Bone Fragments A Body Can Make PDF Download

Archaeological sites yield evidence that may be culturally modified items such as lithic tools, pottery, beads, buttons, watches, wedding rings, to items in nature classified by Dart (1957) as osteodontokeratic. Osteodontokeratic remains (or bone, tooth, and horn) are osseous human or animal elements that have either been modified tools or strictly osseous tissue itself. Bones of human and non-human origin comprise a significant portion of an assemblage. Deciphering the spatial context of the various forms of evidence is important to anthropologists when reconstructing human behavior. In archaeological sites with bones and fragments of bones, the ability to categorize whole bones and fragments into species is especially important when attempting to determine such parameters as Minimum Number of Individuals - MNI -- or Number of Species Present -- NISP (Davis 1987; White 1991). One goal is to figure out bone assemblage patterns. Some questions relevant to this endeavor include: Are the bones human or non-human? Under what context are the bones recovered? That is, are the bones part of a culturally modified set (i.e., human and non-human bone tools or burial practices) or do they result from natural processes (i.e., accidental death and subsequent burial including normal processes of taphonomic factors)? To this end, small elements are recovered on frequent occasion in archaeological contexts. Throughout this study, small osseous fragments are defined as those readily identified macroscopically as bone but without systematic assignment as human or non-human origin. Many small bone fragments encountered possess no diagnostic features that permit anthropologists to ascertain species. They may, however, possess certain morphology that allow Linnaean assignment by class nomenclature (e.g., mammal versus bird versus reptile). One question then becomes apparent when this problem is encountered: Does a reliable methodology exist to differentiate fragmented human from non-human bone? This is particularly critical in situations where identifying human from non-human bone at recovery scenes where the remains of US military casualties are suspected. Using this research, a method to differentiate species origin of bone fragments will be tested. This study will examine models and methods to easily and readily attempt differentiation of bone fragments and allow them to be assigned into a human versus non-human categorical nomenclature. This research focuses on a select group of large Southeast Asian mammals primarily from The Kingdom of Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, and Socialist Republic of Vietnam -- or KOC, LPDR, and SRV respectively.