Cancer is currently the second most common cause of death in the U.S. with over 600,000 people expected to die from cancer this year alone. The diagnosis of cancer steadily increased through most of the 20th century due to a rise in tobacco usage, causing a relatively recent growth in cancer research. In the past several decades, treatments for cancer have been rapidly changing and advancing, and it is vital to understand how these medications affect the human skeleton. Presently, little research has been conducted on how medications alter the human skeleton and impact the biological profile. One of the primary side effects of drug and radiation-based treatments for a neoplasm is cancer treatment-induced bone loss (CTIBL), which may impact the expression of sexual dimorphism in morphological traits. It is hypothesized that CTIBL would decrease the robusticity of sexually dimorphic nonmetric traits and skew the ordinal scores towards gracile. A total of 178 individuals with documented cancer and/or treatment and 178 individuals without documented cancer from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, were assessed following conventional sex assessment standards for the skull and os coxa. These methods presented by Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994), Klales et al. (2012), and Walker (2005) were applied to the os coxa and Walker’s (2008) method for the skull. The individuals ranged in age from 26 to 97 years and included 350 European Americans, two African Americans, one Asian/Polynesian, and three Native Americans. The control group was designed to parallel the experimental group by demographic information including sex, ancestry, and age-at-death. The experimental group was also subdivided into two groups that included individuals that underwent chemotherapy and/or radiation (drug subgroup) and individuals who only underwent surgery as a form of treatment (surgery subgroup). Thirty-six randomly selected individuals were also rescored to test for intraobserver agreement. IBM’s Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to calculate Chi-Square, ANOVA, ANCOVA, and Cohen’s Kappa analyses. The Chi-Square and ANOVA analyses were used to determine if there was any statistically significant relationship between cancer treatment status and the scores of the morphological traits. The results indicated no significant relationship between cancer treatment status and the trait scores (p > 0.05) for all analyses except for the Chi-square analysis of the glabella for females in the pooled sample (p=0.047) and the ANOVA analysis of the ventral arc in the surgery group when sex was not considered (p=0.010). It is possible that these traits are affected by cancer treatment status. However, it is more likely that these results were due to natural variation between the control and experimental groups. Intraobserver agreement was calculated using Cohen’s Kappa analysis. Intraobserver agreement ranged from fair to substantial with most traits indicating moderate intraobserver agreement. Some possible confounders of the study include the unknown duration of cancer treatments, the use of a history of cancer as a proxy for cancer treatment, not knowing when the individual underwent cancer treatment before death, and the assumption that the individuals included in the sample were accurately documented. Cancer Treatment-Induced Bone Loss may only affect bone mineral density as opposed to the expression of sexually dimorphic traits as many of these visually assessed traits are sites of muscle attachments. Though CTIBL does not appear to affect morphological sex assessment, further research should be conducted on the possible effects of CTIBL for other components of the biological profile.

No

This project analyzes the sexual dimorphism of the femur and tibia using geometric morphometrics. The study sample includes 250 individuals of known sex and age at death with complete, non-damaged, non-pathological skeletal remains from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Ages range from 19-96 for males (mean=56.92 years) and 29-97 for females (mean=59.48 years). A combination of landmarks and semi-landmarks were collected on the proximal and distal epiphyses of each bone using a Microscribe, which helps capture the overall size and shape variation present in the sample. Only individuals from one population, White, where analyzed in order to eliminate population variation bias. Classification rates for males and females for the proximal femur were 80.8% and 78.4% respectively, for the distal femur 92.6% and 89.6% respectively, for the proximal tibia 80.8% and 83.2% respectively, and the distal tibia 81.6% and 80.8% respectively, all with a p<0.0001. These rates created a classification model for which epiphysis gave the most accurate assessment of sex: the distal femur, followed by the proximal tibia, then the distal tibia, and lastly the proximal femur. This study indicates the knee joint is the most dimorphic, followed by the ankle and then the hip. The results fall in line with another study indicating the knee is more sexually dimorphic in a modern White population (Spradley and Jantz 2011), though in contrast to their results this study found the distal femur was more dimorphic than the proximal tibia. This method indicates that in comparison to standard measurements, geometric morphometrics may provide a more reliable method for sex estimation when used, specifically on the knee. Certain landmarks were then selected based on the standard taphonomic process of coffin wear and postmortem damage (Pokines and Baker 2014) for exclusion to determine the usability of the method on fragmented or damaged skeletal remains. When combinations of landmarks were removed, the distal femur still possessed the highest classification rates with over 80% accuracy.

