The Anatomical and Histological Pattern of Cremated Bone from Bronze Age Grave of Pyeongtaek in South Korea

Although cremated bones can provide valuable information on the ancient people’s life, very few anthropological analyses were conducted on the burnt bones from archaeological sites in South Korea. As for the ancient (Pyeongtaek) bones (8^th to 6^th BCE), we conducted anatomical and histological analyses to estimate the cremation pattern of the Bronze Age in Korea. In this report, we can show that the Bronze Age bones were cremated before burial and different morphological changes occurred in the bones during the cremation, due to varying ranges of the heat that were not acting evenly across the bones. We speculate that cremation technology had not yet reached a high level during the Bronze Age of Korea, which must be further proven by archaeological works in the future.