This raises a series of questions regarding whether or not our samples are valid representations of the populations from which they came. How can we recognize bias in the materials bioarchaeologists study, and how might we deal with any shortcomings? This chapter discusses the impact of social/cultural and demographic factors on bioarchaeological samples along with the effect of taphonomy and research techniques. Above all, it emphasizes the need to understand the context and demographic characteristics of our samples so that we can arrive at interpretations that have some relation to reality. The importance of comparison in evaluating the representativeness of samples will be evident from many of the historical and archaeological examples given.

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Representativeness and Bias in Archaeological Skeletal Samples

OF DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Anthropology The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico

Evidence for a change in the rate of aging of osteological indicators in American documented skeletal samples

Sampling location in cortical bone histology

Paleopathology: from bones to social behavior

A quantitative or qualitative trait detected on human skeletons can be used to solve two inferential problems:

a)

Diagnosing age-at-death




b)

Estimating age-at-death distribution in the human community which the skeletons belong to.

Age-at-death diagnosis and age-at-death distribution estimate: Two different problems with many aspects in common

A statistical model for the estimation of the age at death is defined and tested to evaluate its performance. It is characterized by the probability of the femoral frequency of secondary osteons for any given age, that we compute by means of 28 scheletons of Italian subjects. In a standard case we obtain good evalutations of the methods, while in practice it can be used according to the objectives of the particular investigation. Moreover other surveys could easily be added to our data in order to obtain a more powerfool tool.

M. Di Bacco

Papers

Age-at-death diagnosis and age-at-death distribution estimate: Two different problems with many aspects in common

Age at death determination by means of femoral frequency of secondary osteons