Lander, Stacey Lee2014-08-222014-08-222014-08-22http://hdl.handle.net/10539/15229Human skeletal remains of archaeological origin were rescued and exhumed from the Crown Mines site. Due to their poor preservation, estimates of age, sex, ancestry and stature could not be accurately assessed using the morphology of the bones. In such circumstances, histology has been shown to be a helpful technique used to acquire additional information. Assessing the his-tology of the Crown Mines‟ bone samples and their histological alterations associated with its poor bone preservation, also known as diagenesis, may lead to more accurate interpretations of the above estimates. The aim of this study was therefore to describe the histological integrity of the bones and assess the chemical interactions between the bones and the soil during diagene-sis. Fifty femora were selected from the exhumed remains taken from the Crown Mines and cross-sections were manually ground. Using light and polarized microscopy a variation of mi-crocracks, infiltrations, inclusions and staining were qualitatively identified mainly in the periosteal and endosteal zones, with the mesosteal zone being well preserved. Interestingly, no biodegradation was present. Chemically, there were a number of elements that were altered due to diagenesis and there was a transfer of element/s from the soil to the bone and vice versa. His-tologically, the preservation of the bones was good, having sufficient microstructure for future assessment to improve the accuracies of age-at-death estimation and for descriptions of pathol-ogy and trauma. Future research would benefit from investigating the mesosteal zone for the estimation of age-at-death as the periosteal zone was often not well preserved in the Crown Mines‟ bone samples.enThesis