Rob Hoppa

I was born in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. I received my PhD in Physical Anthropology from the Department of Anthropology, McMaster University in 1996 under the supervision of Dr. Shelley Saunders. My doctoral research focused on issues of bias in palaeodemographic estimates. Following my doctoral research, I undertook a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in historical demography and epidemiology of a 19th century subarctic Indigenous community during the decline of the fur trade. In 1998, I joined the Laboratory of Survival and Longevity at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany as part of a multidisciplinary team examining the social and biological determinants of aging. In July 1999, I joined the Department of Anthropology at the University of Manitoba.

• PhD (Physical Anthropology), McMaster University, 1996
• MSc (Osteology, Palaeopathology and Funerary Archaeology), University of Sheffield/University of Bradford, 1991
• BSc (Physical Anthropology), University of Toronto, 1990

Research interests

• Osteology
• Skeletal growth & development
• Palaeodemography
• Age estimation and sex determination from the Skeleton
• 3D Imaging in Bioarchaeology
• Childhood in the Past
• Historical Demography
• Anthropometry

• Gamble JA, Spicer V, Hunter M, Lao Y, Hoppa RD, Pedersen D, Wilkins JA and Zahedi RP (2024) Advancing Sex Estimation from Amelogenin: Applications to Archaeological, Deciduous, and Fragmentary Dental Enamel. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 54: 104430. OPEN ACCESS
• Sanchez J and Hoppa RD (2023) Is Adulthood Required? Examining the Accuracy of Pelvic Sex Estimation Throughout Pubertal Growth. Bioarchaeology International: ‘Emerging Adolescence:  Current Status and Potential Advances in Bioarchaeology:’ 7(2): 173-88.
• Parker K, Larcombe LA, Stock J, Boldsen JL, Marx H and Hoppa RD. (2022) "Bone Strength in Medieval Denmark: Robusticity Analysis from a Rural and Urban Sample." Bioarchaeology International 6(3): 175-89. MSPACE OPEN ACCESS
• Spake L, Hoppa RD, Blau S and Cardoso HFV (2022) "Biological Mortality Bias in Diaphyseal Growth of Contemporary Children: Implications for Paleoauxology." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 178:89-107 OPEN ACCESS
• Scott AB and Hoppa RD (2018) "The Subtleties of Stress: Using Skeletal Lesions to Explore the Stress Response in Bone in The Black Friars Cemetery Population (13th to 17th Centuries)." International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 28(6): 695-702 MSPACE OPEN ACCESS
• Shabaga B, Gough H, Fayek M and Hoppa RD (2018) "A Simplified Silver Phosphate Extraction Method for Oxygen Isotope Analysis of Bioapatite." Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 32(15): 1237-1242. MSPACE OPEN ACCESS
• Scott AB, Choi KY, Mookherjee N, Hoppa RD and Larcombe LA (2016) "The Biochemical Signatures of Stress: A Preliminary Analysis of Osteocalcin Fluctuations and Macroscopic Skeletal Changes Associated with Poor Health in the Black Friars (13th-17th Centuries) Population." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 159: 596-606
• Hoppa RD and Vaupel JW, editors (2002) "Paleodemography: Age Distributions from Skeletal Samples." Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology 31. Cambridge University Press.
• Hoppa RD and FitzGerald CM, editors (1999) "Human Growth in the Past: Studies from Bones and Teeth." Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology 25. Cambridge University Press.