Linda Fibiger

Recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in the application of archaeological knowledge and methodology to medico-legal issues. Forensic Archaeology has rapidly emerged as a vital speciality. This new four-volume collection from Routledge, assembled and introduced by a transatlantic editorial team, brings together foundational and cutting-edge major works to enable users to make sense of a vast—and rapidly growing—corpus of scholarship.

"Methodologies and legislative frameworks regarding the archaeological excavation, retrieval, analysis, curation and potential reburial of human skeletal remains differ throughout the world. As work forces have become increasingly mobile and international research collaborations are steadily increasing, the need for a more comprehensive understanding of different national research traditions, methodologies and legislative structures within the academic and commercial sector of physical anthropology has arisen. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeological Human Remains and Legislation provides comprehensive information on the excavation of archaeological human remains and the law through 62 individual country contributions from Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America and Australasia.

More specifically, the volume discusses the following:


What is the current situation (including a brief history) of physical anthropology in the country?

What happens on discovering human remains (who is notified, etc.)?

What is the current legislation regarding the excavation of archaeological human skeletal remains? Is a license needed to excavate human remains? Is there any specific legislation regarding excavation in churchyards? Any specific legislation regarding war graves?

Are physical anthropologists involved in the excavation process?

Where is the cut-off point between forensic and archaeological human remains (e.g. 100 years, 50 years, 25 years…)?

Can human remains be transported abroad for research purposes?

What methods of anthropological analysis are mostly used in the country? Are there any methods created in that country which are population-specific?

Are their particular ethical issues that need to be considered when excavating human remains, such as religious groups or tribal groups?
In addition, an overview of landmark anthropological studies and important collections are provided where appropriate.

The entries are contained by an introductory chapter by the editors which establish the objectives and structure of the book, setting it within a wider archaeological framework, and a conclusion which explores the current European and world-wide trends and perspectives in the study of archaeological human remains. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeological Human Remains and Legislation makes a timely, much-needed contribution to the field of physical anthropology and is unique as it combines information on the excavation of human remains and the legislation that guides it, alongside information on the current state of physical anthropology across several continents. It is an indispensible tool for archaeologists involved in the excavation of human remains around the world."

Steven Pinker’s thesis on the decline of violence since prehistory has resulted in many popular and scholarly debates on the topic that have ranged—at times even raged— across the disciplinary spectrum of evolution, psychology, philosophy, biology, history, and beyond. Those disciplines that made the most substantial contribution to the empirical data underpinning Pinker’s notion of a more violent prehistoric past, namely, archaeology and bioarchaeology/physical anthropology, have not featured as prominently in these discussions as may be expected. This article will focus on some of the issues resulting from Pinker’s oversimplifi ed cross-disciplinary use of bioarchaeological data sets in support of his linear model of the past, a model that, incidentally, has yet to be incorporated into current accounts of violent practices in prehistory.

The nineteenth century in Ireland is well documented, and much information is available to researchers writing about life in the workhouse and other institutions in this period. Nevertheless, although many eyewitness accounts of Irish life survive, as well as ... Despite a considerable ...

ABSTRACT This paper presents an overview of the results of two brief excavation seasons (2008 and 2010) at Foxhole Cave, Gower, south Wales, placing them into the wider context of mid-Holocene Britain. No prehistoric pottery was found and the few pieces of worked flint recovered are diagnostic of the Mesolithic period. Typically for the Carboniferous limestone caves of Gower, bone was well preserved, however, and though much of the material in the heavily disturbed upper metre or so of the deposits was modern sheep and rabbit, scattered fragments representing the remains of at least six humans were also recovered, of which two have been directly radiocarbon-dated using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS 14C) to the Late Mesolithic and two to the earlier Neolithic (the remaining two providing Romano-British and medieval dates). Their associated stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values indicate a significant difference in diet between the two periods (contrary to the results from an earlier excavation in 1997), with marine foods contributing around half of the protein for the Mesolithic individuals and little or none for the Neolithic individuals. The new results are consistent with those from Caldey Island, Pembrokeshire, some 30km to the west. The floor of the cave has still not been reached at around 2m depth; limited investigation of the lowermost levels has yielded a Pleistocene fauna (including reindeer, aurochs or bison and collared lemming) with dates back to approx 33,500 cal BC, though with no definite evidence for human activity so far. A small, dark-stained fragment of human cranium was recovered from what may be pre-Holocene levels, but this failed to produce sufficient collagen for dating. In addition to a marked dietary shift, the combined stable isotope and dating programme provides further support for an equally striking temporal gap of some two millennia between the Mesolithic and Neolithic use of caves for burial.

