Fig 1.
Geographical location of the city of Teramo (Abruzzo, Central Italy).
Map showing the geographical location of Teramo, in the Abruzzo region (from NASA Visible Earth project – credits to Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC).
Table 1.
Results of morphologic and morphometric analyses of cremation burials from the La Cona necropolis.
Fig 2.
Cremated human remains from SU 262B (2008 excavation campaign) from La Cona necropolis (Teramo, 1st cent. BCE-1st cent. CE).
Recovered elements: (A) Cranial and axial skeleton – I. skull; II. teeth; III. ribs; IV. scapula; V. sternum; VI. vertebrae. (B) Postcranial skeleton – I. humerus, radius/ulna, metacarpus; II. femur, patella, tibia/fibula; III. pelvis. (C) Undetermined long bone fragment – I. small diameter; II. large diameter.
Fig 3.
Chromatic and morphological alterations resulting from the cremation process.
(A) LC02, humerus – carbon inclusions in bone matrix; (B) LC14, femur – chromatic alterations between periosteum and endosteum; (C) LC07, femur calcined bone with heat-induced microfractures; (D) LC12, femur – osteon splitting phenomenon.
Fig 4.
Microscopic features of the Haversian bone system.
(A) LC14, femur – secondary osteons in adult bone; (B) LC08, femur – Haversian system in immature bone; (C) LC12, femur – mature bone with resorption gaps; (D) LC11, humerus – red arrows indicate osteon banding.
Table 2.
Results of the histomorphometric analysis of cremated cortical bones.
Table 3.
Results of Osteon Population Density (OPD) for histological age at death estimation.
Fig 5.
Box and whisker plots of secondary osteons area (On. Ar.) in the analyzed sample.
Boxplots are grouped from the youngest to the oldest individuals according to microscopic age-at-death assessment. Colors indicate different age classes (red = young child, yellow = older child, green = adolescent, blue = adults, purple = mature adult, grey = faunal); within each group, specimens are ordered by increasing median values. Each bullet point represents an individual measurement; outliers were excluded. The faunal specimen (LC01) is highlighted in grey.
Fig 6.
Box and whisker plots of Haversian canal area (Hc. Ar.) in the human sub-sample.
Boxplots are grouped from the youngest to the oldest individuals according to microscopic age-at-death assessment. Colors indicate different age classes (red = young child, yellow = older child, green = adolescent, blue = adults, purple = mature adult); within each group, specimens are ordered by increasing median values. Each bullet point represents an individual measurement; outliers were excluded.
Fig 7.
Box and whisker plots of osteon circularity (On. Cr.) for the human sub-sample.
Boxplots are grouped from the youngest to the oldest individuals according to microscopic age-at-death assessment. Colors indicate different age classes (red = young child, yellow = older child, green = adolescent, blue = adults, purple = mature adult); within each group, specimens are ordered by increasing median values. Each bullet point represents an individual measurement; outliers were excluded.