Skeletal Development Flashcards
What are the biological stages and give ages
- Fetus - 9w to 40w gestation
- Perinatal - 38 to 40w around birth
- Neonatal - Birth to 1m
- Infant - Birth 1y
- Childhood - 1y to Puberty
This can be split into early childhood 1-6y, late childhood 6-12/15, adolescence (puberty) 10-12G 12-16B
Why are children missing from records
Burial practices - children buried elsewhere, unbaptized not buried in the church, shallow graves, buried away from home
Taphonomic factors - child bones don’t survive as well
Excavator experiences
What benefits are there from children bones
Age of death estimations are more accurate, chronological and biological ages are closer
Can look at population health/ disease and compare to modern studies
What limitations are there when looking at child bones
pathological changes heal quickly - broken bones
small sample sizes
lack of modern comparative samples - middle class white children
Treatment of children
What are the types of ossification
Intramembranous and Endochondral
What is intramembranous ossification
Bones develop directly from a membrane of connective tissue
E.g. skull clavicle or parts of the scapula
What is endochondral ossification
Bones develop from a cartilage model - hyaline cartilage
Most bones in the skeleton
What is longitudinal growth
Bones grow longitudinally as cartilage as we grow and replaced by bone over time. Ossification of bone ends
What is appositional growth
Bones grow wider and fatter as they grow longer
When do the first bones develop
5 to 6 weeks gestation
By adulthood how many bones do we have
206
How can bones suggest age
All bones grow and fuse at different stages, therefore we can use the development and fusion of primary and secondary ossification to suggest biological age and then estimate chronological age.
