Practice question · True or false
A cemetery with many skeletons showing healed disease lesions must have been a sicker population than one with few lesions.
Hints
- Healed lesions mark people whose bodies survived long enough to react.
- Those who died fastest leave no marks at all.
Show the answer
False
Why
The osteological paradox: healed lesions mark survivors whose bodies fought and remodeled. Those who died quickly leave no lesions. More visible disease can mean a tougher population, the bone’s meaning is never self-evident.
Practise Bioarchaeology
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on Bioarchaeology
- Sort each isotope by what it primarily reveals.
- A cemetery shows high infant mortality and, among adults, unusually good health. Why might that be a…
- Order these skeletal age markers from the youngest age they appear to the oldest.
- A skeleton shows no disease lesions at all. Why does that NOT establish that the person was healthy?
- Match each isotope system to its headline result.
- Which conclusions can bioarchaeology reasonably support from a well-preserved cemetery?
- A skeleton shows enamel hypoplasia lines and a healed fracture. Why do the two together say more about this…