Bio-Archaeology

Pre-requisites: To have passed the course Bio-Archaeology during the master studies.

Course objectives: To introduce students to the analysis of children’s skeletal remains, also with archaeological problems that they could answer.

Course description: For a long time children’s skeletons have been ignored during anthropological research, during the last decade they have shown that they can provide a multitude of precious data for the reconstruction of the past. Students will be introduced to all the necessary aspects of anthropological analysis of children’s skeletons (determining age, sex, signs of illness or injury) as well as the possibilities of a variety of interpretations regarding this age group in the archaeological context from which they come. Students will be trained during the anthropological research done on children’s skeletons.

Learning Outcomes: Midterm test and practical examination

Literature/Reading:

• Lewis,M. 2007. The Bioarchaeology of Children: Perspectives from Biological and Forensic Anthropology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Borić, D., Stefanović, S. 2004. Birth and death: infant burials from Vlasac and Lepenski Vir. Antiquity 78:582-601.
• Stefanović, S. 2008. Late Neolithic Boys at the Gomolava Cemetery (Serbia), In: Babies Reborn: Infant/child burials in Pre- and Protohistory. B.A.R. International Series, Oxford: Archaeopress.