It is easy to make out the skeleton of a child from its small size. However, there are no major differences in the bones of a girl and a boy.
Can we make out whether a skeleton was that of a man or a woman?
Sometimes, people decide on the basis of what is found with the skeleton. For instance, if a skeleton is found with jewellery, it is sometimes thought to be that of a woman. However, there are problems with this. Often, men also wore ornaments.
A better way of figuring out the sex of a skeleton is to look at the bone structure. The hip or the pelvic area of women is generally larger to enable child bearing.
These distinctions are based on modern skeletal studies.
About 2000 years ago, there was a famous physician named Charaka who wrote a book on medicine known as the Charaka Samhita. There he states that the human body has 360 bones. This is a much larger number than the 200 bones that are recognised in modern anatomy. Charaka arrived at this figure by counting the teeth, joints and cartilage.
How do you thinls he found out about the human body in such great detail?