“The upper and lower ends of a humerus are like the brim and base of an urn. The shaft of the bone is like the belly of the urn. Fragments, even minute ones, of the detailed parts of a bone are like the indicator sherds of a broken urn. Fragments, even large ones, of the shaft of a bone are like the body sherds of a broken urn. Analyzing bones, after all, is very much like analyzing pottery.”

—  Jeffrey H. Schwartz

Source: What the Bones Tell Us (1997), Ch. 1 Everything You Wanted to Know about Bones (and More)

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Jeffrey H. Schwartz photo
Jeffrey H. Schwartz 25
American anthropologist 1948

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