Human Growth and Development

Abstract

The study of growth and development in past populations can offer important information regarding the social and environmental circumstances under which the earlier stages of the human life cycle develop in different biocultural contexts. This study is mainly accomplished through the analysis of skeletal remains belonging to the subadult stages of the human life cycle (infants, children, juveniles, and adolescents). The first steps of this study are the estimation of sex, and the estimation of age‐at‐death, where the concepts of biological and chronological age should be correctly understood. Next, the sensitivity of skeletal maturation and growth to the quality of the biocultural environment presents a broad picture of the living conditions during the subadult period in past societies. This biocultural approach is the basis that, combined with further dental and skeletal studies about diet, migration, and pathological conditions, and with archaeological and documentary information, constitutes the strategy to reveal the information stored in subadult remains.