Anthropology 1020E Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Forensic Anthropology, Bioarchaeology, Social Stratification

• School: Western University
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: Anthropology 1020E
• Professor: hodgetts

Document Summary

The study of human remains and the means by which those individuals died. The study of human skeletal remains and the means by which the individuals died. Study of the life history using the skeleton. Archaeological context (natural and unnatural deaths: not really criminal. Mass grave from the slaughter of a large group of people from war (forensic anthropology) vs. a very old mass grave of kidnapped ancestors (bioarchaeology) Study remains from archaeological sites in order to answer questions about diet, health, migrations, and lifestyle in the past. Tooth calculus (what the dentist scrapes off your teeth and could tell what kinds of proteins were being eaten by finding animal dna) Artificial cranial modification: manipulation of infant head through binding to create different shapes of the head, indicator of family status. How people move around the landscape; relatedness. Archaeologists were not interested in human biological remains. Huge growth in the number of studies.