Integration of age-at-death and novel peptide sex estimation reveals cattle culling practices at Yorkshire Iron Age shrine site

Sex estimation of skeletal remains is one of the major components of forensic identification of unknown individuals. Teeth are a potential source of information on sex and are often recovered in archaeological or forensic contexts due to their post-mortem longevity. Currently, there is limited data on dental sexual dimorphism of archaeological populations from Iran. This paper represents the first study to provide a dental sex estimation method for Iron Age populations. The current study was conducted on the skeletal remains of 143 adults from two Iron Age populations in close temporal and geographic proximity in the Solduz Valley (West Azerbaijan Province of Iran). Mesiodistal and buccolingual cervical measurements of 1334 maxillary and mandibular teeth were used to investigate the degree of sexual dimorphism in permanent dentition and to assess their applicability in sex estimation. Data was analysed using discriminant function analysis (SPSS 23), and posterior probabilities were calculated for all produced formulae. The results showed that incisors and canines were the most sexually dimorphic teeth, providing percentages of correct sex classification between 86.4 and 100 % depending on the measurement used. The combination of canines and other teeth improved significantly the level of correct sex classification. The highest percentages of sex classification were obtained by the combination of canines and incisors (100 %) and canines and molars (92.3 %). The present study provided the first reference standards for sex estimation using odontometric data in an Iranian archaeological population. Cervical measurements were found to be of value for sex assessment, and the method presented here can be a useful tool for establishing accurate demographic data from skeletal remains of the Iron Age from Iran.

Dog as a part of ritual space in Przeworsk culture settlements: A zooarchaeological case study of Sławsko Wielkie, Poland

Odontometric sex estimation on three populations of the Iron Age from Abruzzo region (central–southern Italy)

Dogs were domesticated in the Arctic: Culling practices and dog sledding at Ust’-Polui

Sex estimation of human remains is one of the most important research steps for physical anthropologists and archaeologists dealing with funerary contexts and trying to reconstruct the demographic structure of ancient societies. However, it is well known that in the case of cremations sex assessment might be complicated by the destructive/transformative effect of the fire on bones. Osteometric standards built on unburned human remains and contemporary cremated series are often inadequate for the analysis of ancient cremations, and frequently result in a significant number of misclassifications. This work is an attempt to overcome the scarcity of methods that could be applied to pre-proto-historic Italy and serve as methodological comparison for other European contexts. A set of 24 anatomical traits were measured on 124 Bronze Age and Iron Age cremated individuals with clearly engendered grave goods. Assuming gender largely correlated to sex, male and female distributions of each individual trait measured were compared to evaluate sexual dimorphism through inferential statistics and Chaktaborty and Majumder’s index. The discriminatory power of each variable was evaluated by cross-validation tests. Eight variables yielded an accuracy equal to or greater than 80%. Four of these variables also show a similar degree of precision for both sexes. The most diagnostic measurements are from radius, patella, mandible, talus, femur, first metatarsal, lunate and humerus. Overall, the degree of sexual dimorphism and the reliability of estimates obtained from our series are similar to those of a modern cremated sample recorded by Gonçalves and collaborators. Nevertheless, mean values of the male and female distributions in our case study are lower, and the application of the cut-off point calculated from the modern sample to our ancient individuals produces a considerable number of misclassifications. This result confirms the need to build population-specific methods for sexing the cremated remains of ancient individuals.

Horse demography and use in Bronze Age Mongolia

The discovery of perinatal and infant individuals is common in the excavation of Iron Age and Romano-British domestic sites. In recent years, the discovery of many such burials has led to interpretations of infanticide and unceremonious disposal. Although this has been a widely discussed phenomenon, much of the literature has focused on the funerary context, and the biological age and sex estimates of these individuals, with little consideration of the palaeopathological evidence. This article provides a detailed analysis of 17 perinates/infants from the late Iron Age/early Roman site of Piddington, Northants. It discusses the skeletal evidence for poor health and growth, and highlights the potential of these remains to reveal alternative insights into perinatal and infant death. Evidence of growth changes and pathological lesions were identified, suggesting that these individuals experienced chronic episodes of poor health that affected their skeletal development. The study explores the implications of these findings within the context of Iron Age and Roman Britain. At Piddington, the death of these infants is not associated with the cultural practice of infanticide, but occurred due to poor health, highlighting the precarious nature of infant survival in the past.