This study compares the morbidity and mortality of non-adults in urban and rural cemeteries between AD 850-1859 It was hypothesised that the development of urbanisation and industrialisation with subsequenot overcrowding and environmental pollution, would result in a decline in human health in the urban groups. This would be evident in lower mean ages at death, retarded growth and higher rates of childhood stress and chronic infection in the children living in the urbanised environments. Non-adult skeletons were examined from Raunds Furnells in Northamptonshire (Anglo- Saxon), St. Helen-on-the-Walls in York (later medieval, urban), Wharrarn Percy in Yorkshire (later medieval, rural) and from the crypt of Christ Church Spitalfields, in London (AD 1729-1859). The results showed that it was industrialisation, rather than urbanisation that was most detrimental to child health. Weaning ages declined from two years in the Anglo-Saxon period to one year in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Industrialisation was characterised by a lower mean age at death, growth retardation and an increase in the prevalence of rickets and scurvy. Although higher rates of dental disease and matemal stress were apparent in the urbanised samples, respiratory diseases were more common in the rural areas. Growth profiles suggested that environmental factors were similar in the urban and rural communities in the later medieval period. However, there was evidence that employment had a detrimental effect on the health of later medieval apprentices. This study demonstrates the importance of non-adult remains in addressing issues of health and adaptation in the past and, the validity of using skeletal material to measure environmental stress. / University of Bradford Studentship

no / No abstract

The study of human palaeopathology has developed considerably in the last three decades resulting in a structured and standardised framework of practice, based upon skeletal lesion patterning and differential diagnosis. By comparison, disarticulated zooarchaeological assemblages have precluded the observation of lesion distributions, resulting in a dearth of information regarding differential diagnosis and a lack of standard palaeopathological recording methods. Therefore, zoopalaeopathology has been restricted to the analysis of localised pathologies and ‘interesting specimens’. Under present circumstances, researchers can draw little confidence that the routine recording of palaeopathological lesions, their description or differential diagnosis will ever form a standard part of zooarchaeological analysis. This has impeded the understanding of animal disease in past society and, in particular, has restricted the study of systemic disease. This research tackles this by combining the disciplines of human palaeopathology and zoopalaeopathology and focusing on zoonotic disease. The primary aim of this research was to investigate the skeletal manifestation of bTB in cattle, sheep/goat and pig to establish differential diagnostic criteria for its identification in zooarchaeological assemblages. Methods commonplace in human palaeopathology were adapted and applied to zoopalaeopathology, in addition to radiography and aDNA analysis. The results emphasise the difficulties but also the potential associated with the identification of systemic diseases in zooarchaeological assemblages. An approach to the classification of potentially infectious lesions is presented that enables the calculation of crude prevalence in disarticulated assemblages. In addition, the potential for a DNA analysis to shed further light on animal disease in the past is emphasised. / Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) / Many of the images have been removed from the online version due to copyright restrictions. The embargo period for the thesis ended: 16th January 2018.

There is an ongoing debate concerning the nature of warfare and violence in the Iron Age of Britain. Interpretations regarding material remains from this period fluctuate between classifying instruments of violence (i.e. swords, spears, hillforts) as functional tools of war and as ritual symbolic devices. Human skeletal remains provide the most unequivocal evidence for violent encounters, but were often missing from these debates in the past. This thesis addresses this lack of treatment by analyzing the patterns of traumatic injuries at sites from two distinct regions in Iron Age Britain (East Yorkshire and Hampshire). The human remains from these sites show clear markers of interpersonal violence. When the remains are placed in context with the mortuary treatment, it is evident that violence and ritual were inextricably linked. In East Yorkshire, combat may have been ritualized through duelling and competition performance. In Hampshire, individuals with perimortem injures are often found in special deposits such as pits, ditches and domestic areas, suggesting their use in ritual processes that distinguish them from the general population. This provides a basis for understanding warfare and violence during the Iron Age of Britain and how communities negotiated the social tensions caused by violent interactions. / Note: Content of Appendix 2 is not available.

