Date of Award

6-2005

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Anthropology

First Advisor

Dr. Pamela K. Stone

Second Advisor

Dr. Frederick Smith

Third Advisor

Dr. Debra Martin

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

The analysis of children in archaeological contexts is a relatively new field of study that emerged largely as a result of feminist and gender studies in the social sciences. Thus, methodologies that are typically employed in bioarchaeological analyses of children have yet to be refined and standardized. The commingling of subadult remains in archaeological contexts further confounds this issue by eliminating the ability of the researcher to establish reasonable age-at-death distributions.

This study seeks to explore the utility of analyzing patterns of cortical growth-for-diaphyseal length in commingled subadult remains. Specifically, commingled subadult remains excavated from the Tell Abraq site (UAE, dating to 4600 - 1600 BP) are compared to subadult remains from the Hamman-Todd Osteological Collection (housed at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History). The samples are divided into cohorts based on maximum diaphyseal length and radiographic measures of midshaft femoral cortical thickness are compared for each cohort. Results indicate that the Tell Abraq subadults displayed more robust patterns of cortical growth than the Cleveland children. This corroborates preliminary analyses, which indicated that the children from Tell Abraq were physically healthy as compared to modern standards.

Download

Included in

Anthropology Commons

Share

COinS