Using Resampling Statistics to Test Male Interment Bias: Applications for Looted and Commingled Prehistoric Remains in Peru and the Reassessment of Neandertal Burials

Abstract

The taphonomic processes that cloud reconstruction of past cultural practices and paleodemography are complex and include the preservation of a specimen or the discovery of the site. There has long been a notion of sex related bias in Neandertal burials and it is an easy assumption to make any time the number of specimens attributed to one sex is greater than the other in any interred population. Resampling statistics can be used to test the likelihood that a specific sample is representative of the expected parent population. Here we examine statistical uncertainty in burial contexts using two examples―combined Neandertal burials and commingled remains from a single pre-historic tomb in Peru. The Peruvian tomb represents the problematic ossuary context that many bioarchaeologists encounter, while the Neandertal sample represents one of the most classic discussions of sex bias in our field’s his-tory. Using resampling statistics, we fail to reject the null hypothesis that Neandertal burials do not deviate signifi-cantly from the expectation of random draws from a population with a balanced sex ratio. The same finding is true for a prehistoric (AD 2000–1000) ossuary burial in highland Peru. The present data do not necessitate inference of male interment bias in Neandertals and suggest caution to bioarchaeologists interpreting commingled remains.