Yes / The skeletal remains of infants and children are a poignant reminder of the perilous nature of childhood in the past, yet they offer valuable insight into the life histories of individuals and into the health of populations. Many osteoarchaeological and bioarchaeological analyses are dependent on two vital pieces of information: the age-at-death and sex of the individual(s) under study. This chapter will outline how age-at-death and sex can be estimated from the skeletal remains and dental development of non-adults, and how these are easier or more difficult to determine than for adults, and will discuss the complexities and controversies surrounding different methods.

This thesis presents an osteoarchaeological analysis of juvenile mortality profiles questioning the speculations made by some archaeologists that the under-representation of infants from Anglo-Saxon and medieval burial populations could be due to the practice of infanticide in England during these periods. Morphological and metrical age estimation and sex assessment methods are used to determine the age-at-death and sex of 1275 children from fifty-three Anglo-Saxon and medieval sites located in southern England. The age and sex distribution of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval children under six-years-old are then compared with age-specific United Nations demographic statistics see to whether or not a normative mortality profile is presented by the archaeological populations. This study identified an abnormal age-at-death distribution for the early Anglo-Saxon perinatal individuals. Excess female mortality was observed for the perinatal individuals from all three periods; early Anglo-Saxon, late Anglo-Saxon and medieval, and for the neonatal and infant individuals from the early Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods. The results of this osteoarchaeological analysis are discussed in conjunction with a review of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval documentary evidence which examines the possible social and economic motives for infanticide. Whilst this analysis of the historical sources revealed laws and penitentiary warnings against the neglect and deliberate murder of infants, the late Anglo-Saxon and medieval documents provided little evidence to suggest the social devaluation of women that would support a hypothesis of preferential female infanticide. There are few surviving early Anglo-Saxon documents however, so the significance of the abnormal mortality profiles from this period is considered.

Depuis les années soixante-dix, l’outil isotopique, d’abord développé en géochimie, s’est généralisé en anthropologie. Il est en effet susceptible d’apporter des informations métaboliques complémentaires à l’étude ostéologique, notamment sur la mobilité et l’alimentation des populations passées. Cependant, sur la trentaine d’éléments présente dans le corps humain, seuls six d’entre eux sont classiquement étudiés dans les ossements. Dès lors, les isotopes stables d’autres éléments représentent une source d’informations inexploitée. Ils pourraient effectivement contribuer aux questions cruciales que sont la diagnose sexuelle, l’estimation de la fécondité ou encore l’évaluation de l’âge au décès.Le but de ce travail de thèse est de comprendre l’origine de la variabilité isotopique du cuivre, du zinc et du fer dans le corps humain, et ainsi, d’évaluer l’apport potentiel de ces métaux de transition à l’anthropologie. Pour cela, les éléments ont été séparés par chromatographie sur résine échangeuse d’ions. Puis les rapports isotopiques ont été mesurés par spectrométrie de masse à source plasma et à multicollection (MC-ICP-MS).L’analyse du δ56Fe et δ65Cu de phalanges de squelettes du XVII-XVIIIèmes siècles provenant de Saint-Laurent de Grenoble a permis de mettre en évidence une différence isotopique entre hommes et femmes, reflet de celle observée dans le sang. Cette dissemblance isotopique est discutée à partir d’un modèle mathématique s’appuyant sur nos analyses du foie et de l’émail dentaire. Celui-ci nous a amenés à mettre en cause le rôle de la sollicitation hépatique dans la composition isotopique du sang plutôt que celui de l’absorption intestinale. L’étude du δ56Fe, δ65Cu et δ66Zn dans le sang d’une population française et d’une population yakoute a également contribué à dégager trois autres facteurs significatifs de variabilité isotopique : la ménopause, l’âge et le stress thermique.Nos résultats sont donc en faveur du développement de l’analyse des isotopes stables du Fe, Cu et Zn des restes humains en tant que vecteur potentiel d’informations sur leur âge au décès, âge à la ménopause, sexe et adaptation métabolique au froid. / First developed in geochemistry, isotopic analyses have progressively become a classical tool in anthropology since the seventies. They provide supplementary metabolic information to osteology, such as mobility or diet of past populations. However, isotopic studies only concern six elements among the thirty of the human body. Therefore, other elements could supply information on sex, age-at-death or fecundity, which still are crucial issues in anthropology.The aim of this thesis is to understand the origin of copper, iron and zinc isotopic variability in the human body, and to assess the contribution of these elements for anthropology. In order to do this, metals were purified from sample matrix by liquid chromatography on ion exchange resin and the isotope compositions were measured by multiple-collector inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS). δ56Fe and δ65Cu analyses performed on phalanx of skeletons coming from a french cementery (Saint-Laurent de Grenoble) revealed an isotopic sex difference which mirrors the one found in blood. Concerning its origin, calculations and data obtained on dental enamel support the hypothesis that the isotopic sex difference is due to a higher metal hepatic solicitation for women rather than differential intestinal absorption between men and women. Blood isotopic data from French and Yakut population also highlighted three other significant factors of variability: menopause, age, and cold stress. Our results argue for the development of Fe, Cu, and Zn stable isotope analyses in human remains as a potential vehicle for information on age-at-death, age at menopause, sex and metabolic adaptation to cold stress of past populations.

