Towards a new osteometric method for sexing ancient cremated human remains. Analysis of Late Bronze Age and Iron Age samples from Italy with gendered grave goods.

Claudio Cavazzuti,Chiara D’Innocenzo,Stella Interlando,Alessandra Sperduti,Benedetta Bresadola,Dong Hoon Shin

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0209423

Claudio Cavazzuti, Chiara D’Innocenzo + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209423

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Abstract

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.

Highlights

The practice of cremation emerged in Europe over an extended period, starting from at least the Mesolithic [1,2], and stabilizing in the Neolithic [3], but during the Copper Age–and even more so during the Bell Beaker period–there was a rapid acceleration in its uptake [4]
Selection of variables was based on four criteria: (1) they are from skeletal elements that show a high rate of preservation in cremains; (2) they are characterized by detectable landmarks; (3) they show a good degree of sexual dimorphism in unburnt skeletons; (4) they were considered in previous studies
Measurements were taken in mm by two independent observers using a digital caliper; the technical error of measurement (TEM) and the relative technical error of measurement (RTEM) were calculated (Table 2) [68]

Summary

Introduction

The practice of cremation emerged in Europe over an extended period, starting from at least the Mesolithic [1,2], and stabilizing in the Neolithic [3], but during the Copper Age–and even more so during the Bell Beaker period–there was a rapid acceleration in its uptake [4]. During the Bronze Age, the transition from inhumation to cremation permeates many areas of continental Europe [6,7]; by the end of the second millennium BC, large “urnfields”, including hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of graves, widely representative of the living community, have become predominant [8,9,10,11,12]. From extremely austere practices that excluded most grave goods ( weapons), in order to hide the social status of the deceased (i.e. the gender, age, role or rank), the ritual becomes progressively elaborate [13]. 1000 BC), cremation burials include a wide range of offerings and grave goods that emphasize the identity and status of the deceased [8,14,15,16]. Three major obstacles have long inhibited the socio-biological analysis of the urnfields: the overwhelming number of burials, which necessarily requires huge analytical efforts; the fragmentary nature of the human remains; and the ritual dissimulation manifest in most Bronze Age cremation burials, especially those prior to 1000 BC

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