Towards a new osteometric method for sexing ancient cremated human remains. Analysis of Late Bronze Age and Iron Age samples from Italy with gendered grave goods

Lateral angle: A landmark-based method for the sex estimation in human cremated remains and application to an Austrian prehistoric sample

OBJECTIVES

Estimating the sex of cremated human remains is difficult. The petrous bone frequently survives the cremation due to its density. Wahl observed the lateral angle to be sexually dimorphic in the 1980s. Previous studies showed various cut-off points to separate females from males, which are hardly replicable and difficult to apply. We want to test the Wahl method and compare it to a new landmark-based version.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this study, we measured the lateral angle of 35 cremated petrous bones from late bronze age Austria using micro-CT scans. Technical errors of measurement were calculated for two different methods to intersect the internal acoustic meatus virtually in the midline (manual or landmark-based intersection). Furthermore, sex was estimated based on morphological features and metric measurements. This information was used in logistic regression modeling to define a cut-off point in our sample.

RESULTS

The technical errors of measurement suggested that a landmark-based method was more precise in comparison to a manual intersection which was much more intuitive. Inter- and intra-observer errors were low which improved reliability. The logistic regression model produced good results in our sample (p = 0.02, R2 = 0.38, accuracy = 0.8). The mean lateral angle was similar to studies which focused on prehistoric cremated petrous bones.

DISCUSSION

The proposed landmark-based method was precise, quick, and could be easily applied, even by unexperienced researchers. The size of the lateral angle seemed to be population-specific but also dependent on the method applied. We recommend to use the proposed landmark-based method which is more precise.

TestDimorph: An R package for analysis of interpopulation sexual dimorphism differences using summary statistics

OBJECTIVE

The degree of sexual dimorphism in certain traits between males and females differ from one sample to another. Although trait differences by sex are often reported in bioanthropological research, few studies test for statistical significance or make raw data available. TestDimorph is the first R package dedicated to testing and comparing the degree of sexual dimorphism among different samples by leveraging summary statistics.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We provide two approaches of analysis of inter-sample differences in degree of sexual dimorphism: univariate and multivariate for two or more samples. The methods follow upon publications primarily from the AJBA. Within-sex size variability between samples is compared using one-way ANOVA followed by control for multiple pairwise comparisons. In addition, we compute the overlapping area between the density functions of two normal distributions from the mixture intersection index or the non-overlapping area using the dissimilarity index as well as Hedges' g with inferential support using the 95% confidence interval. Finally, we use a multivariate analysis of differences in patterning of sexual dimorphism between samples.

RESULTS

We demonstrate various results from applying TestDimorph functions to data supplied with the package.

DISCUSSION

The package has many features including functionality for working with summary statistics, simulating data from summary statistics, and the extraction of summary statistics from raw data, so that the entire analysis can be performed through the package.

More than urns: A multi-method pipeline for analyzing cremation burials

Burial rites of archaeological populations are frequently interpreted based on cremated remains of the human body and the urn they were deposited in. In comparison to inhumations, information about the deceased is much more limited and dependent on fragmentation, selection of body regions, taphonomic processes, and excavation techniques. So far, little attention has been paid to the context in which urns are buried. In this study, we combined archaeological techniques with anthropology, computed tomography, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, geochemistry and isotopic approaches and conducted a detailed analysis on a case study of two Late Bronze Age urns from St. Pölten, Austria (c. 1430 and 1260 cal. BCE). The urns were recovered en-bloc and CT-scanned before the micro-excavation. Osteological and strontium isotope analysis revealed that the cremated remains comprised a young adult female and a child that died at the age of 10-12 years. Both individuals had been subject to physiological stress and were likely local. Animal bones burnt at different temperatures suggested different depositional pathways into the urn and pit as part of the pyre, food offerings, and unintentional settlement debris. Eight wild plant and five crop plant species appeared as part of the local landscape, as food offerings and fire accelerants. Sediment chemistry suggests that pyre remains were deposited around the urns during burial. Multi-element geochemistry, archaeobotany, and zooarchaeology provide insights into the Late Bronze Age environment, the process of cremation, the gathering of bones and final funerary deposition.