Identification of human or nonhuman skeletal remains is important in assisting the police and law enforcement officers for the investigation of forensic cases. Identification of bone can be difficult, especially in fragmented remains. It has been reported that 25 to 30% of medicolegal cases, which involved nonhuman skeletal remains have been mistaken for human. In such cases, histomorphometric method was used to identify human and nonhuman skeletal remains. However, literature has shown that histomorphometric data for human and nonhuman bone were insufficient. Additionally, age estimation in bone may help in the identification of human individual, which can be done by using a histomorphometric method. Age estimation is based on bone remodeling process, where microstructural parameters have strong correlations with age. Literature showed that age estimation has been done on the American and European populations. However, little work has been done in the Asian population. The aims of this project were thus, to identify human and nonhuman bone, and to estimate age in human bones by using histomorphometric analysis. In this project, 64 human bones and 65 animal bones were collected from the mortuary of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre and the Zoos in Malaysia, respectively. A standard bone preparation was used to prepare human and nonhuman bone thin sections for histomorphometric assessment. Assessments were made on the microstructural parameters such as cortical thickness, medullary cavity diameter, osteon count, osteon diameter, osteon area, osteon perimeter, Haversian canal diameter, Haversian canal area, Haversian canal perimeter, and Haversian lamella count per osteon by using image analysis, and viewed under a transmitted light microscope. The microstructural measurements showed significant differences between human and nonhuman samples. The discriminant functions showed correct classification rates for 81.4% of cases, and the accuracy of identification was 96.9% for human and 66.2% for animal. Human age estimation showed a standard error of estimate of 10.41 years, comparable with those in the literature. This study project offers distinct advantages over currently available histomorphometric methods for human and nonhuman identification and human age estimation. This will have significant implications in the assessment of fragmentary skeletal and forensic population samples for identification purposes.

Humans, like all animal species, are subject to Bergmann's (1847) and Allen's (1877) environmental rules which summarize physical adaptations to the natural environment. However, humans are in addition cultural animals and other bio-cultural factors such as social, economic and political status, general health, and nutrition, have a noticeable influence on stature and body proportions. Importantly, socio-economic status has a powerful influence on stature, which has been used to elucidate status differences in past societies (Bogin and Loucky, 1997; Floud et al., 1990; Schutkowski, 2000a). Furthermore, bio-cultural factors influence all dimensions of the human body, including weight, relative limb length, and relative length of the different limb segments. Given minimal migration and shared natural environments, all populations in this study, coming as they do from the last 2000 years of English history, should demonstrate similar morphology (c. f Ruff, 1994) if climatic variables were the only influence on stature and body proportions. In order to assess such bio-cultural factors in individuals from archaeological populations, skeletal populations from sites such as known leprosaria and medieval hospitals, rural and urban parish cemeteries, victims from the battle of Towton in A. D. 1461, and individuals from monastic cemeteries were analysed. The osteometric data from these populations were assessedfo r within and between population variability and indicate effects of bio-cultural factors on attained body proportions and stature. The results indicate a strong relationship between bio-cultural factors and body proportions, body mass index, prevalence of pathologies, sexual dimorphism, secular trend, and general stature from Roman times to the post-medieval period. The usefulness of stature, weight, and physical indices as markers of the bio-cultural environment is demonstrated. The main findings include: a greater sensitivity to external stressors in the males rather than the females of the analysed populations, rendering male statures more susceptible to varying bio-cultural conditions; a potential for very tall stature has existed in the analysed populations but was only realised. in very high status individuals in medieval times, and from the beginning 20'h century with better socio-economic conditions for the population at large; a less stratified socio-political environment, as in the late Anglo-Saxon period resulted in taller average male statures that a more stratified one, such as the medieval Nation-States; and medieval monastic institutions could have high status, e.g., the Gilbertines, or lower status, such as the mendicant orders, while leprosaria had the lowest status of all.

The mitochondrion is a tiny organelle that is the power supplier of the cell and vital to the functioning of the body organs. Additionally it contains a small circular genome of about 16 kb, present in many copies which makes the mitochondrial DNA more viable than nuclear DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is also maternally inherited and thus provides a direct link to maternal relatives. These two properties are of particular use for forensic samples, which only contain limited or degraded amounts of DNA, and for historical samples (ancient DNA). This thesis presents work on the mitochondrial DNA in the hypervariable regions (HV) I and II, in both contemporary and historical samples. Forensic genetics makes use of mitochondrial DNA analysis in court as circumstantial evidence, and population databases are used for the calculation of evidence value. Population samples (299) across Sweden have been analysed in order to enrich the EDNAP mtDNA database (EMPOP) (paper I). The application of mitochondrial DNA analysis allowed for analysis of historical skeletal remains: Copernicus, 1473-1543 (paper II), Karin Göring, 1888-1931 (paper III) and Medieval bones, 880-1000 AD, from a mass grave found in Sigtuna, Sweden (paper IV). The thesis also includes analyses of bones and teeth from the shipwrecked crew of the Vasa warship, 1628, samples from the Vasa museum, Stockholm, Sweden (paper V). Overall, the varying age of the samples and the different conservation environments (soil and water) accounted for variations in quality, but still allowed for successful DNA analysis.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the function of waste objects in the archeological record from the archeo-zoological point of view. The research part focuses on general information concerning hygiene and waste disposal in medieval and early modern cities. It also addresses the methods of waste objects research and the occurrence of animals in cities. The practical part summarizes the analysis results of the archeo-zoological assemblage from the town hall in České Budějovice which dates back to the High Middle Ages and the early modern period.

