The principal burial ground of 'Marea'/Philoxenite was located to the south-east of the main urban core of the town.The burial area, serving as a type of 'necropolis hill' on the account of its elevated position on a natural rock hill, is located little over 50m to the south-east of the public baths.Burials were already noted there by el-Fakharani (1983:176-178) though his account includes just a short description, without plans or photographs.More extensive work was conducted some 20 years later by the Polish archaeological team, though these efforts focused not on graves as such, but rather on newly identified Late Antique family burial chapel (Babraj & Szymaska 2008:177-178).A more comprehensive architectural survey conducted in 2019 revealed that the hill included several other standing structures (possibly more burial chapels?) and was surrounded by a low rubblework wall that separated it from the rest of the town (Kutiak 2025:150).Thus, in the Byzantine period the hill must have formed an important topographical location, marked by religious architecture and visible from afar to visitors approaching Philoxenite from the mainland.The two rock cut tombs were opened in 2019 by Kacper Wasilewski (Sobczyska & Wasilewski 2021:183-185).Initially it was thought they might represent the oldest, pre-Christian structures preserved on the hill.This interpretation was based mainly on their architecture as both tombs were accessible via steps with open passageways (dromoi).This, however, is far from certain as similar tombs dating to the Byzantine period were excavated by el-Fakharani in the hinterland to the south of 'Marea'/Philoxenite (Solieman 2004:279-282).During the 2023 excavation season, research focused on human remains from Grave 2, which was partially excavated in 2021 and a part of the bone assemblage studied in 2022 (Sotysiak et al. 2025).During the present season, remaining bones from the 2021 season were described and measured and in parallel the excavation of this grave continued, with several layers of bone still left for future work.Therefore,

The city of Musti (today's El Krib, 3618'00"N, 908'00"E, ancient municipium Iulium Aurelium Mustitanum (for literature on

What is disability, and how do we identify it in a bioarchaeological context? Within palaeopathology and bioarchaeology, disability has often been viewed from a modern medicalised model standpoint, with focus placed on skeletal changes and impairments, but the field of bioarchaeology is intrinsically social in nature. People experience physical impairments but are not necessarily disabled by those impairments. In ancient Egyptian contexts, the medical papyri provide a view of the emic understanding and treatment of bodily difference in the Egyptian past, but this concept of difference does not map directly onto modern etic understandings of physical bodily difference, and may not map to skeletal impairment identifiable from bioarchaeological study. All potential impairments should be understood in contextual terms as putative disorders that are contingent on the local situation in which the affected individual lived and in which the surrounding community operated. For example, dyslexia is only a difference within literate societies. Even when considering disability as enabling a focus to be placed on the ability to undertake actions (disAbility), there is still a fluid boundary between disabled and able-bodied, with shading and gradations along the continuum of disAbility depending on the actions and activities of the individuals involved. The temporal aspects and duration of impairment must also be considered as disAbility is not static, but rather changes along the life course. DisAbility in past populations must be viewed using an emic lens.

Concha bullosa is the hypertrophy of the superior, middle, or inferior nasal conchae, most commonly referring to the pneumatisation of the middle conchae. It is considered to be the most common anatomical variant of the osteomeatal complex, rather than a pathological development. Though it is common, its aetiology is poorly understood. It is unclear whether sex or ethnicity impacts on the prevalence of concha bullosa, though some research suggests a correlation. Some researchers have argued that concha bullosa predisposes individuals to sinusitis, but the link is not consistent. In this paper, the authors present two new skeletal cases of bilateral concha bullosa identified in female individuals taken from the Cyprus Reference Research Collection (CRRC). This work aims to highlight the limitations associated with the palaeopathological diagnosis of inflammation and the interpretation of skeletal lesions that may be related to sinusitis or infection of the osteomeatal complex in archaeological bone, in relation to the presence of concha bullosa.

We present a review of the history of human bioarchaeological research in Cyprus through the examination of published literature. We survey and discuss past and current trends, indicate gaps, highlight developments within recent years, propose future directions and provide an up-to-date literature review. While scholarly studies of ancient Cypriot human remains had already begun to emerge towards the end of the 19th century, continuing intermittently throughout the 1900s, significant changes took place during the 1980s. This later flourishing of human bioarchaeology in Cyprus, in contrast to conventional archaeological research, which had been making significant contributions to the investigation of ancient Cyprus since the early 20th century, is aligned with international developments. During the last two decades of the 20th century, human bioarchaeology in Cyprus sees a significant development towards a more scientific orientation in contrast to previous years. To date, 201 publications on Cypriot archaeological human remains have been found in journals, bulletins, books, monographs, proceedings and postgraduate research theses. The 1980s mark the beginning of a new era within human bioarchaeology in Cyprus. The number of problem-oriented human bioarchaeological studies focusing on archaeological questions as well as the number of studies drawing on scientific techniques beyond the standard morphological and metric approaches have increased significantly within the last decades. The number of researchers focusing on human bioarchaeology in Cyprus has also increased. Recent years have seen state-of-the-art approaches increasingly applied to the investigation and analysis of human remains, taking place within an interdisciplinary archaeological framework. These developments and the introduction of further cutting-edge methods and techniques are contributing towards key interpretations about the ancient inhabitants of the island and their lifeways.

The remains of a >50-years-old male, thus far representing the only complete skeleton dated to the Early Chalcolithic (Wadi Rabah) period in Israel, were recovered in a cave in the Judaean desert (Nahal Mishmar, F1-003). The old male suffered abscesses in the maxilla following tooth caries, and a well-healed trauma in the left tibial midshaft. Skull and mandibular morphology were described using plain measurements, indices and angles, and compared with similarly taken Chalcolithic data. In addition, mandibular morphology was captured using a landmark-based geometric morphometrics method and compared to Natufian hunter-gatherers, Pre-Pottery Neolithic early farmers, and Late Chalcolithic populations. The results, although cautionary, reveal similarity to the succeeding Ghassulian Chalcolithic period populations and suggest population continuity from the Early to the Late (Ghassulian) Chalcolithic period. Future ancient DNA study may clarify this hypothesis and further reveal population affinity in this period in Israel.