Sex differences in the distribution of vertebral degenerative and plastic change were examined and compared within and between samples of 51 individuals from the historically and ethnographically documented 16th-19th century site of Ensay, the Outer Hebrides, and 59 individuals from the medieval site of Wharram Percy, the Yorkshire Wolds. Both populations have a known gendered division of labor between males and females and known activity-related stresses on the spine. Osseous changes normally associated with degenerative joint disease (osteoarthritis) of the apophyseal facets and osteophytosis of the vertebral bodies were scored and reported separately. Inter- and intrasite differences were found in the frequency and distribution of osseous change down the spine. Overall, the Ensay sample was more highly stressed than that from Wharram Percy. Furthermore, differences between males and females at Ensay could be identified as relating to different types of activities. Distinctions between males and females at Wharram Percy were less marked, suggesting broadly similar lifestyles. These results accorded with expectations regarding contrasting levels of activity-related stress at the two sites and the division of labor between males and females. In particular, the prevalence and distribution of facet remodeling, facet sclerosis/eburnation, and osteophytosis in Ensay females could be related to load-bearing using creels (a form of basket), which disrupted "normal" patterns of osseous change along the spine. Importantly, morphologically distinct osseous modifications recorded on the apophyseal facets produced dissimilar distributions, suggesting that they may have different etiologies. These results highlight the need for a high degree of discrimination in recording, analyzing, and exploring activity-related osseous change.

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This article explores the relationship between the making of things and the making of people at the Bronze Age tell at Százhalombatta, Hungary. Focusing on potters and potting, we explore how the performance of non-discursive knowledge was critical to the construction of social categories. Potters literally came into being as potters through repeated bodily enactment of potting skills. Potters also gained their identity in the social sphere through the connection between their potting performance and their audience. We trace degrees of skill in the ceramic record to reveal the material articulation of non-discursive knowledge and consider the ramifications of the differential acquisition of non-discursive knowledge for the expression of different kinds of potter's identities. The creation of potters as a social category was essential to the ongoing creation of specific forms of material culture. We examine the implications of altered potters' performances and the role of non-discursive knowledge in the construction of social models of the Bronze Age.

Bodies intrigue us. They promise windows into the past that other archaeological finds cannot by bringing us literally face to face with history. Yet 'the body' is also highly contested. Archaeological bodies are studied through two contrasting perspectives that sit on different sides of a disciplinary divide. On one hand lie science-based osteoarchaeological approaches. On the other lie understandings derived from recent developments in social theory that increasingly view the body as a social construction. Through a close examination of disciplinary practice, Joanna Sofaer highlights the tensions and possibilities offered by one particular kind of archaeological body, the human skeleton, with particular regard to the study of gender and age. Using a range of examples, she argues for reassessment of the role of the skeletal body in archaeological practice, and develops a theoretical framework for bioarchaeology based on the materiality and historicity of human remains.

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The value of phylogenetic comparisons between populations based on tooth morphology depends on a knowledge of the extent to which the observed morphological variation is genetic in origin. This knowledge can be derived unequivocally only from the analysis of family data. However, in the absence of such knowledge the ability of tooth morphology to distinguish biological differences can be evaluated directly by testing its discriminating power in practice on populations between which the degrees of genetic difference are already known. The results of such a n evaluation show that different degrees of subjectivity of scoring are associated with different characters, but that moderately good correspondence between known genetic differences and differences based on tooth morphology can be achieved when characters showing the least subjectivity of scoring are used.