Although this likely pertains to more contemporary times, I think this is a great reminder that biology, although often seen solely as physical, can also be molded through social and cultural constructs. Thus, in interpreting skeletal remains, it is important to consider what biology may reveal about the social environment the individual inhabited during life. In deep time, this obviously may be difficult, but I think it serves to demonstrate that great thought must be devoted when attempting to assign individual anatomy to larger populations.

Somewhat unrelated to the purpose of this paper, but still relevant to the course - I wonder how trabecular bone would differ in damage in postmortem processes. Though cortical bone is typically on the outside of the bone, and thus more 'exposed' to taphonomic processes, trabecular bone is far more porous, which might be expected to preserve poorly. If anyone knows the answer to this, let me know! If not, hopefully we discuss it in class.

Perhaps it is mentioned elsewhere, but what does this mean by 'per person?' Does this refer to every maxilla/mandible that had articulated teeth? I feel like teeth would fall out fairly easily within a burial context, though I may be wrong. If the teeth are disarticulated, it seems it would be rather difficult to assign them to a particular person before analysis was conducted on them.

I think this relates to one of the reading questions: "The commitment on the part of the HWN to allow this biological material to be retained is beneficial to researchers, but is it beneficial to them?" While I do think the research was beneficial for the Huron-Wendat as it revealed scientific data regarding their past, one has to question how much authority the group actually had in 'controlling their story.' Though sometimes individuals from Indigenous groups may be involved in the research, often times it will be individuals outside of these groups running the tests in labs and publishing papers. In this sense, though the Huron-Wendat did play an important role in this research, one has to question how much authority they actually have in 'controlling their story' within a scientific context. I don't know if there is a simple, practical solution to this, however.

Though I may be wrong, I believe that research on weaning in general has been quite inconsistent. Though I don't think doing this research is bad, it leaves me wondering how such evolving research has the potential to be negative on the Huron-Wendat and other Indigenous groups. If there are many different studies that come to different cocnlusions regarding your traditional cultural practices, it seems as though you may be left with more questions than answers.

This is obviously a great outcome, but it can be expected that this will not always be the case. Perhaps the close collaboration between the University and Huron-Wendat in this process contributed to this outcome. Such a precedent should be followed in future research to ensure the interests of both groups, though specifically of Indigenous groups, can be met.