Behaviour in our Bones

Exploring behaviour through bones has always been a fascinating topic to those that study human remains. Human bodies record and store vast amounts of information about the way we move, where we live, and our experiences of health and socioeconomic circumstances. We see it every day, and experience it, but when it comes to past populations, understanding behaviour is largely mediated by our ability to read it in bones. Behaviour in Our Bones: How Human Behaviour Influences Skeletal Morphology examines how human physical and cultural actions and interactions can be read through careful analyses of skeletal human remains.

This book synthesises the latest research on reconstructing behaviour in the past. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific region of the human body, guiding the reader from head to toe and highlighting how evidence found on the skull, shoulder, thorax, spine, pelvis, and the upper and lower limbs has been used to infer patterns of activity and other behaviour. Chapter authors expertly summarise and critically discuss a range of methodological, theoretical, and interpretive approaches used to read skeletal remains and interpret a wide variety of behaviours, including tool use, locomotion, reproduction, health, pathology, and beyond.

"This volume, edited and written by archeologists, biologists, and anthropologists, examines the most recent research on how behavior affects bone morphology largely through the action of biomechanical forces imposed by movement on skeletal structures.... [It's] helpful to those of us who teach about bones, study bones, or are generally interested in phenotype construction....The chapters are generally well written, and synthesize research that includes the use of modern techniques to answer questions related to our evolutionary past, and many have a forward-looking section with potential new avenues of research, as well as some pitfalls of current approaches.... Each chapter draws from examples where inferences can be made about the societal situation or profession of individuals whose bony remains offer insights into ancient human cultures....this volume highlights the benefit of interdisciplinary approaches that combine evolution, anthropology, paleontology, modern kinesiology studies, pathology, and imaging techniques that can allow us to measure the intraindividual variation in bone morphology." — Patricia L. R. Brennan, The Quarterly Review of Biology, June 2025