Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology, Department of Archaeology, University of Reading

The Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO) held at the University of Reading in 2007. Contents: 1) A life course perspective of growing up in medieval London: evidence of sub-adult health from St Mary Spital (London) (Rebecca Redfern and Don Walker); 2) Preservation of non-adult long bones from an almshouse cemetery in the United States dating to the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries (Colleen Milligan, Jessica Zotcavage and Norman Sullivan); 3) Childhood oral health: dental palaeopathology of Kellis 2, Dakhleh, Egypt. A preliminary investigation (Stephanie Shukrum and JE Molto); 4) Skeletal manifestation of non-adult scurvy from early medieval Northumbria: the Black Gate cemetery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Diana Mahoney-Swales and Pia Nystrom); 5) Infantile cortical hyperostosis: cases, causes and contradictions (Mary Lewis and Rebecca Gowland); 6) Biological Anthropology Tuberculosis of the hip in the Victorian Britain (Benjamin Clarke and Piers Mitchell); 7) The re-analysis of Iron Age human skeletal material from Winnall Down (Justine Tracey); 8) Can we estimate post-mortem interval from an individual body part? A field study using sus scrofa (Branka Franicevec and Robert Pastor); 9) The expression of asymmetry in hand bones from the medieval cemetery at Écija, Spain (Lisa Cashmore and Sonia Zakrezewski); 10) Returning remains: a curator’s view (Quinton Carroll); 11) Authority and decision making over British human remains: issues and challenges (Piotr Bienkowski and Malcolm Chapman); 12) Ethical dimensions of reburial, retention and repatriation of archaeological human remains: a British perspective (Simon Mays and Martin Smith); 13) The problem of provenace: inaccuracies, changes and misconceptions (Margaret Clegg); 14) Native American human remains in UK collections: implications of NAGPRA to consultation, repatriation, and policy development (Myra J Giesen); 15) Repatriation – a view from the receiving end: New Zealand (Nancy Tayles).

Proposing a way forward: a review of standardisation in the use of age categories and ageing techniques in osteological analysis (2004 to 2009)

This study assesses the current state of adult skeletal age-at-death estimation in biological anthropology through analysis of data published in recent research articles from three major anthropological and archaeological journals (2004–2009). The most commonly used adult ageing methods, age of ‘adulthood’, age ranges and the maximum age reported for ‘mature’ adults were compared. The results showed a wide range of variability in the age at which individuals were determined to be adult (from 14 to 25 years), uneven age ranges, a lack of standardisation in the use of descriptive age categories and the inappropriate application of some ageing methods for the sample being examined. Such discrepancies make comparisons between skeletal samples difficult, while the inappropriate use of some techniques make the resultant age estimations unreliable. At a time when national and even global comparisons of past health are becoming prominent, standardisation in the terminology and age categories used to define adults within each sample is fundamental. It is hoped that this research will prompt discussions in the osteological community (both nationally and internationally) about what defines an ‘adult’, how to standardise the age ranges that we use and how individuals should be assigned to each age category. Skeletal markers have been proposed to help physically identify ‘adult’ individuals.