Bone-formers and bone-losers: factors in assessing age-at-death in human remains

The purpose of this study is to better understand the complicated process of bone remodelling and to clearly identify age-related differences in peak bone amount that will ultimately improve our ability to estimate age-at-death from human skeletal remains. This is a collaborative project between UVic (Anthropology) and UBC (Anthropology), the Musculoskeletal Imaging Research Group (Radiology), and the Centre for Hip Health and Mobility. We are examining differences in individual ability either to form bone, or to lose bone in response to stress, considering the effect of in-vivo behaviours on the rate of bone remodelling, progression of osteoarthritis, bone loss, and bone mineral content in a skeletal series from a collection of body composition scans and associated de-identified patient records. This research is funded by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2021).