Assembling Ancestors: the manipulation of Neolithic and Gallo-Roman skeletal remains from Pommerœul, Belgium.

The ancient cemetery of Pommerœul, Belgium, was classified as Gallo-Roman in the 1970s', yielding 76 cremation graves and one inhumation. However, subsequent radiocarbon analyses dated the inhumation to the Late Neolithic (4-3 millennium calBC). We report osteoarchaeological analysis indicating that the inhumation was composed of bones from multiple individuals, afterwards buried as "one".

A multi-proxy approach to reconstruct chronology, human mobility, and funerary practices at the Late Bronze-Early Iron Age urnfield of San Valentino (San Vito al Tagliamento, Italy).

The site of San Valentino in San Vito al Tagliamento is one of the main urnfield cemeteries in northeastern Italy. Archaeological excavations carried out in the seventies brought to light a cremation cemetery consisting of mainly urn graves with pottery and metal artefacts as grave goods. These materials suggest that the individuals buried in San Valentino were not an isolated local community but had intense contacts with other north-Adriatic communities, in particular with the neighbouring Veneto area, as suggested by the close similarity of the biconical vessels with those recovered in the graves of Este.

Strontium isotopes and concentrations in cremated bones suggest an increased salt consumption in Gallo-Roman diet.

The high temperatures reached during cremation lead to the destruction of organic matter preventing the use of traditional isotopic methods for dietary reconstructions. Still, strontium isotope (Sr/Sr) and concentration ([Sr]) analyses of cremated human remains offer a novel way to assess changing consumption patterns in past populations that practiced cremation, as evidenced by a large amount of new data obtained from Metal Ages and Gallo-Roman human remains from Destelbergen, Belgium. The Gallo-Roman results show significantly higher [Sr] and a narrower interquartile range in Sr/Sr (0.

These boots are made for burnin': Inferring the position of the corpse and the presence of leather footwears during cremation through isotope (δ13C, δ18O) and infrared (FTIR) analyses of experimentally burnt skeletal remains.

Cremation is a complex mortuary practice, involving a number of activities of the living towards the dead before, during, and after the destruction of the bodily soft tissues by fire. The limiting information concerning these behavioral patterns obtained from the pyre remains and/or cremation deposits prevents the reconstruction of the handling of the corpse during the burning process. This pioneering study tries to determine the initial positioning of the corpse in the pyre and assess whether the deceased was wearing closed leather shoes during cremation through isotopic (δ13C, δ18O) and infrared (ATR-FTIR) analyses of experimentally burnt pig remains, used as a proxy for humans.

Revisiting metric sex estimation of burnt human remains via supervised learning using a reference collection of modern identified cremated individuals (Knoxville, USA).

Objectives: This study aims to increase the rate of correctly sexed calcined individuals from archaeological and forensic contexts. This is achieved by evaluating sexual dimorphism of commonly used and new skeletal elements via uni- and multi-variate metric trait analyses.

Materials And Methods: Twenty-two skeletal traits were evaluated in 86 individuals from the William M.

Estimating age-at-death in burnt adult human remains using the Falys-Prangle method.

Objectives: The Falys-Prangle-method assesses age-related morphological changes to the sternal clavicle end (SCE), enabling the observation of mature adults from the 5th decade onwards in unburnt human skeletal remains. The aim of this study is to investigate the applicability of the Falys-Prangle-method on burnt human remains.

Materials And Methods: Fifty-two SCE of 40 cremated individuals (out of 86) from the William M.

Correction: Migration, adaptation, innovation: The spread of Neolithic harvesting technologies in the Mediterranean.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Highly diverse Bronze Age population dynamics in Central-Southern Europe and their response to regional climatic patterns.

The reconstruction of past demographic patterns is a fundamental step towards a better understanding of human-environment relations, especially in terms of quantifiable anthropic impact and population susceptibility to environmental changes. The recently developed Summed Calibrated Probability Distributions (SCPD) approach, based on large collections of archaeological radiocarbon dates, provides a new tool to obtain continuous prehistoric population curves suitable for comparison with palaeoenvironmental time series. Despite a wide application in Mesolithic and Neolithic contexts worldwide, the use of the SCPD method remains rare for post-Neolithic societies.