Guidelines to the Standards for Recording Human Remains

1 Editors: Megan Brickley and Jacqueline I McKinleyGuidelines to the Standards for RecordingHuman RemainsIFA Paper No. 71 Guidelines to the Standards for Recording Human RemainsPublished 2004 byBABAO, Department of Archaeology, University ofSouthampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BF andtheInstitute of Field Archaeologists, SHES, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 227,Reading RG6 6 ABISBN 0948 393 88 2 Copyright BABAO, IFA and individual authorsEditors:Megan Brickley and Jacqueline I McKinleyContributors:Anthea Boylston, Megan Brickley, Don Brothwell, Brian Connell, Simon Mays, Jacqueline I McKinley,Linda O Connell, Mike Richards, Charlotte Roberts,Sonia ZakrzewskiAcknowledgementsThanks are due to all those who assisted in thispublication by reading and making comments onvarious parts of the document including AndrewMillard, Natasha Powers, James Steele and Bill White,and also contributors who commented on colleaguescontributions.

2 Thanks to Professor Sue Black forproviding Appendix 1. Thanks are also due to variousindividuals and organisations for permission to printfigures from their sites/reports; Rachel Ives for Figure 1,Wessex Archaeology for Figure 5, Roger Mercer and theHambledon Hill Project for Figure 7, Dr Kay Prag forFigure 16 and Dr Ingrid Mainland for Figure 17. BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR BIOLOGICALANTHROPOLOGY AND OSTEOARCHAEOLOGYINSTITUTE OF FIELD ARCHAEOLOGISTSC ontents1 IntroductionMegan Brickley52 Compiling a skeletal inventory: articulated inhumed bone Megan Brickley63 Compiling a dental inventoryBrian Connell84 Compiling a skeletal inventory: cremated Human boneJacqueline I McKinley95 Compiling a skeletal inventory: disarticulated and co-mingled remainsJacqueline I McKinley146 Guidance on Recording age at death in adultsLinda O Connell187 Guidance on Recording age at death in juvenile skeletonsMegan Brickley218 Determination of sex from archaeological skeletal material and assessment of parturitionMegan Brickley239A note of the determination of ancestryLinda O Connell2610 Metric and non-metric studies of archaeological Human boneDon Brothwell and Sonia Zakrzewski2711 Guidance on Recording palaeopathologyCharlotte Roberts and Brian Connell3412 Recording of weapon traumaAnthea Boylston4013 Sampling procedures for bone chemistryMike Richards4314 After the bone report.

3 The long-term fate of skeletal collectionsSimon Mays46 Bibliography47 AppendicesAppendix 1 Infant skeletal record sheet55 Appendix 2 Juvenile skeletal record sheet57 Appendix 3 Adult skeletal record sheet58 Appendix 4 Juvenile skeletal inventory60 Appendix 5 Adult skeletal inventory612 Guidelines to the Standards for Recording HumanRemainsINSTITUTE OF FIELD ARCHAEOLOGISTS PAPER NO. 7 Editors:Megan Brickley and Jacqueline I McKinleyThe contributorsAnthea BoylstonAnthea has been undertaking contract work in Human Remains from archaeological sites for the past13 years, working for archaeological units nationwideon collections dating from the prehistoric to post-medieval. She was involved in the excavation and post-excavation analysis of the first mass grave froma known battle to be found in Britain over the lastcentury (Towton, Yorkshire). This resulted in amultidisciplinary study in collaboration with staff from the Royal Armouries.

4 She recently participated in a project collaborating with the curatorial staff of the Norton Priory museum and gardens linkingevidence of disease on the skeleton with the medicinalplants utilised for treatment in the medieval completing her Master s Degree at the Universityof Bradford in 1991 Anthea has participated inundergraduate and postgraduate teaching in theDepartment of Archaeological Sciences and ininstructing palaeopathologist from all over the worldon the short courses held in the BiologicalAnthropology Research Centre BrickleyMegan Brickley obtained her PhD from the Universityof London in 1998, her research being undertakenjointly between the Institute of Archaeology and theHard Tissue Research Unit, University College London. In 1997 Megan was appointed lecturer inEnvironmental Archaeology at the University ofBirmingham where she teaches on all aspects of humanbone from Human origins to forensic anthropology.

5 Her main research interests lie in investigations ofmetabolic bone diseases, but since working atBirmingham she has also undertaken contract work on Human bone with the Birmingham University FieldArchaeology Unit (now Birmingham Archaeology). She is currently writing up the report on theeighteenth/nineteenth century Human bone from StMartin s, BrothwellDon Brothwell is an art school drop-out who became hooked on skeletal studies. He taught this andother subjects at London, Cambridge and York. Notbeing ageist, he still teaches and researches, but doesn thave to attend boring meetings anymore. In his life, hehas been checked for venereal disease, and has hadpubic lice, various worms and septic jigger fleas, as well as various respectable conditions and skeletaltraumas; vertebral osteophytes now cause him someproblems. He bitterly regrets that the repression ofwestern morality has seriously impeded the spread of his DNA into the next generation.