Intense community dynamics in the pre-Roman frontier site of Fermo (ninth-fifth century BCE, Marche, central Italy) inferred from isotopic data

The Early Iron Age in Italy (end of the tenth to the eighth century BCE) was characterized by profound changes which influenced the subsequent political and cultural scenario in the peninsula. At the end of this period people from the eastern Mediterranean (e.g. Phoenicians and Greek people) settled along the Italian, Sardinian and Sicilian coasts. Among local populations, the so-called Villanovan culture group-mainly located on the Tyrrhenian side of central Italy and in the southern Po plain-stood out since the beginning for the extent of their geographical expansion across the peninsula and their leading position in the interaction with diverse groups. The community of Fermo (ninth-fifth century BCE), related to the Villanovan groups but located in the Picene area (Marche), is a model example of these population dynamics. This study integrates archaeological, osteological, carbon (δ¹³C), nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) (n = 25 human) and strontium (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) isotope data (n = 54 human, n = 11 baseline samples) to explore human mobility through Fermo funerary contexts. The combination of these different sources enabled us to confirm the presence of non-local individuals and gain insight into community connectivity dynamics in Early Iron Age Italian frontier sites. This research contributes to one of the leading historical questions of Italian development in the first millennium BCE.

Sr analyses from only known Scandinavian cremation cemetery in Britain illuminate early Viking journey with horse and dog across the North Sea

The barrow cemetery at Heath Wood, Derbyshire, is the only known Viking cremation cemetery in the British Isles. It dates to the late ninth century and is associated with the over-wintering of the Viking Great Army at nearby Repton in AD 873-4. Only the cremated remains of three humans and of a few animals are still available for research. Using strontium content and isotope ratios of these three people and three animals-a horse, a dog and a possible pig-this paper investigates the individuals' residential origins. The results demonstrate that strontium isotope ratios of one of the adults and the non-adult are compatible with a local origin, while the other adult and all three animals are not. In conjunction with the archaeological context, the strontium isotope ratios indicate that these individuals most likely originated from the area of the Baltic Shield-and that they died soon after arrival in Britain. This discovery constitutes the first solid scientific evidence that Scandinavians crossed the North Sea with horses, dogs and other animals as early as the ninth century AD.

Let’s make a mess, maybe no one will notice. The impact of bioturbation activity on the urn fill condition

The research was carried out at the cremation cemetery of the Lusatian culture in Wtórek, Ostrów Wielkopolski district, Wielkopolska province, Poland. Contrary to the so-far-studied topics related to the CT imaging of burnt bones and their virtual exploration, we concentrated on the analysis of the structures formed by the soil fauna activity in the fills of urns and additional vessels, and reconstruction of the dynamics of the ecosystem variability within the cemetery area based on thereof. We also demonstrated the impact of macrofaunal activity on stratigraphy and bone fragmentation. From the total of 222 excavated burials in 18 urns and one additional vessel, the remains of macrofauna or its bioturbation activity were identified. Out of 19 vessels subjected to CT examinations, traces of macrofaunal activity were demonstrated in 13: in five vessels animal bioturbative activity was not observed and in one, observations was impossible (due to significant metal-related artifacts). In two vessels both macrofaunal remains and traces of activity were identified. Discovered bioturbations were associated with specific species or genera. Nests or their parts of the genus Geotrupes sp. beetles were the most frequently observed traces of macrofaunal activity. Tunnels and aestivation chambers of earthworms and chambers of the genus Harpalus sp. beetles filled with Setaria sp. caryopses were discovered. The chitinous parts of other insects and the humerus bones of the vole of the genus Microtus sp. were also identified. It was shown, especially due to the non-destructive method, that rodents activity had the most destructive effect on the bone stratigraphy as well as on the movement and fragmentation of the burnt bones. The chances of visualizing bioturbations decreased with time since their creation. The process of disappearance of traces of macrofaunal activity concerned both traces of rodent activity and nests set up by Geotrupes sp. and other species.

