The detailed osteological analysis is a standardised examination of washed bones and cremated remains. Various guidelines and standards, placing different emphasis on data depth, have been developed worldwide for this purpose.

The Laboratory for Prehistoric Anthropology Girotto offers morphological analyses to all common international standards. For analyses in Bavaria, the requirements of the Anthropological State Collection Munich (SAM) for standardised skeletal documentation of inhumations and cremations are authoritative.

In Bavaria, a corresponding analysis is prescribed prior to sampling, for example for ¹⁴C or aDNA analyses. The documentation forms cover, in addition to fragmentation, surface preservation and skeletal representation, detailed protocols for biological sex and age-at-death estimation, dental status and dental disease, degenerative state of joints and spine, recording of metric data, as well as individual peculiarities, injuries and diseases of the individual examined. Sample collection is also documented.

Similar information can be recorded on documentation forms for cremations – although, due to preservation conditions, with a stronger focus on metric data.

The analysis of this considerably more robust and comprehensive dataset – compared to the field assessment in-situ – allows individual persons and their living conditions and lifestyle to be characterised, whilst also situating them both within their burial community and within the broader scientific context.

Depending on research questions, both short summaries and publication-ready reports can be produced. Comprehensive analyses frequently give rise to new anthropological and archaeological approaches and research ideas.