Measurement of inclusion biases in archaeological skeletal collections: A case study of Hasanlu (Iran)

Because they are composed of individuals who most likely died for reasons related to their health, cemeteries may not accurately reflect the demography of a living population. Teasing out the ways in which cemetery skeletal assemblages differ from living populations has been a long-standing conundrum in skeletal biology, one that was most fully articulated in "The Osteological Paradox" written by James Wood and colleagues in 1992.; This research takes advantage of a unique skeletal collection in order to address issues of inclusion bias in cemetery samples. The skeletal collection from Hasanlu in northwestern Iran consists of both a typical cemetery and a disaster sample drawn from the same population. This collection provides an opportunity to directly assess the presence of inclusion biases in the cemetery.; This study demonstrates that inclusion biases do not exist in adult material at the level necessary to be detectable in skeletal material from this site. Children under the age of twelve do have patterns of porotic hyperostosis and enamel hypoplasia consistent with Selective Mortality Bias. A twofold increase in the percent occurrence of porotic hyperostosis in the Citadel over the Cemetery, and the fact that most of the lesions at the Citadel appear to be in a stage of healing suggests that anemia may have occurred on a seasonal basis.; Furthermore, the presence of a disaster sample at Hasanlu allows us to examine the population for evidence of cohort effects in stress markers. In this study, no cohort effects in enamel hypoplasia occurrence were detected, suggesting that normal cohort effects in health may not be large enough to detect in bioarchaeological samples.; Stable oxygen isotope ratios in dental enamel were used to identify possible in-migrants to Hasanlu. Only three of the adult male individuals sampled from the battle remains were found to have significantly different oxygen isotope signatures from the men interred in the cemetery. Several young women from the disaster assemblage were found to have both unusual delta18O ratios and to have been much taller than older women in the sample. It is possible that this is evidence of a patrilocal marriage pattern.