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Although there has been extensive experimental research on the thermal modification of bone, the results have rarely been applied to complex legacy funerary assemblages. The human skeletal remains from an Early Bronze Age IA tomb at Jericho were analysed to assess the utility of macroscopic taphonomic approaches both to interpreting intentionality in complex funerary practices involving the burning of human bones, and in understanding legacy assemblages that often lack the depth of contextual information available for their modern counterparts. These analyses generated valuable evidence for the interpretation of complex funerary practices in legacy assemblages, including the state of remains prior to burning, the approximate intensity of thermal modification and the deposition practice. This investigation highlights the value of non-destructive macroscopic taphonomic analysis as the foundation in the investigation of burning in complex legacy assemblages.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 (DSM-5) definition of alcohol use disorder (AUD) has been criticized on the ground that it leads to high prevalence rates and a highly heterogeneous group. Failure of the DSM to consider development may exacerbate these issues (e.g., conflating experimentation with problematic drinking). Wakefield and Schmitz (2015) proposed a definition of AUD that comports to the harmful dysfunction (HD) theory of mental disorders while data-driven approaches have suggested that key symptoms like craving, failure to fulfill obligations, hazardous use, and alcohol use despite interpersonal consequences are optimal (OPT) criteria for AUD (Stevens et al., 2019). Prior work suggests both may reduce the likelihood of conflating experimentation with problematic drinking during key developmental periods. Continuous and categorical structural equation models of DSM, HD, and OPT criteria were compared on A) prevalence, B) patterns of alcohol use in adolescence (age 10-18 years) C) early AUD symptoms in adolescence (age 13-15) and D) concurrent alcohol use and alcohol consequences to assess prospective and concurrent convergent validity using a longitudinal design (N = 765; ages 10-21 years). Results supported prior literature that the HD and OPT criteria produced a smaller diagnostic class than the DSM. Furthermore, the HD and OPT criteria had larger and more consistent effects with validators than the DSM with the OPT criteria having the largest effects and the least criteria. Future work should consider whether the OPT or HD criteria better reflect AUD severity than the DSM across development.