“Violence as an analytical concept in bioarchaeology: new perspectives from museum collections” by Constanze Schattke
Osteological museum collections are important sources for bioarchaeological research, but their acquisition histories are often marked by violence. Using the example of the Department of Anthropology at the Natural History Museum in Vienna, the lecture presents how violence can be used as an interdisciplinary concept to identify, analyse and contextualise the acquisition contexts surrounding human remains. The focus is not only on the anthropological examination of individual individuals, but also on clarifying their provenance. In addition to case studies from Tanzania and Bosnia-Herzegovina, a collection-wide analysis will show how archival data can be linked to osteological data. Finally, an overview of the current state of research on violence in bioarchaeology will be outlined and perspectives for future research opportunities will be presented.

“The Missing Narrative — How osteobiographical research completes Avar history” by Luna Macho
While the Late Avar Period in Central and Eastern Europe (720-822 AD) provides historians only with little sources of the Avar Empire and its collapse, the archaeological sciences have uncovered multiple burial sites dating to that century of geopolitical instability. In the study presented, osteobiographies conducted on an 8th century Avar population, excavated from today’s Hirschstetten (Vienna, Austria), will reveal insights into early medieval living conditions and health. In doing so, bioarchaeological research of the Late Avar Period not only fills in the knowledge gaps, but also offers an explanation as to why the historical sources fade during that time.