PAST CRIMESallow for the passage of a baby during birth. Men tend to have a larger socket
for the hip bone than women. Another indicative area is the skull. Men often
have squarer chins than women, and they have more sloping foreheads and
protruding bone over the eyes (brow ridges), which women usually lack. There
are also differences in the shape of the back of the skull and the point of
articulation of the lower jaw (Figure 3). These indications are not foolproof,
however. Gender is not an absolute. Indeed, some ancient societies recognised a
range of gender statuses. There are women with masculine features, and men
with feminine ones, and some people fall somewhere in between the two. This
identification also depends on the presence of the symptomatic bones, and their
condition. In some cases, the bones are too decayed to offer enough clues to be
sure of their sex. Sometimes there are idiosyncracies in the skeleton which can
identify people belonging to the same family, the small, outwardly invisible
differences being inherited through generations. The age of an individual can be
estimated in a number of ways–their teeth, whether the epiphyses (ends
sections) of long bones and plates that make up skulls which at birth are
separate to allow for growth have become fully fused together (meaning they
had reached adulthood), and signs of age decay such as arthritis.
Osteoarchaeology can offer further information through the study of
changes to the skeleton caused by disease, accident, trauma and even work. A
number of diseases leave traces on the bones (though not rapidly acting
infectious diseases). Leprosy is a good example– the disease eventually
destroys bone material, which is reabsorbed into the body. It especially affects
the bones of the central face and the small bones of fingers and toes.
Figure 3. Male and female skull morphology–the arrows point to main
gender differences