In this thesis human skeletal remains believed to be the victims of the Batavia Mutiny of 1629 were subjected to DNA analysis. So far the remains of 10 individuals (of which 9 were available for this study) have been exhumed from Beacon Island, in the Houtman’s Abrolhos, off the coast of Western Australia. The remains are now stored in the Western Australia Maritime Museum (WAMM) in Fremantle. In this research an attempt is made to type ancient DNA (aDNA) from the remains of the Batavia Mutiny, which are almost 400 years old. Previous anthropological studies have been performed on these remains in order to assign sex, age and stature. The aim of the present project is to study the familial relationships of the remains and to determine their sex based on molecular genetic analysis. In order to protect the invaluable museum specimens and minimise the risk of contamination from exogenous contemporary DNA, a tooth sample from each available individual (designated A15507, A16316, A15831, M3901, SK5, SK6, SK7, SK8 and SK9) was subjected to DNA extraction. Comparison and optimisation of DNA extraction methods from more recent teeth samples was performed in order to determine the most suitable method for the DNA extraction of the ancient teeth samples. Three types of genetic markers were analysed in an attempt to study the familial relationships and determine the sex of each individual. Multiplex primers (Hummel, 2003) which simultaneously amplify the HV1 and HV2 regions of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) were used in this research to analyse familial relationships. These primers were selected because of their ability to amplify small fragments (131bp, 168bp and 217bp) of DNA template, which suit the nature of aDNA samples. Primers published by Sullivan et al.(1993), which amplify a 106bp region on chromosome X and 112bp on chromosome Y of the amelogenin gene, were used to determine sex. In addition, short tandem repeat (STR) marker were also analysed to determine familial and sex using the AmpFlSTR®Profiler PlusTMPCR kit from Applied Biosystems. The PCR conditions of all primers were optimised before usage on the Batavia remains. As aDNA analysis is prone to contamination, stringent precautions were undertaken throughout this research. Despite this, contamination is suspected in some of the mtDNA sequences obtained (particularly from SK5, SK7, A15507 and A15831), which most probably came from the positive control used in the optimisation analysis. For these samples the sequences for the HV2 region were poor and polymorphisms relative to a reference were similar to each other and to the positive control profile. However, some conclusions have been made on other individuals (SK8, SK9, M3901, A16316) based on the HV1 and HV2 sequences obtained. Based on two or more different polymorphisms observed in the individuals it was concluded that it is likely there is no maternal relationship between individuals A16316 and SK8, SK9 and M3901 and between individuals SK8, M3901 and SK9. However these results require repetition for confirmation. The attempt to type the amelogenin gene on chromosomes X and Y was unsuccessful most likely due to the poor preservation of the remains. It is apparent from this research that although it was possible to extract aDNA (especially multicopy mtDNA) from teeth material that were almost 400 years old, the main hurdle in this aDNA analysis was contamination and DNA degradation.

<p><em> </em></p><p>Excavations of human skeletal remains are sometimes followed by claims for reburial from the local community. This has led to debates between researchers and other elements of society, churches or minorities. This scientific paper sat out to examine the discussions and debates found in Sweden (Scandinavia), with the situation in Vanuatu, (Melanesia). The objective was to elucidate similarities and differences in people’s attitude when it comes to reburial. Religious beliefs, legislations and policies were compared to provide explanations for the different attitudes in the two countries. The study showed that the debates found in the Swedish material such as conflicts between researchers and the church or between the Saami population and Swedish researchers, haven’t got a counterpart in Vanuatu. This was much due to the research policies in Vanuatu and the strong Christian faith.</p> / <p><em> </em></p><p>Fynd av mänskliga kvarlevor i samband med utgrävningar följs ibland av krav på återbegravning från det lokala samhället. Detta har lett till debatter mellan forskare och andra delar av samhället, kyrkan eller minoriteter. Denna C-uppsats har försökt undersöka diskussionerna och debatterna som framkommit i Sverige (Skandinavien) och Vanuatu (Melanesien). Målet var att belysa likheter och skillnader hos människors inställning när det kommer till återbegravning. Religion, lagstiftning och policys jämfördes för att förklara de olika inställningarna i de två länderna. Studien visade att debatterna mellan kyrkan och forskarna eller den Samiska befolkningen och forskarna inte hade en motsvarighet i Vanuatu. Detta var mycket tack vare Vanuatus forskningspolicy och den starka kristna tron i landet.</p>