Introduction

This guide is intended to help educate potential buyers and to illuminate some of the more misleading statements that are typically made in listings for skulls and skeletons. eBay allows the sale of "skulls and skeletons that are used for medical purposes."  In practice, you can find skulls in a wide variety of conditions, from professionally-prepared specimens to "found" skulls. Listing and buying skulls is a privilege here on eBay, not a right. If you want to buy responsibly, and if you want to avoid being taken advantage of by sellers who know that most people have never studied human anatomy, then this guide is for you.

Background

The modern era of skull-selling on eBay could be said to have begun in 2004, when a Beijing-based seller began listing disarticulated human skulls on eBay. Initially, eBay cancelled his listings and then terminated his user accounts. He persisted, and in fall 2004 was allowed to sell dozens of skulls. Prior to this, eBay had typically only allowed the listing of articulated skulls, i.e. skulls with cut calvariums and mandibles fastened to the cranium by springs, although enforcement was sporadic and inconsistent. In early 2005, additional sellers began attempting to list human skulls for auction. eBay repeatedly cancelled these listings and offered conflicting rationales for doing so. For example, my business partner received a cancellation notice telling him that "only skulls with articulated mandibles" were allowed to be sold on eBay, even though the written eBay policy on human remains said no such thing. But by mid-year 2005, eBay apparently decided to relax their secret/unwritten rules slightly, and most human skulls were allowed to be listed. Notable exceptions as of this writing include carved skulls and decorated skulls, which, although not specifically disallowed by eBay, will be cancelled, and Native American remains, which are prohibited for sale by U.S. federal law under the 1990 NAGPRA law (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act).

Types of Skulls

Broadly speaking, skulls on eBay can be classified as one of several types:

1. Articulated
2. Demonstration
3. Disarticulated
   

An articulated skull, as mentioned above, is a skull with the calvarium (skullcap) sliced off and affixed to the skull by means of hooks, with the mandible fastened to the cranium by springs. A majority of these skulls came from India and were prepared or sold by medical supply houses including Carolina Biology Supply Company, Ward's Scientific, Kilgore International, Clay Adams, and Adam Rouilly. After India stopped exporting human remains in the mid-1980s, supply dropped off and now these companies no longer prepare and sell real human skulls.

A demonstration skull is an articulated skull that has undergone additional preparation to show internal features not normally visible, such as the inner ear or the sinuses. Sometimes plastic or resin wires are added to show nerves or blood vessels.

A disarticulated skull is a skull that has been cleaned and sterilized but is otherwise unprepared. The cranium is not cut and the mandible is unattached. Most skulls sold on eBay today are disarticulated skulls and thus the purpose of this guide is to help bidders and buyers evaluate what is being offered for sale and to help sort through some of the claims that are being made.

21st Century Suppliers

China is indisputably the biggest supplier of human bones on the market today. However, at this writing, no major medical university or supply house has dominated the market; instead, China has many small providers. This allows for a wide variation in quality. In some cases, medical students prepare the specimens as part of their training. In other cases, untrained workers simply clean and sterilize bones. Occasionally mistakes are made (such as using excessive sodium hypochlorite, i.e. plain household bleach, instead of a peroxide-containing chemical such as sodium percarbonate) resulting in bone that is damaged - flaky, porous, and/or pitted. Therefore, a buyer looking for a high-quality specimen to use in a teaching environment must be careful in evaluating a specimen based on photographs alone.

What to look for in auction descriptions

Most skull listings are terse and lacking in detail, so a buyer must make most evaluations based on the photographs. Before we get to that, let's take a look at some typical claims that are made in auction listings.

Original Mandible. This statement is very common but unfortunately it is not always accurate. Some providers in China are quite careless and they process skulls in batches instead of singly. Afterwards they do not always match the correct mandible to the correct skull. Buying a skull with a mismatched mandible is a common problem on eBay. Check the photos carefully and look for the following points:

• Does the color of the mandible match the color of the skull upper? If not, it might not be original.
• Do the teeth properly line up? Even in people who don't ever go to a dentist, the upper and lower teeth should come together, especially in the back of the jaw. A person might have an overbite, but he won't have lower molars that don't grind against the uppers or he won't be able to chew his food! If you see teeth that don't line up, suspect a mismatched mandible.
• Do the color of the teeth in the mandible match the color of the upper teeth? If not, suspect a mismatched mandible. You can also check the pattern of scaling (plaque build-up)... it should roughly match.
• Does the lower jaw appear to fit properly? If it looks crooked, or too long or too short, suspect a mismatched mandible.

