Interdisciplinarity of secondary osteons: relevance of bioarchaeological and palaeontological research in biomedical cortical bone histology studies

Secondary osteons are fundamental products of bone metabolic processes. They accumulate, crowd, and superimpose over themselves over the lifespan of the individual and capture significant biological, environmental, and even social information. They are crucial in biomedical research as a reflection of bone health and disease. Because bone preserves after death, secondary osteons offer a window into past human and animal lives. They are arguably one of very few biological traits that have been examined across multiple disciplines that work with modern and ancient samples. Here, we review articles indexed in PubMed that examine secondary osteons but span beyond biomedicine, such as palaeontology and bioarchaeology. We aim to identify commonalities and differences across these disciplines to highlight potential for exchange of existing complementary data and future collaborative avenues. We find that 9 % of articles reporting new secondary osteon data (622 obtained) represent archaeological or fossil material. The key shared positive outcome across these disciplines has been data and histology images that provide insights into age, sex, behaviour, species discrimination, and anatomical variation. The main limitations of using ancient samples are the unknown and thus estimated demographic information of human and animal remains studied, and artifacts of taphonomy and bioerosion seen in bone histology that originate from post-mortem, burial, and diagenetic processes, which are not present in biomedical samples. We conclude that a histological analysis of secondary osteons can be a versatile tool in different fields of bone research and encourage transdisciplinary collaboration to better improve our knowledge of bone remodelling processes.

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