This thesis presents an osteoarchaeological analysis of juvenile mortality profiles questioning the speculations made by some archaeologists that the under-representation of infants from Anglo-Saxon and medieval burial populations could be due to the practice of infanticide in England during these periods. Morphological and metrical age estimation and sex assessment methods are used to determine the age-at-death and sex of 1275 children from fifty-three Anglo-Saxon and medieval sites located in southern England. The age and sex distribution of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval children under six-years-old are then compared with age-specific United Nations demographic statistics see to whether or not a normative mortality profile is presented by the archaeological populations. This study identified an abnormal age-at-death distribution for the early Anglo-Saxon perinatal individuals. Excess female mortality was observed for the perinatal individuals from all three periods; early Anglo-Saxon, late Anglo-Saxon and medieval, and for the neonatal and infant individuals from the early Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods. The results of this osteoarchaeological analysis are discussed in conjunction with a review of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval documentary evidence which examines the possible social and economic motives for infanticide. Whilst this analysis of the historical sources revealed laws and penitentiary warnings against the neglect and deliberate murder of infants, the late Anglo-Saxon and medieval documents provided little evidence to suggest the social devaluation of women that would support a hypothesis of preferential female infanticide. There are few surviving early Anglo-Saxon documents however, so the significance of the abnormal mortality profiles from this period is considered. / Arts and Humanities Research Council

The aim of this work is sexual dimorphism quantification of greater sciatic notch profile using 2D geometric morphometrics methods. The curvature was digitized by two different methods - manually with contact digitizer MicroScribe G2 and automatically with software Morphome3cs. Results from each method were comparised and advatages and disadvantages of boths methods were discussed. Target sample of 114 adult specimens of known sex was analyzed. This collection comes from Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque and contains 57 male and 57 female hip bones. For the method verification the test smaple contains 112 adult specimens of known sex was used. This collection comes from Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México (UNAM). This collection contains 56 male and 56 female hip bones. The procrustes analysis, principal components analysis, thin plate spine and discriminant function analysis were used for analysis. We could make a detail description of morphologic differences in greater sciatic notch shape of men and women because of shape visualisation and difference of both group was confirmed by discriminant function analysis. Sex assesment achieves accuracy 92,11% - 98,25% in dependence on used methods and number of semilandmarks.

The study is primarily focused on testing of the method which assesses sex from pubis. This method was originally proposed by Phenice (1969). Klales et al. (2012) modified this method in their study. They suggested to improve of the Phenice (1969) technique by extending the evaluation scale of three morphological traits from two values - present / absent to five development stage. Our study assumes that the success of Phenice (1969) method is related to the degree of sexual dimorphism of evaluated population. So the extension of evaluation scale will not lead to increased accuracy and will occur to decrease relibility of the method also. Intraobserver error was evaluated for Phenice (1969) a Klales et al. (2012) methods on the sample of isolated pelvic bones from Department of anthropology and human genetics of Charles university in Praque in first time. After we evaluated the whole sample, which consist of 200 three-dimensional models of pelvic bones. These models were segmented from CT images of adult individuals from contemporary French population. This sample was statistically evaluated by Cohen kappa, accuracy, senzitivity and specificity using confusion matrix and relationship between specificita and senzitivity was tested by ROC curves and area under curve (AUC). Results show that Phenice...