The Past of Sex, Gender, and Health: Bioarchaeology of the Aging Skeleton

Empirical studies of bone maintenance in archaeological populations show that patterns of bone loss do not constitute predictable consequences of aging, either on age or sex. Our understanding of aging and gender identity in the past usually is structured by determining the category of biological sex, which is almost always the first step of bioarchaeological analysis. But this categorization can obscure our analyses and limit the questions that we investigate. The patterns of bone loss observed in archaeological populations illuminate the process of forming the body during the lifetime and the biocultural nature of human tissue. The results provide bioarchaeologists with a model for how to see variation in the morphology of the bone and how to reconstruct age and gender identity in the past. [bioarchaeology, gender, bone loss, aging, osteoporosis]