6 He is currentlyworking on further publications, if Alzheimer will leave him in ConnellBrian completed his HND in Practical Archaeology atBournemouth University in 1992 and went on to studyhis MSc in Osteology, Palaeopathology and FuneraryArchaeology at Sheffield and Bradford in he has worked in contracting archaeology,first at the Calvin Wells Laboratory for the University ofBradford, then as a zooarchaeologist at the AncientMonuments Laboratory for English Heritage. In 1998 hereturned to Human bones when he began working onhuman bone assemblages for MoLAS. He is currentlythe lead Human osteologist on the Spitalfields MarketProject. His research interests include palaeopathologyand physical anthropology. Jacqueline I McKinleyGraduating in 1981 (Archaeological Sciences, BradfordUniversity), as archaeologist Jacqueline has worked on awide-range of excavations, and as osteoarchaeologist hasanalysed and reported on the Remains of over 6000cremation and inhumation burials from over 300 sites,ranging from Neolithic to Post-mediaeval across theBritish Isles.

7 A regular visiting lecturer (on cremation) atseveral English universities, she has also occasionallyworked on forensic cases in the UK and employed by Wessex Archaeology as a seniorproject officer, over the last ten years her time had beendivided between managing, running and writing-uparchaeological excavations, and the analysis of humanremains from both Wessex Archaeology sites and thoseof other archaeological organisations nationwide. Herspecialist interest lies in the study of the mortuary rite of cremation, and improving site recovery and recordingof Human MaysSimon gained his PhD at the Department ofArchaeology, University of Southampton in 1987. In 1988 he joined English Heritage as their Human skeletalbiologist, a post he still holds. Since 1999 Simon has beena visiting lecturer at the Department of Archaeology,University of Southampton. His research interests cover all areas of Human osteoarchaeology, particularlymaterial from the British Isle.

8 Simon is the author of Thearchaeology of Human bones(1998, Routledge) and withMargaret Cox co-editor of Human Osteology in archaeologyand forensic science (2000, Greenwich Medical Media).Linda O ConnellDr Linda O Connell is a lecturer in Forensic andBiological Anthropology at Bournemouth is a qualified medical doctor who has chosen tospecialise within the aforementioned field and isextensively involved in the delivery of the three Masterscourses (Forensic and Biological Anthropology, ForensicArchaeology and Osteoarchaeology) offered by theForensic and Bioarchaeological Sciences Group. Inaddition, she contributes to undergraduate programmesGuidelines to the Standards for Recording Human Remains3and is involved in teaching short courses in forensicarchaeology and anthropology to the police. Her mainresearch interests include the association between thehuman pelvis and vertebral degenerative disease, andthe evaluation of the effects of modern clinicalconditions (and their treatments) upon the humanskeleton and how these may facilitate the identificationof individuals recovered from forensic contexts.

9 She haswritten numerous archaeological skeletal reports and isinvolved in forensic work both locally and further RichardsMike is a Reader in Bioarchaeology at the Department ofArchaeological Sciences at the University of obtained his DPhil from the Research Laboratory forArchaeology and the History of Art at the University ofOxford in 1998, and a BA and MA from the Departmentof Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Canada in 1992and 1994. He specialises in bioarchaeology, particularlyin bone chemical studies, such as stable isotope studiesof past Human diets. Charlotte RobertsReader in Archaeology, Department of Archaeology,University of Durham since 2000, teachingundergraduate and postgraduate students. Charlottebegan her career as a State Registered Nurse,subsequently gaining a BA Archaeological Studies(Leicester), MA Environmental Archaeology (Sheffield),and PhD in Biological Anthropology in 1988 (Bradford).

10 Charlotte has published c. 100 papers, four seniorauthored books, and two edited books; most recently(2003) Health and disease in Britain: prehistory to thepresent day (with M Cox), and The bioarchaeology oftuberculosis: a global perspective on a re-emerging disease(with J Buikstra).Sonia ZakrzewskiSonia obtained her PhD in Biological Anthropology atUniversity of Cambridge. Following an Addison WheelerResearch Fellowship in Archaeology at the University ofDurham, she now lectures in biological anthropologyand Human osteology in the Department of Archaeology,University of Southampton, where she is the courseconvenor for the MA in Osteoarchaeology. Her mainresearch interests are in morphological populationvariation in relation to Human evolution. Her researchhas primarily focused on the population affinities andmorphological diversity within a variety of regions,including Egypt, the Caribbean and Britain.