Came from Medical School/Purchased from Closed Medical School. This statement is almost de rigeur in skull listings. However, unless the seller offers you a receipt (which will probably be entirely in Chinese), you should suspect that it is not true. I can tell you from experience that the vast majority of the skull preparations being done in China today are not coming from medical schools. If you are ethically concerned about your purchase, don't let this simple sentence mollify you. More on this later.

Antique/19th Century/200-300 years old. This is so common as to require its own section. Please see below. But let the buyer beware: my own estimate is that less than 25% of the skulls claimed to be antiques are in fact actually so. Just because a skull is brown or discolored doesn't mean that it's old.

Female. I wish I had a dollar for every time a seller claimed a skull was female. However, the reality is that after many years of China's "one child" policy, there is a significant gender imbalance in China, with many more males than females. Therefore female skulls from China are much rarer than male skulls! I see countless male skulls listed as female, because it seems that buyers like female skulls. See the next section for more information on how to tell if a skull is actually female.

What to look for in auction photographs

Since you can't actually hold the item in your hand, photos are your best source of information about skulls on eBay. Learn to look carefully! A complete set of photos should allow you to see all the things I will describe below. A good seller will provide all the photos you need to evaluate the skull.

Teeth. The same careless suppliers who mix up mandibles are also perfectly willing to sell you skulls with mix-and-matched teeth. This is EXTREMELY common. For many people, this isn't an issue, but for those studying dentistry or oral surgery, you'd probably want to know if the dentition was all-original before buying a skull, right? Here's what you can look for:

• Teeth that don't match in color. Unless there's an obvious infection, the color of the enamel and the roots should be consistent. Teeth that don't match the prevailing color are probably replacements. Use the molars as your guide to color and appearance since they are almost always original (the shape of their roots prevents them from falling out postmortem).
  
• Teeth that don't fit properly into their sockets. If you see a lot of space in the socket around a tooth, it's probably a replacement. There are exceptions, of course (such as an infection that led to an abscess) but this is a general rule.
  
• Mandibles that don't seem to close properly. Even in people who have never seen a dentist, the teeth should generally line up properly. If you see lots of daylight between the lower and upper teeth, it's quite likely that an ill-fitting tooth has been placed into the skull and is preventing the jaw from fitting properly to the skull upper. Check the canine teeth and the incisors in particular for these teeth are the most commonly replaced.
  
• Plaque patterns that are inconsistent. If a skull has a lot of plaque on its molars but none on the canines, it COULD be because the person was careless about brushing his teeth - but more likely the canine is a replacement.

Dental work and fillings. If you see a mercury filling or a metal crown or a bridge, you can be fairly confident that a given skull is not more than a few decades old (at most!) Only the very wealthy or privileged had access to dentists in China and Southeast Asia until the past few decades. Most people had poor dentition, and in fact many people in the region today STILL have poor dentition by western standards. Therefore, any sign of professional dental work should be clue that the skull is not particularly old.

Morphology. The gross morphology (i.e. the shape and structure of a skull) can often indicate sex. If a skull is listed as female, look for things like:

• high, vertical forehead
  
• smoother forehead without large supraorbital ridges (i.e. bony protuberances above eyes)
• smaller, rounded jaw (not squared like a male mandible)
  
• rounded orbits with sharper edges
• small mastoid process (the bony protrusion just behind the ear)
• smaller overall appearance

Remember, these are rough guidelines; it's always possible to find a large, rugged female skull, or a small, gracile male skull. But if you look at auction photos for a supposedly female skull and you see large, bony ridges above the eyebrows; a big, squared jaw; and/or large mastoid processes behind the ear, then you should suspect a male skull.

Antique Skulls/Claims of Antiquity

Folks, this is where I hope you'll really pay attention. I wish we didn't have to talk about this, but there are an increasing number of claims of antiquity in skull auctions here on eBay, and most of them appear unsubstantiated by evidence or written provenance. In some cases, misinformation is simply being passed on by unsuspecting sellers (who don't know any better themselves, having never studied any anatomy or anthropology) which makes it important for you, the buyer, to have enough information to sift through the claims to see what is likely to be true and what isn't.

Why does this matter? Well, you should be aware that China is currently experiencing an epidemic of looting and tomb-raiding. Often the goal is precious jades or other cultural artifacts. Human remains are often carelessly discarded in the search for valuable artifacts; there have been well-publicized cases where road workers find old skeletons casually tossed aside by grave robbers. China has now applied to the U.S. State Department for formal protection of cultural artifacts as provided by section 9 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention. "Bone objects" are specifically mentioned in the request. So please be aware that the right to import and purchase human skulls from China is one that is not immutable: it could be taken away in the future! Please consider this when contemplating the purchase of any skull that is claimed to be 19th century or older.