The burning maze: The potential value of the human bony labyrinth in estimating sex of calcined remains

Estimating sex from burnt human remains is a challenging task in bioanthropology, mainly due to their high level of alteration and fragmentation. Protected within the petrous part of the temporal bone, the bony labyrinth may be particularly valuable for assessing the sex of burnt remains. This prospective study aims at testing predictive models, already found reliable on unburnt bony labyrinths, to burnt specimens. Six discriminant functions were applied on six bony labyrinths of donated adult cadavers of known sex, before and after outdoor burning experiments. Comparisons between unburnt and burnt measurements were executed using Mann-Whitney U tests while shape and size differences induced by fire exposure were examined through a geometric morphometrics (GM) analysis. Predicted sex on unburnt bony labyrinths was consistent with known sex in five cases while a systematic misclassification for males was highlighted on burnt specimens. Higher values of shrinkage were found in males for two measurements included in the equations. GM analysis revealed significant differences in centroid size among males after calcination. Visualization of mean consensus of both female and male bony labyrinths evidenced a reduction in cochlear size and variations in the width and length of semicircular canals of burnt specimens. This exploratory study seems to confirm that designing sex estimation standards specifically for burnt bony labyrinth may be advisable. Understanding how the burning process could impact its morphology is highly recommended through further experiments on larger samples and in controlled environments.

Interglobular dentine attributed to vitamin D deficiency visible in cremated human teeth

Vitamin D deficiency has hugely impacted the health of past societies. Its identification in skeletal remains provides insights into the daily activities, cultural habits, and the disease load of past populations. However, up till now, this approach remained impossible in cremated bones, because temperatures reached during cremations destroyed all macroscopic evidence of vitamin D deficiency. This precluded the analyses of a large fraction of the archaeological record, as cremation was an important burial ritual from the Late Neolithic until the Early Medieval period in Europe. Here, the identification of interglobular dentine (IGD), a dental mineralisation defect attributed to vitamin D deficiency, in experimentally burnt teeth, demonstrates this deficiency to be observable in human teeth burned to temperatures as high as 900 °C. In most cases, it becomes even possible to assess the ages-of-occurrence as well as the severity of the IGD and possibly vitamin D deficiency intensity. This study represents a major step forward in the fields of biological anthropology, archaeology, and palaeopathology by opening up a variety of new possibilities for the study of health and activities related to sunlight exposure of numerous past populations that practiced cremation as their funerary ritual.

Who was buried with Nestor's Cup? Macroscopic and microscopic analyses of the cremated remains from Tomb 168 (second half of the 8th century BCE, Pithekoussai, Ischia Island, Italy)

Cremation 168 from the second half of the 8^th century BCE (Pithekoussai’s necropolis, Ischia Island, Italy), better known as the Tomb of Nestor’s Cup, is widely considered as one of the most intriguing discoveries in the Mediterranean Pre-Classic archaeology. A drinking cup, from which the Tomb’s name derives, bears one of the earliest surviving examples of written Greek, representing the oldest Homeric poetry ever recovered. According to previous osteological analyses, the Cup is associated with the cremated remains of a juvenile, aged approximately 10–14 years at death. Since then, a vast body of literature has attempted to explain the unique association between the exceptionality of the grave good complex, the symposiac and erotic evocation of the Nestor’s Cup inscription with the young age of the individual buried with it. This paper reconsiders previous assessments of the remains by combining gross morphology with qualitative histology and histomorphometric analyses of the burnt bone fragments. This work reveals the commingled nature of the bone assemblage, identifying for the first time, more than one human individual mixed with faunal remains. These outcomes dramatically change previous reconstructions of the cremation deposit, rewriting the answer to the question: who was buried with Nestor’s Cup?.

