Controversy in Skeletal Biology: the Use of Pathological and Osteological Markers as Evidence for Activity Patterns

One of the most pressing controversies today within a multitude of disciplines in biological anthropology including bioarchaeology, paleoanthropology and especially skeletal biology is whether or not physical activity patterns of individuals can be inferred from skeletal material and what types of activities can be reconstructed from that data (Jurmain et al., 2011). While many authors have published articles that incorporated the use of pathological and osteological markers as evidence for activity patterns, there is still much dispute within the skeletal biological community on the validity and the accuracy of the techniques used. This paper will discuss what types of markers are used to determine activity patterns as well as the difference between pathological and osteological markers. Next, it will discuss the history of using pathological and osteological markers as evidence for activity patterns and give examples of current literature circulated within the scientific community. Lastly, an argument will be made for why pathological and osteological markers are efficient tools for reconstructing past human activity if used in accordance with other variables such as health, diet, age, sex, stature, ancestry, and culture; among others and how through a deeper understanding of the many variables that influence activity patterns, solutions to this problem will become clear

U12DB: a database of orthologous U12-type spliceosomal introns

U12-type introns are spliced by the U12-dependent spliceosome and are present in the genomes of many higher eukaryotic lineages including plants, chordates and some invertebrates. However, due to their relatively recent discovery and a systematic bias against recognition of non-canonical splice sites in general, the introns defined by U12-type splice sites are under-represented in genome annotations. Such under-representation compounds the already difficult problem of determining gene structures. It also impedes attempts to study these introns genome-wide or phylum-wide. The resource described here, the U12 Intron Database (U12DB), aims to catalog the U12-type introns of completely sequenced eukaryotic genomes in a framework that groups orthologous introns with each other. This will aid further investigations into the evolution and mechanism of U12-dependent splicing as well as assist ongoing genome annotation efforts. Public access to the U12DB is available at