Osteobiographies of Marginalised Individuals in Late Twentieth‑Century Hong Kong

CHEUNG Po Yuet Selene1,2*, WU Cheuk Wing Belle2,3, WAI S. K. Aaron2,4, LI S. Y. Joyce2, POON M. T. Melody2, YEUNG W. K. Andy5, Fabio Savoldi6, James Tsoi5,10, LEE H. S. Winsome2,7,8, and Michael Rivera2,9,10

At the HKU Human Bone Collection, we can investigate health‑related and historical narratives of marginalised individuals through palaeopathological analysis. Most of the assemblage we work with in Hong Kong belongs to individuals whose lives were marked by poor living conditions, food instability, and migration‑related precarity in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. We present several case studies of children, adolescents, young‑to‑middle‑aged adults, and seniors, who have been analysed systematically through a record of common pathological lesions across their bones and teeth. In this population, we document an overarching pattern of physiological stress, long‑term hardship, malnutrition, and labour‑intensive lifestyles in these contexts. Signs of non‑specific infection, genetic disorders, metabolic disorders, degenerative joint disease, and dental pathologies both narrate the challenges these individuals endured in their everyday life and prompt us to reflect on their resilience in such times of squalor and inequality. We conclude this talk by considering how bioarchaeological research provides us with details not seen typically in the history of Hong Kong (which typically focuses on the top‑down impact of policies and urban development). In the absence of oral sources and written sources on Hong Kong’s most forgotten historical groups, skeletal remains give us the chance to recognise their migration stories, their daily lived experiences, and their humanity.