Human mobility in a Bronze Age Vatya 'urnfield' and the life history of a high-status woman

In this study, we present osteological and strontium isotope data of 29 individuals (26 cremations and 3 inhumations) from Szigetszentmiklós-Ürgehegy, one of the largest Middle Bronze Age cemeteries in Hungary. The site is located in the northern part of the Csepel Island (a few kilometres south of Budapest) and was in use between c. 2150 and 1500 BC, a period that saw the rise, the apogee, and, ultimately, the collapse of the Vatya culture in the plains of Central Hungary. The main aim of our study was to identify variation in mobility patterns among individuals of different sex/age/social status and among individuals treated with different burial rites using strontium isotope analysis. Changes in funerary rituals in Hungary have traditionally been associated with the crises of the tell cultures and the introgression of newcomers from the area of the Tumulus Culture in Central Europe around 1500 BC. Our results show only slight discrepancies between inhumations and cremations, as well as differences between adult males and females. The case of the richly furnished grave n. 241 is of particular interest. The urn contains the cremated bones of an adult woman and two 7 to 8-month-old foetuses, as well as remarkably prestigious goods. Using 87Sr/86Sr analysis of different dental and skeletal remains, which form in different life stages, we were able to reconstruct the potential movements of this high-status woman over almost her entire lifetime, from birth to her final days. Our study confirms the informative potential of strontium isotopes analyses performed on different cremated tissues. From a more general, historical perspective, our results reinforce the idea that exogamic practices were common in Bronze Age Central Europe and that kinship ties among high-rank individuals were probably functional in establishing or strengthening interconnections, alliances, and economic partnerships.

Revisiting metric sex estimation of burnt human remains via supervised learning using a reference collection of modern identified cremated individuals (Knoxville, USA)

OBJECTIVES

This study aims to increase the rate of correctly sexed calcined individuals from archaeological and forensic contexts. This is achieved by evaluating sexual dimorphism of commonly used and new skeletal elements via uni- and multi-variate metric trait analyses.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Twenty-two skeletal traits were evaluated in 86 individuals from the William M. Bass donated cremated collection of known sex and age-at-death. Four different predictive models, logistic regression, random forest, neural network, and calculation of population specific cut-off points, were used to determine the classification accuracy (CA) of each feature and several combinations thereof.

RESULTS

An overall CA of ≥ 80% was obtained for 12 out of 22 features (humerus trochlea max., and lunate length, humerus head vertical diameter, humerus head transverse diameter, radius head max., femur head vertical diameter, patella width, patella thickness, and talus trochlea length) using univariate analysis. Multivariate analysis showed an increase of CA (≥ 95%) for certain combinations and models (e.g., humerus trochlea max. and patella thickness). Our study shows metric sexual dimorphism to be well preserved in calcined human remains, despite the changes that occur during burning.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study demonstrated the potential of machine learning approaches, such as neural networks, for multivariate analyses. Using these statistical methods improves the rate of correct sex estimations in calcined human remains and can be applied to highly fragmented unburnt individuals from both archaeological and forensic contexts.

Cut or burnt? - Categorizing morphological characteristics of heat-induced fractures and sharp force trauma

Distinguishing trauma from heat-induced fractures is a challenge faced by forensic anthropologists and pathologists during medicolegal investigations in which fire has been used by the perpetrators to destroy evidence. This paper aims to validate the provided identification features to distinguish between fire induced alterations and sharp force trauma. A total of 80 cremated adult individuals were used in this paper: 3 recently deceased embalmed cadavers from Cementerio Sur de Madrid for the sharp force trauma experiment in which 55 pre-burning injuries were inflicted using a machete and a serrated knife in different anatomical regions. And 77 cremated individuals from the Forensic Anthropology and Odontology Laboratory osteological collection. Five cremated long bones from this collection were selected, and 10 cuts were manually inflicted using a serrated knife to analyse post-burning trauma. Heat-induced changes and trauma morphologic characteristics were thus documented and analysed. The examination and documentation of morphological traits enabled the production of a heat-induced changes visual guide and a flow-chart. Two intraclass correlation tests were performed to validate the capacity of the observer to distinguish between fire related alterations and toolmarks. The results obtained in the statistical analysis indicate that, even if the toolmarks are visible and recognizable upon macroscopic observation by the observers, some features, such as the step and the transverse fractures can be mistaken with inflicted trauma. The use of the proposed features coupled with careful anthropological examination is recommended and has been found functional for participants with no prior knowledge in the analysis of cremated remains.

