Visual inventories and field note templates for contextualised recording of human remains

Abstract

This short note is a presentation of seven new visual inventory sheets and five new standardised field note sheets posted on open access. Compared to those currently used in France, our protocols have the advantage of being written in English, for those working outside French-speaking countries. They are also more accurate anatomically and better coverage of specificities by age at death. They have been adapted to bones found in multiple and mixed contexts that cannot be attributed to specific individuals. In the field, they allow archaeo-anthropologists constrained by time to record essential information by taking descriptive notes and drawings.

Keywords

• fieldwork
• inventories
• standardized notes
• archaeothanatology
• bioanthropology