1. Who’s Buried in There?
By Christine Suter
Necropolis Section 9 - 2011

2. What Can Human Bones Tell Us?
• Sex of the individual
• Age of the individual at the time of death
• Pathologies (diseases)

3. Age Determination
• Age can be determined by marked changes that
occur in the human skeleton throughout a
person’s life.
• Three ways to determine a person’s age at the
time of death are by examining:
– Tooth eruption patterns
– Epipyseal fusion

4. Tooth Eruption
• Tooth eruption patterns are one way of trying to determine
the age of an individual at the time of death.
• All human beings are genetically programmed to have
similar tooth eruption patterns.
• Humans have both deciduous (baby teeth) and permanent
teeth. If you only have the teeth from a skeleton and not
the entire jaw, you may determine the individual’s age by
examining which deciduous and which permanent teeth
are present, as well as the stage of development of the
roots on the permanent teeth.

6. Epiphyseal Fusion
• The long bones of the human skeleton are
made up of two parts:
– The diaphysis
– The epiphysis
• At birth these parts are not fused together.
There is a segment of cartilage between them
called the epiphyseal disk. As the bones ages
this cartilage ossifies (turns into bone).

8. Epiphyseal Fusion
• The fusion of the diaphysis to the epiphysis
characteristically takes place in humans at
certain ages depending on the bone. The
clavicle (collar bone) is the last bone to fuse
and this takes place usually at the age of 28.
• The age of a human at death can be
determined by examining which bones of the
skeleton are fused and which are not.

9. Determining Sex
• There are certain morphological differences
between the male and female skeleton, but
there are some specific areas of the skeleton
in which these differences are more easy to
identify:
– The pelvis
– The skull
– The vertebrae

10. The Skull and Vertebral Column
• In the skull the madible (jawbone), nuchal crest,
and mastoid process tend to be more robust in
males. Males also usually have a wider forehead
and more prominent brow ridge than females.
• In the vertebral column, the atlas (the first
vertebrae) is usually wider and more robust in
males and the male sacrum is usually a bit longer
and a bit more narrow than in females.

12. Sex Differences in the Pelvis
• It is usually easiest to determine the sex of a
skeleton by examining the pelvis.
• The pelvic basin is larger in females to
accommodate childbirth.

13. Sex Differences in the Pelvis
• The female pelvis also has a wide sciatic notch
while on males it is narrow and deep.
• On the male pelvis, the acetabulum is usually
larger because it is connected to a larger
femoral head. The sacrum is also a bit
narrower and curved inward more than in
females.

14. References
• Bass, William M. Human Osteology: A
Laboratory Field Manual 5th edition. Massouri
Archaeological Society Inc. Springfield, Mo.
2005
• Brothwell, DR. Digging Up Bones. Oxford
Universit Press. London. 1981
• www.dentistry.qmul.ac.uk
– Queen Mary University