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This paper explores recent research trends in human osteology, based on articles published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (AJPA) during two 5-year intervals: 1980--1984 and 1996--2000. Topical "visibility" is measured in terms of article counts; "impact" is estimated through citation indices. Our results indicate that human osteologists continue to publish a range of methodological, analytical, and descriptive research papers that address a broad array of subjects. Analytical articles are cited more frequently than descriptive articles and thus have higher impact, reflecting the discipline's continued commitment to problem-oriented research. Differences in publication patterns exist between scholars during early and later stages of their careers. Articles published by students and Ph.D.s within 2 years of their doctoral degree are more frequently descriptive than analytical, when compared to people with longer career histories. Topics such as pathology, forensic anthropology, and biodistance modeling remain highly visible, while articles on the dentition have waned. An increase in functional research directed toward the postcranial skeleton is also reflected in our data. While continued visibility for morphological investigations is apparent, the impact of recently developed applications in bone chemistry and molecular anthropology is amply documented in our data, particularly during the more recent survey years.

This paper’s primary focus is the investigation of Late Iron Age funeral practices. This is carried out by means of a multidisciplinary study of two necropolises, Randogne – Bluche and Sion – Parking des Remparts, which are located in southwestern Switzerland. The overall purpose of this paper is to enhance the socio-cultural understanding of this period through an integrated approach that combines the fields of bioanthropology, archaeology and ancient cultural history. Consequently, sex, age, pathologies and biological proximity first were assessed for the individuals found in the two studied necropolises. Next, data from these necropolises was contrasted with the archaeological and cultural environment from the surrounding regions. Finally, a combined perspective was developed in order to consider and combine the data collected through these different approaches. The obtained results appear to point to a regional particularism present in southwestern Switzerland’s funerary practices during the Late Iron Age. However, cultural influences from both northern and southern neighbouring regions can be identified in southwestern Switzerland’s funerary rites and material productions, which sheds light on the innerworkings of the Celtic communities populating this region.

s from the poster and paper sessions were published in the March 2007 edition of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Volume 129, Issue S42, pages 1-193. It is anticipated that some of the contributions will be published as full papers in the same journal at a later date. I look forward to next year’s conference, which is being hosted by the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from Wednesday 28th until Saturday 31st March 2007. For further information on the American Association of Physical Anthropology and its conference series see: www.physanth.org/. Conference Reviews 116 References Brown, P., Sutikna, T., Morwood, M.J., Soejono, R.P., Jatmiko, Saptomo, E.W. and Due, R.A. 2004. A small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 431, 1055-1061. Culotto, E. 2005. Paleoanthropology – Discoverers charge damage to ‘hobbit’ specimens. Science 307, 1848-1848. Deter, C. 2003. Review of the 72nd Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Tempe, Arizona, 23rd- 26th April 2003. Papers from the Institute of Archaeology 14, 152-154. Morwood, M.J., Brown, P., Jatmiko, Sutikna, T., Saptomo, E.W., Westaway, K.E., Due, R.A., Roberts, R.G., Maeda, T., Wasisto, S. and Djubiantono, T. 2005. Further evidence for small-bodied hominins from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 437, 1012-1017. Powledge, T.M. 2005. Researchers wrangle access to Homo floresiensis. Scientist 19(4), 14-15. Acknowledgements I am very grateful to both the AHRC and the Institute of Archaeology Awards, for their financial support to attend this conference.

This paper examines the COVID-19 pandemic in light of two key concepts in medical anthropology: syndemics and structural violence. Following a discussion of the nature of these two concepts, the paper addresses the direct and associated literatures on the syndemic and structural violence features of the COVID pandemic, with a specific focus on: 1) the importance of local socioenvironmental conditions/demographics and disease configurations in creating varying local syndemic expressions; 2) the ways that the pandemic has exposed the grave weaknesses in global health care investment; and 3) how the syndemic nature of the pandemic reveals the rising rate of noncommunicable diseases and their potential for interaction with current and future infectious disease. The paper concludes with a discussion on the role of anthropology in responding to COVID-19 from a syndemics perspective.