In the Anthropologie journal in 2008 (46, 2–3), Marek Zvelebil and an international team of experts presented the results from the Vedrovice bioarchaeology project, which detailed the life-histories of individuals buried at the early LBK cemetery. In combining a range of different bioarchaeological methodologies, this project was able to show that the community buried at Vedrovice was formed of a diverse and heterogenous population, leading lives influenced to different degrees by the transition to farming. Drawing on a similar approach – that of using bioarchaeological evidence fully integrated in its archaeological context – a project called The first farmers of central Europe: diversity in LBK lifeways was begun in 2008 and ran for four years. Sampling sites across the southern distribution of the LBK for isotopic analysis (carbon, nitrogen, and strontium isotopes primarily) and including osteological study, this project concentrated on issues of regional and site-based diversity in diet, mobility and burial. In this paper, we present a comparison of the Moravian and western Slovakian results from this project, including new data from the cemetery and settlement burials at Vedrovice, as well as from the Nitra cemetery and the settlements of Těšetice-Kyjovice and Brno-Starý Lískovec/Nový Lískovec. Like Zvelebil et al. (2008), we find
communities formed of heterogenous identities, though we suggest that such diversity was also found alongside evidence for shared practice at different scales of human life.

In this paper, osteological and archaeological data are brought together to further our understanding of
childhood in the early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik culture (LBK; c. 5500–5000 cal BC). In many
characterizations of LBK society, fixed representations of sex or identities based on subsistence strategies
pervade, with children rarely considered and then only as a specialized and separate topic of study. As a
challenge to this view, a summary of the current models of childhood in the LBK culture is presented
and debated with reference to the burial rites of children. A period of ‘middle’ childhood is proposed for
the LBK culture. The osteological evidence suggests that childhood could be a time of dietary stress,
perhaps with sex-based differences from childhood, and examples of the diseases and traumas suffered are
discussed. Finally, the possibility that the children were actively contributing to acts of personal violence
is raised. While the recognition of identity making as a continuous process remains a powerful exploratory
route to investigating prehistoric societies, we argue that this should not discourage us from seeing
identity as formed over the entire lifecourse.

Ohne Zweifel gehörten Gewalt und Konflikte zum neolithischen Alltag. Verletzungsspuren an menschlichen Skeletten belegen, dassauch Frauen und Kinder nicht von Gewaltakten verschont blieben. Waren diese Toten einfach nur wehrlose Opfer
oder gibt es Indizien dafür, dass Kampfhandlungen nicht ausschließlich von erwachsenen Männern ausgeführt wurden? Eine anthropologische Studie zu gewaltsamen Schädelverletzungen gewährt Einblicke in Verhaltensmuster und Tathergänge im neolithischen Nordwesteuropa.

Cranial remains of 186 individuals belonging to the Late Neolithic
Wartberg Culture of central Germany were examined for evidence of trauma that could indicate interpersonal violence. The remains came from three collective burials in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hessen, excavated between 1934 and 1993. A total of 13 individuals (7%) presented with evidence for healed trauma whereas unhealed cranial injuries were noted on eight individuals (4.3%). Interpersonal violence appears to have been endemic and to have affected all sections of society.

