Category Archives: Osteology

Pop Culture Osteology: Once Upon a Time #2

Posted on September 4, 2014 by JB

Intrepid. Swashbuckling. Fearless. All adjectives that describe my tenacious approach to dissertation data collection. Oh wait, no, I’m wrong again. These are all adjectives that describe the rapscallion Captain Hook and imperturbable Emma Swan on ABC’s fairy-tale soap opera Once Upon … Continue reading →

Posted in Fauna, Osteology, Pop Osteology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Pop Culture Osteology: Once Upon a Time

Posted on August 30, 2014 by JB

Last night was Friday, so being the diligent graduate student that I am, I spent all evening organizing my spreadsheets, editing a chapter that is soon due and working on conference abstracts. Oh wait, no, no I didn’t, I spent it … Continue reading →

Posted in Osteology, Pop Osteology | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Identifying Human Teeth: Human Dentition Cheat Sheet

Posted on August 11, 2014 by JB

[Update: Eagle-eyed reader Paula M. noticed that a premolar text box was originally duplicated on the molar slide, throwing everything out of whack; this has been fixed on both the image file and pdf as of June 04, 2015. Please re-download!] … Continue reading →

Posted in Human Teeth, Osteology | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

Gotta hand it to you: identifying manual and pedal phalanges

Posted on June 4, 2014 by JB

At the AAPAs, the Bone Clones table was handing out free phalanx keychains, and when I received mine I had to double-check whether it was manual or pedal. This led me to review White and Folkens’ section on the phalanges, … Continue reading →

Posted in Foot, Hand, Osteology | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Porotic Hyperostosis and Cribra Orbitalia

Posted on March 14, 2014 by JB

I recently found a short synopsis I’d written a few years back about the etiology of cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis. I think that this was initially meant to go into my predoctoral paper, before I realized that I did not want my … Continue reading →

Posted in Cranium, Osteology | 5 Comments

Osteology Everywhere: Sidewalk Edition

Posted on March 6, 2014 by JB

Artificial cranial deformation, à la Late Horizon Peru? Admittedly, I’d had a few pints before the walk home, but I can’t be the only one that sees this: The orbits are a little irregular, but I’m still struck by the … Continue reading →

Posted in Osteology, Osteology Everywhere | Tagged , | 1 Comment

OsteoMenagerie 7: The Vertebrae

Posted on February 26, 2014 by JB

Word on the street is that the third polar vortex will hit Michigan later this week. After trudging through this year’s record amounts of snowfall, shivering angrily at the bus stop while the temperature experiments with establishing its true seasonal … Continue reading →

Posted in Osteology, OsteoMenagerie, Vertebrae | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Merely a cuneiformality: Identifying and siding the cuneiforms

Posted on November 21, 2013 by JB

While working at a late Neolithic mortuary site in Portugal, my friend Anna and I would frequently joke that we were excavating the ‘burial of the feet’, because it seemed like every day on site we chanced upon a new … Continue reading →

Posted in Foot, Osteology, Tarsals | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Orienting and Siding ‘Regular’ Ribs

Posted on September 24, 2013 by JB

I’ll begin by admitting that ribs are some of my least favorite bones to deal with. [Sidebar: I took a  week-long forensic anthropology overview course once (the 25th year of this), and I was astonished at the extent to which … Continue reading →

Posted in Fragmentary Remains, Osteology, Ribs, Siding Tricks | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Get a leg up on the competition: Tips for identifying femoral shaft fragments

Posted on September 10, 2013 by JB

September is always a time of flux for grad students. It doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been in the program – there’s always some stressor that crops up in tandem with the start of a new school year. You … Continue reading →

Posted in Fragmentary Remains, Long Bones, Osteology | Tagged , , | 3 Comments