Behaviour in our Bones

Exploring behaviour through bones has always been a fascinating topic to those that study human remains. Human bodies record and store vast amounts of information about the way we move, where we live, and our experiences of health and socioeconomic circumstances. We see it every day, and experience it, but when it comes to past populations, understanding behaviour is largely mediated by our ability to read it in bones. Behaviour in Our Bones: How Human Behaviour Influences Skeletal Morphology examines how human physical and cultural actions and interactions can be read through careful analyses of skeletal human remains.

This book synthesises the latest research on reconstructing behaviour in the past. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific region of the human body, guiding the reader from head to toe and highlighting how evidence found on the skull, shoulder, thorax, spine, pelvis, and the upper and lower limbs has been used to infer patterns of activity and other behaviour. Chapter authors expertly summarise and critically discuss a range of methodological, theoretical, and interpretive approaches used to read skeletal remains and interpret a wide variety of behaviours, including tool use, locomotion, reproduction, health, pathology, and beyond.

• Serves as a comprehensive resource for readers who are new to human skeletal behaviour investigations
• Offers an overview on how behaviour may impact the entire skeleton (from head to toe)
• Discusses activities that can leave evidence on the human skeleton and how behaviour can become incorporated in bone
• Introduces methods that biological anthropologists use to quantify and interpret skeletal evidence for behaviour and its range of morphological variation
• Critically examines the current state of skeletal behaviour research and provides recommendations for future work in this field