Module description 

In this unit, students will be taught how to analyse archaeological skeletons according to current industry standards and will learn how to demonstrate their findings in a professional osteological report. This will involve the practical application of skills and methods developed in other core modules, including human skeletal anatomy, age and sex estimation, metric and non-metric variation and palaeopathology. It will introduce students to some of the recent and developing topics in the bioarchaeological literature which have used these methods to examine paleoepidemiology trends. This module is intended to give students a detailed introduction to the methodology used in the study of human remains in archaeology. The student will learn the procedures for excavating skeletonised human remains, the standards used for recording them, and provides an opportunity to apply these methods to a small group of previously excavated skeletons and write a basic report.

 

Module aims 

This module is intended to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the methods and standards required to carry out the osteological analysis of an assemblage of archaeological skeletons and to produce a professional report to demonstrate the findings. The application of these methods to the investigation of recent and developing topics in paleoepidemiology will be explored.

 

Learning outcomes 

On successful completion of this course, students would be expected to:

be able to fill out the skeletal recording forms used in British commercial archaeology
	understand the codes used to record information on recording forms and reference databases
	be able to write a commercial report to demonstrate the findings
	have a sound knowledge of the methods used to estimate age and sex, record metric and non-metric information and palaeopathological information
	be able to discuss some of the applications of these methods to investigate current trends in paleoepidemiology research
 

More information is available here https://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/study/graduate-taught/courses/methodology-and-issues-bioarchaeology-and-palaeoepidemology