Ossuary

“ Lapham at Waukesha, Wisconsin, before referred to. In that the remains of a single individual were discovered, but in this it would seem that the skeletons of an entire family, gathered from their temporary resting places, had been carefully buried side by side, a silent testimonial to parental love and affection of friends among the mound-builders.
No. 1, 6 feet high and 45 feet in diameter, was found to be an ossuary. Beneath the top layer was an arched stratum of clay and ashes mixed, so firm and hard as to retain its form unsupported over a space of several feet. ”

“ These being very thick placed, they cover them many times double with bark; then they throw the earth thereon that came out of the grave and beat it down very firm. By this means the dead body lies in a vault, nothing touching him. After a time the body is taken up, the bones cleaned, and deposited in an ossuary called the Quiogozon. ”

“ In some parts the dead are burned; in others, the flesh is scraped from the bones, or the body is exposed until they are cleaned by the ants and other animals, and then they are carefully collected and placed in an ossuary ”

“ The state of the osseous system and the condition and number of the teeth, which strictly speaking are not bone, are among the surest guides in the determination of age. The signs furnished thereby may vary according to the periods of increase, maturity, and decline.
During fœtal life and even at the epoch of birth the bone centres are few. The distal end of the femur, the proximal end of the tibia, and the astragalus are ossified at birth. Points of ossification appear in successive order of development. ”

“ Hilaire and Cuvier, who agreed in thinking that ossification from a separate centre was the test of a separate bone, and that thus there were as many elementary bones in the skeleton as there were centres of ossification, Professor Owen points out that, according to this test, the human femur, which is ossified from four centres, must be regarded as four bones; while the femur in birds and reptiles, which is ossified from a single centre, must be regarded as a single bone. ”

“ Complete ossification at these two places occurs only when the bone has ceased to increase in length; and, on considering what would have happened had the bone been ossified from end to end before its growth was complete, it will be seen how great an obstacle to growth is thus escaped. What holds here, holds throughout the organism: though structure up to a certain point is requisite for further growth, structure beyond that point impedes growth. How necessary is this relation we shall equally perceive in a more complex case—say, the growth of an entire limb. ”

“ In the bony fishes (Teleostei) the membrane or dermal bones are still more numerous, and many of them are unrepresented in the mammalian skull, while others, which are there quite rudimentary, are very large. The chondro-cranium tends to disappear in the vault, but the base is fully ossified. Among other cartilage bones the five ossifications of the auditory capsule are seen, the pro-, epi-, opisth-, pter- and sphen-otics, all of which are found as centres of ossification in man. ”

“ The heads of the bones, a considerable portion of the skull, maxillary bones, teeth, neck bones, and the vertebra, were in their proper places, though the weight of the earth above them had driven them down, yet the entire frame was so perfect that it was an easy matter to trace all the bones; the bones of the cranium were slightly inclined toward the east. Around the neck were found coarse beads that seemed to be of some hard substance and resembled chalk. A small lump of red paint about the size of an egg was found near the right side of this skeleton. ”

“ The adult bones associated with this burial included the upper portion of a skull, right and left femur, right and left tibia, two fibula fragments, a first sacral vertebra, and fragments of both the right and left innominates. The child is represented by a left parietal. Several of the skull fragments as well as the right femur and sacral vertebra of the adult showed evidence of burning. Most of the skeletal material is fragmentary and in poor condition.
The age of the adult is based on cranial suture closure. ”

“ When ossification sets in, the ear-capsule forms three bones, of which two fuse with the supraoccipital and exoccipitals.
During the formation of the ear-capsule the cranial basis develops from a plate to a trench, for in its hinder section the side parts grow up to form the side walls of the brain, in exactly the same way as the processes of the vertebral rudiments grow up to enclose the spinal column (pp. 122, 192) . The foundations of the skull are now complete, and ossification gradually sets in.
Fig. 11.—Embrionic Cranium of the Adder. Ventral Aspect. (After Rathke.) ”

“ Had the osseous system been merely intended to give shape to animals, and preserve the relative position of their parts, it might, for any useful purpose, have been as well formed of one piece; and accordingly, when almost all the bones of the body have been anchylosed, or immoveably united to each other by disease, the functions of life have gone on uniformly to an advanced age. There is a remarkable skeleton of this kind preserved at Trinity College, Dublin; where all the large bones of the body are immoveably united together, except the lower jaw, and the joints of the fingers ”

“ In infancy, in which the first predominates, in the early stages of the formation of callus, in which it is exclusively found, in the softening of the bones in which it remains almost alone, all the vital phenomena become more evident and more powerful. On the contrary, as age accumulates in the bones the saline substance, as in certain animals this accumulation takes place by the natural laws of ossification in some external portions of the system with calcareous base, as in the horns of stags, the shells of crustaceous animals, &c. ”

“ The bones, having become completely ossified, continue to undergo different phenomena which anatomists have too much neglected. The general growth in height is terminated when ossification is complete; and it even appears that the term of these two is nearly the same; but that in breadth continues for a long time after; compare the small and slender body of a young man of eighteen years, with the stout and well proportioned one of a man of forty, and you will see the difference. The bones follow the general law ”

“ In addition are the time of life at which centres of ossification appear and the union of epiphyses to the shafts of bones and bones with each other.
In intra-uterine life centres of ossification appear by the end of the sixth month in the os calcis, manubrium, and the bodies and laminas of the sacral vertebræ; by the seventh, in the first piece of the body of the sternum and the astragalus; by the eighth, in the second piece of the body of the sternum; at full term in the cuboid, third piece of the sternal body, first coccygeal vertebra, and the lower epiphysis of the femur. ”

