Normal and abnormal growth is the subject matter of this chapter, which deals with dwarfism, gigantism, disorders of skull growth and various conditions in which a part of the whole of a limb may not develop.

Several of the theories of health and disease are critically considered. It is suggested that health is a subjective value-laden phenomenon, whereas disease is objective and value-free.

The basic concepts of palaeopathology are discussed, including the stability of the reaction of the skeleton to pathological insults and the expression of disease.

This describes the development of palaeopathology from the eighteenth century onwards and includes accounts of some of the earliest palaeopathologists.

This chapter includes sections on neuropathology, soft-tissue lesions and heterotopic ossification. It also gives a short account of the anaemias

Here reference is made to benign and malignant primary tumours of bone and to the more important secondary malignant tumours that form the bulk of those seen in the skeleton.

The principal ways in which the frequency of disease can be calculated are given here, with emphasis on those appropriate for use in palaeoepidemiology. Ways of ensuring comparability between studies of disease frequency in archaeological assemblages are also considered.

The more common forms of spinal disease are brought together in this chapter, including diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis, kyphosis and scoliosis.

Chapter 3 unpacks the jewellery inference about Neanderthal language and appraises its soundness. Including three inferential steps represented by arrows, this inference looks in outline as follows: The Neanderthal occupants of the archaeological sites S1,…,Sn were associated with the objects O1,…,On → They wore these objects as personal ornaments → They treated these ornaments as symbols → They had language. [Sites S1,…,Sn include the Grotte du Renne and at least seven other caves/shelters. The objects O1,…, On include, inter alia, marine shells, raptor talons and feathers and perforated animal teeth.] With reference to a large literature, Chapter 3 finds the following about the soundness of the jewellery inference: (a) the data from which the first inference starts provide adequate empirical grounding for it; (b) this step is warranted by an accepted theory of the distinctive propeties of personal ornaments; (c)the second step is unwarranted: it is not underpinned by an adequate theory of the distinctive properties of symbols as opposed to other signs. This finding implies that the third inferential step lacks the necessary grounding.

Chapter 7 appraises the language inference. It is the final component of the jewellery inference, the cave-art inference, the body-decoration inference and the deliberate-burial inference. It comprises one step: Certain Neanderthals had symbols → These Neanderthals had language. This inference fails all three soundness conditions. First, the conclusion that certain Neanderthals had language lacks pertinence: the entity central to this conclusion, language, is on the whole not clearly identified and adequately characterised in the literature. That is, language is not distinguished in a principled way from other linguistic entities, including linguistic capacity, language ability, linguistic skill, speech and communication. Second, the inferential step lacks uncontentious grounding: it has not been uncontroversially established that Neanderthals engaged in symbolic behaviours. The inferential step lacks an appropriate warrant: it moves in an arbitrary way from putative cultural symbols that cannot be semantically combined to linguistic signs that can be semantically combined, a distinction drawn in a principled way in the literature. So, the language inference is unsound.

Chapter 6 elucidates and appraises the deliberate-burial inference about Neanderthal language. In outline, this inference comprises the following three inferential steps: Data about the Neandertal skeletal remains R1,…,Rn found in the state C at the caves C1,…,Cn along with the objects O1,…,On → These Neanderthals were deliberately buried → The Neanderthals who carried out the burials behaved symbolically → These Neanderthals had language. The first inferential step is found to be well warranted by an accepted theory of the properties of deliberate Neanderthal burials. One of these properties is that the skeletal remains are located in a natural or Neanderthal-made pit. For the second inferential step to be empirically grounded, the skeletal remains are required to be accompanied by grave goods, objects ritually deposited along with the body for use in after life. There isn't evidence that the objects – e.g., flint scrapers, the upper jawbone of a red dear, a rhinoceros tooth – found along with Neanderthal skeletal remains were indeed grave goods. The second inferential step is, accordingly, considered unsound in the literature, leaving the third ungrounded.