Estimating age-at-death in burnt adult human remains using the Falys-Prangle method

OBJECTIVES

The Falys-Prangle-method assesses age-related morphological changes to the sternal clavicle end (SCE), enabling the observation of mature adults from the 5th decade onwards in unburnt human skeletal remains. The aim of this study is to investigate the applicability of the Falys-Prangle-method on burnt human remains.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Fifty-two SCE of 40 cremated individuals (out of 86) from the William M. Bass collection of the Forensic Anthropology Center (Knoxville, Tennessee) of known age-at-death and sex are available for assessment. Surface topography, porosity, and osteophyte formation are evaluated, after which the calculated composite score is associated with the corresponding age range as described by Falys and Prangle. The method is also applied on an archaeological case study from Oudenburg, Belgium, dating to the Roman period.

RESULTS

The assessed age ranges strongly agree with the true age ranges (α = 0.828), suggesting the Falys-Prangle-method to be applicable on burnt human remains. The case study from Oudenburg yields markedly improved age-at-death estimates, significantly enhancing our understanding of the age distribution within this community.

DISCUSSION

Information on age-at-death is key in the construction of biological profiles of past individuals. The mature adult is often invisible in the archaeological record since most macroscopic age estimation methods do not distinguish beyond 46+ years old. Our study stresses the usefulness of a large-scale application of the Falys-Prangle-method, which will increase the visibility of mature adults, especially in archaeological burnt human skeletal collections, where such information is, at present, extremely difficult to obtain.

"Sex change" in skeletal remains: Assessing how heat-induced changes interfere with sex estimation

The true impact of heat-induced changes in human bone regarding their sex estimation has not been comprehensively documented having a potentially negative impact on forensic anthropology. The objective of this paper was to evaluate how heat exposure affects sex estimation based on both morphological and metric features. The study focused in both low-to-medium intensity burns and high intensity burns. Selected sexually dimorphic features were analysed in 51 experimentally burnt skeletons from the 21st Century Identified Skeletal Collection. Bones were burnt to maximum temperatures between 450 °C and 1050 °C achieved after 75 to 257 min. Morphological methods tested in this study comprised the recommendations for hipbone features from Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994) and from Bruzek (2002). On the other hand, metric references tested here were the ones from Wasterlain (2000), Curate et al. (2016) and Gonçalves et al. (2013) focused on the humerus, femur, calcaneus and talus. Agreement was tested with Gwet's AC1 test and was further assessed by calculating the relative amount of perfect agreements. Results demonstrated that heat-induced changes affected not only the scoring of morphological features burnt at high temperatures but also the scoring of features burnt at lower intensities. On the other hand, metric features were only considerably affected in high intensity burns, no major changes being documented for low-to-medium intensity burns. For low-to-medium intensity burns, the Bruzek and Curate et al. methods revealed a better agreement between the pre- and post-burning scores. For high intensity burns, better agreement was obtained by using the Bruzek (2002) and Gonçalves et al. (2013) methods. As expected, heat-induced warping, fracture and metric change had a major impact on the pre- and post-observations' agreement. Contrary to what has been systematically assumed over the years, this impact is also quite substantial in bones burnt at low-to-medium burn intensities so caution is advised during the analysis of this kind of burnt skeletal material.

Α Rare Morphological Study Concerning the Longest Bone of the Human Anatomy in the Population of the Northern Greece

Background

The femur is one of the most researched bones in the human anatomy and forensic medicine. As the longest bone in the human body, it is well preserved in skeletal remains. The sex estimation of human remains is one of the most important research steps for physical and forensic anthropologists. However, osteometric standards built on unburned human remains and contemporary cremated series are often inadequate for the analysis, frequently resulting in a significant number of misclassifications.

Methods

In our study, we present the anthropometric data from 500 skeletons in Northern Greece, including 232 males and 198 females, as well as 430 of known age. The diameters of the femur were measured as well as the indices of robustness. For the statistical interpretation of the results, we have used the discriminant analysis.

Results

From the interpretation of the data, we concluded that all the mean values, diameters and indices of the males were greater compared with those of the females. Also, we concluded that the probability of error is quite high in all cases except the vertical diameter of femur's head, which has an acceptable percentage of error of 14.39% and can be used as a safe criterion for sex identification.

Conclusion

With the aid of statistics, we came to the conclusion that the vertical diameter of the femur's head is a safe variable for sex estimation in skeletal remains.