Osteobiography:
So, what is an osteobiography? It’s exactly what you’re probably thinking. An osteobiography is someone’s personal life history as told by their skeleton. Think of a skeleton as a book written in a language osteoarchaeologists can understand (and translate). We’re familiar with every bump, groove, hole, and rough spot there is, from the top of our heads to the tips of our toes. Our skeletons are a blank slate that’s shaped by life experiences. [“What is an osteobiography?” Stephanie Halmhofer, Bone, Stones, and Books]
New enough to not appear in dictionaries, but it seems quite sensible. Noted in “Identifying the Unidentified,” Jarrett A. Lobell, Archaeology (November/December 2021):
“The suggestion of slavery, punishment, or something nefarious immediately leapt to mind,” says Chinnock. Despite the fetters’ dramatic appearance, they do not definitively prove that the man was enslaved. This type of shackle has rarely been found anywhere in the Roman world, and never in Roman Britain. When Chinnock examined the skeleton to reconstruct the man’s life based on his bones, creating what scholars call an osteobiography, he found some lesions on his ankles and tibias from infections or trauma, but nothing that conclusively linked them to the fetters. He also found a bony spur on the man’s left femur. “The spur is of a type that can occur from a traumatic injury or from the repetitive activities of an active lifestyle, hard labor, or even heavy contact sports,” says Chinnock. “Nothing screams that this person was enslaved.” Furthermore, the man was buried near a thriving Roman town, and there would have been both slaves and laborers in the surrounding fields, farms, and villages.
