Human Osteoarchaeology

1. The archaeological site of El Torrejón (Gátova, Valencia, Spain) belongs to the so-called Iberian culture and was developed between the 6th and 1st centuries BCE. (II Iron Age) in the east and south Iberian Peninsula, which reaches to the southeast of France. El Torrejón is located in the center of this large territory, in a mountainous area that is just 20 km NW from the ancient city of Edeta. This location places the site in a strategic crossroad of the territory.
The site expands more than 3,000 m². The first archaeological intervention took place in 2015, during which a large rectangular tower was excavated. Since then, three other seasons have been carried out that show a long and complex stratigraphic sequence including diverse structures from the mid6th centuries until the 1st centuries BCE.
2. The monumental tower provides the name for the site and includes a funerary enclosure from the first phase which is culturally significant. Quadrangular and turriform in structure, the funerary enclosure includes a corridor and central room that houses eight cinerary urns. The excavated materials date the funerary structure construction to the mid-6th century BCE, which also marks the onset of the Iberian culture. The funerary enclosure is the foundational building that subsequently gave rise to the settlement and marked critical shifts in cultural, social and economic and identity.
In fact, both the urns and the objects in the funerary deposit show Phoenician and Tartessian influence, which exhibit the connections between elites and other powerful contemporary cultures. Similarly, although cremation is the predominant burial custom in Iberian culture, Torrejon’s method of ritual cremation shows distinctive and particular peculiarities different from the rest.
3. The monumentality of the tomb, evidenced by its dimensions (4m x 4m) and temenos (10 m x 10 m) respectively, is a clear symbol of acquired and inherited power. This tomb also represents the emergence of a new class, an aristocratic elite that controlled, administered and managed the wealth of the surrounding territory in which metallurgical resources were abound. This funerary structure evidences the socio-political power of a social group that practiced cremation and erected sacred monuments to ancestors and to preserve the memory of the founding dynasty of the settlement. Moreover, the symbolic objects burned together with the deceased’s remains, such as belt clasps, ivory combs, necklaces, etc. clearly and incontestably demonstrate the power of the elites and their social and cultural relations.
4.        The cremations have been studied in a multidisciplinary approach that promotes an optimal analysis of all elements comprising the practice of cremation. This method has allowed essential biological data and the meaning of the objects in relation to the dead and the funerary rituals.
Following a micro-excavation of 5 centimetre artificial levels, all bones are identified, weighed, measured, and photographed. All data are recorded in a database that records the estimation of sex and age, the identification and weight of each individual bone, the anatomical regions from which the bone derive, and summaries of all cumulative data.
Anthropological parameters
It is common to find animal bones that were burned in the pyre, making it necessary to differentiate between the human bones. The team ArchaeChemis of the University of Valencia has developed a chemical analysis that differentiates miniscule burned human and animal bone that are not easily identifiable. The number of individuals in each urn is estimated by detecting duplication amongst the bones, determination of the anatomical region of the fragments and age and/or sex incompatibility. Finally, the average weight of the individual adult cremations at this site is 1,500 grams. However, some fragments from sub-adult individuals have been found in the same urn.
The temperature of cremation is crucial, but is also a fundamental issue the team must confront. Color is not homogenous across all fragments of the same individual, although white is predominant. Ongoing physio-chemical analyses indicate that the cremations reached 600ºC.

Quantifying the human remains
The representation of different parts of the body and the order in which they were deposited in the urn are analysed. The head is the anatomical region with the greatest representation. The analyses have detected that the introduction of the bones into the urn begins in the region of the head and ends with the feet.

Objectives: This study investigates vitamin D deficiency patterns in individuals from birth to the beginning of adolescence. Microscopic computed tomography (micro-CT) evaluation of inter-globular dentine (IGD) in teeth provides information on the age of disease onset and the number of deficient periods per individual, which will increase our understanding of factors influencing vitamin D deficiency prevalence, including sociocultural practices and latitude. Materials and methods: Beemster and Hattem, two Dutch 17th-19th century communities, yielded relatively high prevalences of rickets (15-24%) and residual rickets (15-24%). From the affected individuals, a subsample of 20 teeth were selected for micro-CT scanning. Thin sections were made of 17 teeth, consisting of 6 teeth with and 11 teeth without observable IGD on micro-CT that were included for method comparison. Results: About 19 out of 29 (65.5%) individuals (one tooth was deemed unobservable) presented with IGD on micro-CT. Eight of the 11 (72.7%) individuals without IGD on micro-CT demonstrated histologically visible IGD. In 40.7% (11/27) of the affected individuals (combined micro-CT and histology results), vitamin D deficiency was recurrent, and in four individuals, some episodes occurred at approximately annual intervals suggesting vitamin D deficiency was seasonal. In three individuals, IGD occurred in the dentine formed around birth, suggesting maternal vitamin D deficiency. Discussion: Micro-CT analysis of IGD is found to be a valuable non-destructive method that can improve our understanding of the influence of sociocultural practices and latitude on disease development within age and sex groups in past communities. K E Y W O R D S interglobular dentine, residual rickets, rickets, seasonality, Western Europe

The socio-theoretical as well as the bio-medical research of recent years has revealed the complexity of the categories «sex» and «gender». Biological sex is not only shaped on different levels (chromosomal, gonadal, hormonal, epigenetical) but the manifestation of sex characteristics can – because of their polygenic regulation and the variety of influencing factors – be highly variable. The binary model of the sexes, which is prevalent in many countries of the Western world, represents only one possible way in which a society may translate the different manifestations of sex characteristics into the cultural sphere of gender. The category «gender», in the sense of a description of observations about the handling of the dead, mortuary rites as well as any accompanying artefacts in relation to bio(archaeo-)logical sex indicators – is a central topic of modern archaeological interpretation. The focus of this session lies on the interdisciplinary examination of the implications of these new findings for established concepts of «sex» and «gender» especially when reflecting those concepts against the backdrop of the social structures of past societies.