Human populations and their history have been studied at the Institute of History since 1952 when the young researcher Karin Mark started her career here. Later, Karin Mark became a leading researcher in palaeoanthro pology and somatology of Finno-Ugric peoples, and her working group grew. At the end of the 1980s, Leiu Heapost took over the position as group leader in anthropological research. In 1988 Raili Allmäe and in 2004 Jana Limbo-Simovart joined the group. Since 1998, Estonian research has been project-based; in the present paper we give a brief overview of our anthropological research at the Institute of History (and its descendants) in the last twenty years.

In the second chapter of his first research paper, the doctoral dissertation written in Latin and defended at the University of Tartu (the former Imperial University of Dorpat) in 1814, K.E. von Baer, the future natural scientist of world renown, characterised the body build and mentality of Estonians (men, women and children), in a considerably more detailed way than the previous brief overviews. Therefore, this paper is considered the beginning of research of Estonians from the viewpoint of physical anthropology. The current overview will deal with the role of Juhan Aul, Professor of Zoology at the University of Tartu, in giving an anthropological assessment to Baer’s doctoral thesis. This is followed by a discussion on whether Baer’s thesis belongs to the area of medical topography (geography). Our examination shows that Baer’s medical geographical thesis might be called an anthropological medical geographical paper. Finally, the question is posed whether the material presented in Baer’s doctoral thesis on the relations between Estonians’ health, well-being, culture, society and environment corresponds to the characteristics of the notion “medical anthropology” that has been in use since 1963, so that it could be considered the beginning of Estonian medical anthropology.

The aim of the present paper is the analysis of old nicknames which relate to the way in which our ancestors communicated. The subject of the analysis are proprial items, which were formed in order to indicate if the speakers were telling the truth, or whether they were gossiping, or saying too much, as well as items which evaluated a person because of articulatory features. The present paper is also an attempt to propose research into axiologically marked appelative anthroponyms within the methodology of cultural linguistics, complemented with biological contexts, especially research from the field of evolutionary psychology and biological anthropology.

The year 2016 in biological anthropology represented a return to the methodical study of classic questions and increased integrative team-based research that utilizes multiple methodological approaches. This review is not comprehensive, but rather highlights several papers that reflect trends in four areas of research within biological anthropology: paleoanthropology, primatology, human biology, and anthropological genetics. Methodological innovation enabled scholars in paleoanthropology to tackle questions once hampered by small sample size. Primatologists approached studies of behavior and reproduction with the rigor characteristic of the subdiscipline, while paying increasing attention to anthropogenic influences on primate habitats. Like their colleagues in paleoanthropology, human biologists also returned to enduring questions regarding reproduction, human adaptation, and behavior, including, notably, a focus on variability in cultural practice and meaning, as well as resource inequity. The publications representing anthropological genetics signify a movement toward an incorporation of multiple lines of evidence in our understanding of human and nonhuman primate ancestry. In total, these papers reveal shifts in biological anthropology toward research that is increasingly aware of the limits of siloed science and attuned to addressing issues salient to the populations and communities in which we work. [comparative morphology, Anthropocene, anthropological genetics, human biology]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to see how the disciplines of physical anthropology and race biology used photographs as documenting tools when trying to prove the existence of variations among the human species dependent on race. On a more general level the study aims to contribute to the discussions on how images work as documents in scientific practice. Design/methodology/approach The primary methodology of this study is a functional and rhetorical analysis of the photographic material taken by the Swedish State Institute of Racial Biology between 1922 and 1958. Findings How images work as documents in scientific practice depends on what kind of documents they are, and what practices they take part in. Originality/value By showing how images played an important and substantial role in the research practices of physical anthropology and race biology, this paper stresses the importance of taking images as serious influences in scientific practice. The authors stress the need for further investigations into how images work as documents in scientific contexts.