Differential preservation of children’s bones and teeth recovered from early medieval cemeteries: possible influences for the forensic recovery of non-adult skeletal remains

Abstract

The skeletal preservation of 421 non-adult skeletons from four early medieval sites in England, Scotland and Wales were compared to assess whether geographical location and geology have an impact on overall bone preservation of children's remains in the burial environment. Skeletons were examined from the cemeteries of Auldhame in Scotland, Edix Hill and Great Chesterford in England and Llandough in Wales. The bone preservation was examined using three preservational indices: Anatomical preservation index (API), Qualitative preservation index (QBI) and the bone representation index (BRI). A similar pattern existed across all the sites with regard to what bones are preserved, bones with relatively high density, such as the temporal bone of the skull, the long bones of the upper and lower limbs tend to be abundant in the samples, with the more small and fragile bones, such as the facial bones tending to be less well represented either as a result of low bone density or due to loss at excavation. The study of the dental elements also revealed a pattern with regard to what is preserved, with high numbers of molars and incisors found. This may be related to both the size and number of roots; but also the position in the mouth which may offer protection against loss. A difference in preservation was observed between the sites and the classes of preservation, particularly local differences between the sites of Edix Hill and Great Chesterford. From this study it remains unclear as to the extent the role of geology has on the non-adult skeleton, but the results of this study show that age is not the dominating factor in bone preservation as previously thought.

El registro bioarqueológico de individuos noadultos en contextos de cazadores-recolectores de la transición Pampeano-Patagónica oriental (Argentina)

“…En cambio, se observa que los elementos correspondientes a individuos de las categorías niñez y adolescencia se encuentran más incompletos (Tabla 2). Esto sugiere que el tamaño de los huesos juega un rol importante (Manifold, 2013) dado que, a mayor tamaño, mayor es el índice de fragmentación y menor es el porcentaje de completitud del hueso.…”

A study of nonspecific skeletal health indicators in two nonadult populations from western Britain

“…The remains of the children were fragmented but many of the cranial bones and long bones were preserved enough in order to allow study. For a more detailed report on the bone preservation of the non-adult remains from Llandough, see Manifold (2013). (7) 7 (4) 8 (3) 1 (3) 1 (7) 15 (10) 16 (8) 1 (3) 0 (0) 37 (24) 38 (19) 2 (5) 0 (0) 16 (10) 18 (9) 3 (8) 0 (0) 22 (14) 25 (12) 4 (11) 2 (14) 15 (10) 21 (10) 5 (13) 4 (28) 16 (10) 25 (12) 7 (19) 1 (7) 8 (5) 16 (8) 6 (16) 3 (21) 9 (58) 18 (9) 8 (22) 2 (14) 8 (5) 18 (9) 37 (18) 14 (7) 153 (75) 204 Table 1.…”

Doctrinal and Physical Marginality in Christian Death: The Burial of Unbaptized Infants in Medieval Italy

“…Investigation, however, is complicated by the fact that fetal and infant remains are small, fragile, and may be lost falling through the screen when sifting excavated soil (Buckberry 2000;Squires 2014). Many miscarriages occur during the first trimester and the fetus' low level of bone mineralization means that they will not preserve well in burials, at least under certain geological conditions such as acidic or water-logged soils (Guy et al 1997;Manifold 2013). The immature bones of fetuses or perinatal individuals can be misidentified as animal bones by inexperienced excavators (Han et al 2017, p. 47).…”