert J. Muckle, (2006), Introducing Archaeology, Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication, Canada.