The archaeological reconstruction of marginalised populations is complicated by a number of significant factors. This study, which focused on the Greek mainland during the Late Archaic/Classical period, was primarily impeded by a lack of known skeletal assemblages dating to the time frame under consideration. Another serious challenge was the general ‘invisibility’ of burials belonging to marginalised persons, as the marginalised are generally absent from Greek cemeteries. Although the reasons for their invisibility are not entirely clear, this lacuna most likely stems from the widespread practice of burying the marginalised outside of common burial grounds. As a result, these non-normative burials are left undiscovered when cemeteries are excavated.

This study focused exclusively on marginalising factors that can be discerned from burial contexts, namely physical disability, low socioeconomic status and non-Greek ethnicity or ancestry. It was found that traditional methods used to identify these characteristics could be ambiguous. For instance, methods for detecting non-Greeks in funerary contexts have tended to focus on material culture and burial rituals, but these would not have detected non-Greeks buried in normative Greek fashion and would have misidentified Greeks who embraced en vogue non-Greek motifs or objects. Funerary monuments from Athens, for example, demonstrate that many non-Greeks chose to commemorate themselves in an Athenian manner, while some elite Athenians were opting for non-Greek motifs. Complexities such as these illustrate the greater need for the contextual analysis of burial assemblages and careful consideration of all forms of available evidence. It is also clear that previously studied skeletal material would benefit from re-examination, especially in the area of biomolecular studies. In particular, stable isotopic studies of carbon and nitrogen can reveal dietary patterns, and stable isotopes of strontium, oxygen, sulphur and lead can identify migrants and potential non-Greeks.

Though sparse, there is bioarchaeological evidence of marginalising factors in burial assemblages from the Greek mainland dating to the Late Archaic/ Classical period. There are very few examples of physical impairment that derive from a Late Archaic/Classical context in the Greek mainland. Although the paucity of evidence prevents a focused synchronic study of the social ramifications of physical difference, widening the scope and considering case studies from different time periods allows for a diachronic glimpse into the ways in which disabled people were treated over time in ancient Greek society.