Bioarcheology is the study of archived human and animal remains. The best preserved remains are mineralized tissues, such as bones and teeth, followed by keratinized tissues such as hair. Occasionally, soft tissues are preserved and can provide useful information.

The combination of anthropological and histological techniques with recent advances such as statistical modeling, imaging, chemical analyses, and isotope ratios together with successful extraction of ancient DNA (aDNA) and massive parallel sequencing technologies have led to major advances in interpreting the implications of ancient genomes and diseases for contemporaneous medical sciences, forensic archeology (DNA fingerprinting), human history, and evolution.

We invite investigators to share their original research articles and reviews to this special issue. We are particularly interested in new developments resulting from the application of modern techniques, validated in other scientific endeavors, as applied to the advancement of bioarcheology.

We welcome studies on human and animal remains reporting paleopathological investigations, chronobiology, biotoxicology, biologic fossils, and sociobiological studies. In addition, we seek studies on infectious diseases using aDNA, DNA fingerprinting related to health and allied topics such as results of Internet based crowd sourcing as applied to bioarcheology.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Developments in the study of parasitic, bacterial, and viral genomes in human remains
• Adaptation to toxic environments and to hypoxia at altitude gleaned from studies of ancient remains
• DNA fingerprinting of archived remains
• Analytical methods, such as modeling studies, revealing biologic rhythms, imaging studies (CT and MRI), and isotope ratios
• Exploration of the growth of the human brain from early Homo to Homo sapiens as applied to contemporaneous sociality

We seek, especially, explorations of the size of the neocortex as it relates to pair bonding in modern human and primate societies compared to ancient societal structures.