“ The ossification of the bones on the sides and upper part of the skull, for example, begins by a rounded spot in the middle of each one. From this spot the ossification extends outward in every direction, thus gradually approaching the edges of the bone. When two adjacent bones meet, there will be a line where their edges are in contact with each other, but have not yet united ”

“ About ten feet eastward of the central deposit, on the south side of the line of excavation, and half a foot deeper, a deposit of fragments of bone was found, apparently calcined, with but little charcoal, or burnt earth, forming a layer not more than three inches thick, and two feet in circumference. There were several pieces of the skull, a portion of the alveolar process, inclosing a tooth, apparently that of a young person, pieces of the femur and clavicle, and other fragments. ”

“ Figure 2 shows a dorsal view of these structures in a young frog. The parts corresponding to these in 1,II. will be easily made out, but now ossification has set in at various points of this cartilaginous cranium. In front of the otic capsule is the paired pro-otic bone (p.o.) ; behind it at the sides of the parachordal ring is the paired ex-occipital (e.o.) ; in front of the cranium box, and behind the nasal capsules, is a ring of bone, the (median, but originally paired) sphenethmoid (s.e.) . -A paired ossification appears in the palato-pterygoid cartilage the pterygoid bone (pt.) ”

“ This general disposition to ossification in its whole course, proves that its nature is every where the same, and that notwithstanding the differences pointed out, I have had reason to consider it in an uniform manner, from the pulmonary capillary system to the general; for as I have already observed, an identity of diseases supposes an identity of nature. It is the frequency of ossifications of this membrane in the heart of old people, which renders extremely frequent the intermission of the pulse at that age. ”

“ Agassiz found that the study of fossil fishes exhibits a remarkable parallelism between the development of the individual and that of the class in geologic time. During part of the embryonic life of fishes, and even in some adult forms, the dorsal cord exists as a simple gelatinous cylinder, surrounded by a fibrous sheath, in which, after a time, there is found a cartilaginous and then an osseous deposit, which goes to form the vertebrae, the ossification taking place first in the apophyses. ”

“ For years the workmen had been instructed to keep a sharp lookout for human remains. The jaw had evidently drifted down with the river sands and had become separated from the skull, but it remained in perfect preservation. The author's description may first be quoted. (36) The mandible shows a combination of features never before found in any fossil or recent man. The protrusion of the lower jaw just below the front teeth which gives shape to the human chin is entirely lacking. ”

“ The long bones grow at a point of junction between the bone proper and an overlying layer of gristle or cartilage, known as the zone of ossification. It is upon this zone of ossification that the various growth influences appear to focus and concentrate their efforts, among them the internal secretions. ”

“ Immediately beneath the skull lay the greater part of a human tibia, presenting the peculiar compression known as a platycnemism to the degree of affording a latitudinal index of .512; while beneath and surrounding it lay the fragments of a large number of human bones, probably constituting an entire individual. In the second instance of this peculiar mode in cremation, the cranium was discovered on nearly the opposite side of the mound, at a depth of 2 feet, and, like the former, resting on its apex. It was filled with a black mass—the residuum of burnt human bones mingled with sand. ”

“ They exhibit a rough symmetry; they rarely attain any size; and they usually cease growing when the skeleton attains maturity—the conversion of cartilage into bone being then completed. While they originate from the ossifying junctions of the long bones, they tend, as the shaft increases in length, to project from the surface of the bone at some distance from the ossifying junction and to “point” away from it. They may cause symptoms by “locking” the adjacent joint or by pressing upon nerve-trunks or blood vessels. ”

“ Among the parts better preserved is a calvarium of an adult. A skull of an adult and one of a young subject, which lay a little to one side and deeper, are almost wholly shattered. Besides the preceding the excavation yielded a lower jaw, ulna, humerus, radii, parts of the pelvic bones, a femur, tibia, clavicles, vertebræ, and pieces of ribs. Of animal bones the same layer showed, according to Knies and Maška, those of Canis vulpes, Canis lagopus, Canis lupus, Ursus spelæus, Lepus variabilis, Lagomys pusillus, Rangifer tarandus, Cervus alces, and Bos priscus. ”

“ The interment consisted of a quantity of calcined human bones, which lay upon a thin layer of earth at the bottom of the hole, as compactly as if they had at first been deposited within a shallow basket or similar perishable vessel. Upon them lay some fragments of iron, part of two bone combs, and twenty-eight convex objects of bone, like button-moulds.
“The pieces of iron have been attached to some article of perishable material; the largest fragment has a good-sized loop, as if for suspension. ”

“ Their excavations had, indeed, brought to light pots containing fragments of skulls, but not buried in the position they imagined. Very extensive explorations made at different times by myself have shown that only fragments of skulls and of the long bones of the body are to be found in the mound, and that these are commonly associated with earthen pots, sometimes whole, but more frequently broken fragments only. In some instances portions of the skull were placed in a pot, and the long bones were deposited in its immediate vicinity. ”

“ Many burial-mounds, three or four feet in height, can be seen now in South Florida, as we have been present when excavations were made in the vicinity of Tampa and Manatee, where beads, pottery, and well-preserved tibia of both sexes, were dug out. These bodies had been buried with their heads all toward a common center, with the greatest regularity. The cranium seems to crumble more than any other ossified portion of the body—the jaw-bones being very perfect, teeth much worn, having belonged to old persons in whose service they had been employed for many years. ”