A total of 49 articulated skeletons and a small quantity of
disarticulated human bone were excavated at Ratoath, Co.
Meath, and radiocarbon-dated to between the fifth and ninth
centuries AD.1 This firmly places the community they
represent in the early medieval period. The assemblage,
although relatively small and only representing an unspecified
proportion of the total number of burials, provided the
opportunity for a population-based analysis of an early
historic population and the creation of a body of primary
data available for continuing research and comparison with
current and future cemetery excavations, such as those
discussed in the current volume.
All individuals appear to have been interred in simple
earth-cut graves, and orientation varied from east–west and
south-west–north-east to north–south. Radiocarbon dates
of AD 410–880 obtained from seven of the 49 burials
indicate that the main phase of funerary activity was limited to a period of approximately 500 years. As no evidence for
a church was revealed during the partial excavation of the
enclosure, the burial ground is presently interpreted as a
community graveyard (Wallace, this volume). The
osteological analysis revealed the presence of a population
group that included a relatively equal proportion of adult
males and females, and over 32% of the burials were of
juveniles and infants.2 All major types of pathology were
recorded, including dental disease, degenerative joint
disease, circulatory disorders, trauma, metabolic disease and
congenital anomalies.

Methodologies and legislative frameworks regarding the excavation, retrieval, analysis, curation and potential reburial of human skeletal remains different throughout Europe. As work forces within Europe and beyond have become increasingly mobile and international research collaborations are steadily
increasing, the need for a more comprehensive understanding of different national research traditions, methodologies and legislative structures within the academic and commercial sector of physical anthropology has arisen. Establishing how human osteoarchaeology is practiced and dealt with
throughout Europe and beyond will promote sharing knowledge between countries and form the basis for pan-European exchanges and discussions on the best practice. The current paper focuses on an ongoing project entitled ‘Physical Anthropology and Legislation: European Perspectives and Beyond’ and provides insight into some of the results obtained so far.

Two excavations carried out in 200I and 2002 by Tom Rogers and Declan Moore of Moore Group provide a window into institutional burial practice in nineteenth-century Ireland. In Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim, 73 individuals were excavated from the former workhouse cemetery, and at St Brigid's Hospital, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway, twelve individuals were removed from part of the grounds of the former Connaught Asylum. Although no specific dates of burial could be ascertained, historical records and some small finds suggest that the excavated graves in both cases were from the mid- to late nineteenth century. Analysis of these remains provides an interesting opportunity to compare historical accounts with archaeological and osteological data.

"As an activity-related pathological lesion, spondylolysis and its prevalence rates are indicative of relative diachronic activity levels in different populations. In this paper we document the prevalence of spondylolytic defects in a series of time-successive populations with special reference to the recording methods employed, and compare the findings with modern clinical studies. We identify epidemiological trends in expression of the condition through 1500 years in a series of skeletonised human remains from England. This includes a 5th–6th-century settlement, a 15th-century mass grave, a 14th to 17th-century rural parish, a medieval Dominican friary, a medieval leper hospital and an 18th to 19th-century crypt collection. These skeletal populations sample human groups experiencing considerable social change
from an agrarian, non-centralised early medieval period through the development of the medieval state to the earliest phases of industrialisation in England. A detailed study of all lumbar vertebrae in one of the assemblages highlights discrepancies between clinical prevalence rates for spondylolysis established through radiography, and those resulting from direct osteological analysis of the lumbar region of the vertebral column. Current
prevalence rates cited in the osteological as well as the clinical literature are greatly dependent upon the recording methods employed, and the effects of several methods for
osteological remains are considered in this treatment. For the populations reported on here, prevalence rates vary from considerably less than 1% to as much as 12%, depending on the
method selected. A standardised recording method for spondylolytic lesions is suggested to facilitate accurate prevalence reporting and comparison of activity levels between different populations."

Skeletons are considered to be unequivocal symbols of death, but the scientific analysis of
human skeletal remains from archaeological excavations offers unique and extremely
valuable insights into the lives of past populations. Excavations in the townland of
Johnstown, Co. Meath, we re carried out between April and October 2002 by
Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd on behalf of Westmeath County Council in
advance of construction of the M4 Kinnegad–Enfield–Kilcock road scheme1 (Illus. 1 and
2). The excavations uncovered an extensive burial ground that had been in virtually uninterrupted use for a period of almost 1,500 years (Clarke 2003). The osteological
analysis of over 400 skeletons from Johnstown revealed evidence for hardship, accidents,
conflict and disease—demonstrating the possibilities as well as the limitations of skeletal
analysis, while offering enormous potential for advancing our knowledge of the health and
life style of people in the past.