Re: Cranial Indexing

george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote
<<*****GK: For what it's worth, such "craniological"measurements were
extensively done by Ukrainian archaeometrists with respect to the Scythian
and Sarmatian populations of the region... Has any archeometry been done on
Alanic skulls in the West?>>

It would also be very interesting to know if any DNA recovery has been
attempted on any of those remains.

Just as a side-bar, the use of the term "archeometric" or "archaeometric"
reflects again a difference in orientation among different archaeologists. I

In the stricter processual school, archaeometry is practically speaking the
prime object of the archaeology itself - and as much "theory" as one is
permitted. I don't recall the copious Getty Institute manual on archaeometry
even mentioning cranial indexing or having much of a section on human
remains. (Was there a section on grave site charting, gender, age and
disease criteria? I don't remember.) So that when you say "archaeometric" to
this kind of archaeologist, it would immediately mean using natural science
technology to analyze materials and provenance, rather than anything like
cranial indexing.

Here's an example. Here are the complete TOCs from the last two issues of the
"Archaeometry" journal at Oxford available on the web. Note the exclusive
focus on "material culture":

Multi-method marble provenance determinations: the Carrara marbles as a case
study for the combined use of isotopic, electron spin resonance and
petrographic data.

Correspondence and discriminant analyses of sand temper compositions, Tonto
Basin, Arizona.

Testing assumptions of neutron activation analysis: communities, workshops
and paste preparation in Yucatan, Mexico.

Archaeometric investigations of sgraffito ceramic titles (fifteenth-sixteenth
centuries) recovered from excavations in Udine (north-east italy)

Optical properties of tin-opacified glazes

Coloured opaque glass beads of the Merovingians

Scientific analysis of seventh-century glass fragments from the Crypta Balbi
in Rome

Byzantine opaque red glass tesserae from Beit Shean, Israel

Technology and provenace of a collection of Islamic copper-based objects
found by chemical and lead isotope analysis.

A comparison of methods for establishing fatty acid concentration gradients
across potsherds: a case study using Late Bronze Age Canaanite amphorae.

New archaeointensity results from Greek materials

Luminescence dating pottery from later prehistoric Britain

Radiocarbon dates from the Oxford AMS system: Archaeometry datelist 30

Technological choices in ceramic production

The challenge of technological choices for materials science approaches in
archaeology

Processing clay for pottery in Northern Cameroon: social and technical
requirements

Dung by preference: the choice of fuel as an example of how Andean pottery
production is embedded within wider technical, social and economic practices

Why a kiln? Firing technology in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas,Veracruz (Mexico)

Non-destructive portable gamma ray spectrometry used in provenancing Roman
granitoid columns from Leptis Magna, North Africa

Magnetic susceptibility thickness corrections for small artefacts and
comments on the effects of background materials

A preliminary petrographic analysis of Cypriot White Slip II ware

Characterization of red-coloured slips (almagra) on Islamic ceramics in
Muslim Spain

A study of ancient Chinese porcelain wares of the Song-Yuan dynasties from
Cizhou and Ding kilns with energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence

Raw materials of glass from Amarna and implications for the origins of
Egyptian glass

Lead isotopic analysis of Eighteenth-Dynasty Egyptian eyepaints and lead
antimonate colourants

The elemental composition of Benin memorial heads

Amalgam tinning of Chinese bronze antiquities

Lead isotopic evidence for a mixed provenance for Roman water pipes from
Pompeii

Rock surface hardness as an indication of exposure age: an archaeological
application of the Schmidt Hammer

The Romanesque frieze at Lincoln Cathedral (England) - primary or secondary
insertion? Magnetic considerations

Comment on Z. A. Stos-Gale, N. H. Gale, N. Annetts, T. Todorov, P. Lilov, A.
Raduncheva and I. Panayotov, Lead isotope data from the Isotrace Laboratory,
Oxford: Archaeometry data base 5, ores from Bulgaria, Archaeometry, 40 (1)
(1998), 217-26