What should you look for? Here are the big ones:

• Modern dental work. If you see any of this, the skull is almost certainly NOT an antique! Prior to the 20th century, there was almost no dentistry as we know it today... but there were doctors and barbers (yes, barbers) and village medicine men who PULLED teeth! They didn't repair them. If you see tooth repair of any kind, you are almost surely not looking at an antique skull.
  
• Modern teeth. It wasn't too long ago that most people had limited diets (by western standards) and little or no access to medical or dental care. Nineteenth-century teeth (heck, even teeth from the first half of the 20th century) are often flat and worn-down from sand or other grit in food, and many people had lost a majority of their teeth by the time they reached middle age. When you see a skull with full dentition and teeth with good enamel/good definition and no cavities, it is almost certainly MODERN, no matter what the auction listing might say.
  
• Intact teeth. Tooth enamel may be the hardest substance in the human body, but nevertheless, teeth are fragile! And truly antique skulls have had a lot of chances to be dropped, mishandled, or otherwise accidentally damaged. For a skull to last 100+ years without a single tooth being lost or broken is extremely rare. If you see a skull with perfect teeth being advertised as 19th century, antique, or "300 years old", you should wonder how that skull survived so nicely into the 21st century. (In the future I hope to update this guide with photos that illustrate real antique skulls vs. so-called antique skulls.)
  
• Discoloration. This is the biggest area of abuse. Just because a skull is discolored does not mean that it is old! I see this every week on eBay. Any physical anthropologist can tell you that environmental conditions can easily lead to a skull turning quite dark in just a few years. Similarly, an ancient skull can be completely bleached white by the sun. Color is NOT an accurate way of determining age!

So what does indicate a really old skull?

• Erosion. Bone will degrade over time, especially in adverse environmental conditions. Erosion can happen quickly, but often it is a good indicator that a bone was in the ground for a long time.
• Damage. Sad but true - bone is fragile. Truly old bones often show damage to the zygomatic bone (cheekbone), lacrimals (inner eye bones), nasals, mandible and teeth. When you see a pristine specimen advertised as being "19th Century", you should ask the seller how it survived for 110-200 years without suffering any damage. And remember, Medical Schools aren't in the habit of storing bones for decades. Medical Schools are in business to teach students, not maintain an anthropological reference collection. That is what the Smithsonian Institute and other respected institutions are for.
• Color. Yes, I know I just said color isn't a good indicator of age. But it's also true that old bones typically acquire a patina of age unless they are carefully stored. This patina is different from the discoloration caused by exposure to the elements or minerals.
• Mineralization. Bone can begin to mineralize and this is good, hard evidence (pun intended) of age.
• Provenance. Written or photographic proof of origin and ownership is really the ONLY way to know if a skull is antique or not.
  

Buying Responsibly

It is important to understand that, as with any market, there are responsible players and irresponsible players. In China today, government officials will pay a small stipend to any peasant who turns in a skull or bone that he finds. But traders in marketplaces will pay a far greater sum - perhaps a month's wage, perhaps two months' - and then turn around and sell these bones to westerners for much higher prices. This is actually a big problem in China today: construction and modernization turns up forgotten or illegal cemeteries everywhere, and then the State has the problem of what to do with these remains, since there are no relatives living or willing to claim them. This is actually the major source of human bones in China today and, while a bit off-putting to many westerners, is a perfectly legal practice.

However, tomb raiding, grave robbing and looting are still real problems. In China, tomb raiders are often punished with death. There have been many well-publicized cases of this in recent years. So please be aware of this! If you see a seller advertising a skull as antique that doesn't look old, consider either 1) not bidding or 2) contacting the seller to ask for documentation. No one wants to encourage further looting as this is only likely to lead to more restrictions on the export of human skulls and skeletons.

There are sellers in every major central and western city in China who sell human skulls and bones from blankets that they set out in open-air marketplaces, or from small rooms in the back of their storefronts. THIS is the source of most of the bones sold on eBay... not medical schools! These are unregulated cottage industries, and western dollars are feeding them, which in turn encourages the looters to go out and do their thing. So be an informed buyer. Don't contribute to the problem... buy responsibly and encourage sellers to be transparent and accurate in their listings. There's nothing wrong with wanting to own a human skull, but there is something wrong if honesty has to go by the board for the sake of dollars.

Full Disclosure

Yes, I sell human skulls and bones here on eBay... and yes, I sometimes sell antique bones. But my business partner and I do our best to deal only with reputable vendors inside of China... we don't buy from the blanket salesmen in the street market!