Bioarchaeology: what can the bones tell about?

Historical anthropology focuses on identifying the biological origins, tracking the persistence of their genetic line in later historical periods, learning about the diseases they suffered from, and reconstructing their lifestyle. The first step is determining the sex and age at death of the individuals based on the morphological characteristics, size, and stage of development of their bones. These basic data are key in estimating the demographic characteristics of a population and telling the sex and age at death distribution within the mortuary community of a cemetery or a population and that if the men:women proportion is balanced or not. These indicators may also inform us on life expectancy in a community, while comparing the obtained demographic data with ones published earlier allows one to evaluate their dataset in the context of similar ones from the same period and region and estimate the general health of the studied people.
Besides data on sex and biological age at death, the skeletal remains bear a plethora of information on the hardships of life one had to endure. The complex analysis of the muscle attachment sites and the pathologic lesions observed on the bones and joints allows one to assess the physical condition and health of the studied person or group and detect certain diseases they suffered from. The results – related, for example, to the development of medicine or the appearance of some contagious diseases in human communities – are important not only for historical anthropology but also for archaeology and medical science.