Mandibular ridge resorption reflected by mandibular bone height and the two “old age” traits, breakdown of the dorsal margin of the pubic symphysis and posterior exostoses of the iliac auricular surface, were tested for their potential as old age indicators. Samples with no known age-at-death come from the Lankhills School, Andover Road, and Hyde Street cemetery collections in Winchester, UK. The collections were dated to the 4th century AD, a time of Imperial Roman rule. Results showed that mandibular bone height decreases with increasing age, however the correlation is only statistically significant in females. Statistically significant positive correlations exist between age-at-death and the two “old age” traits. Further, correlations between mandibular bone heights and the two “old age” traits were more pronounced in males. In general, mandibular ridge resorption, breakdown of dorsal margin of pubic symphysis and posterior exostoses of the iliac auricular surface can aid in the identification of old individuals; however, differences between the sexes is pronounced, indicating that besides age, sex-related factors, either physiological or cultural, play a role in the morphological changes of these skeletal features. Females tend to show more severe mandibular ridge resorption due to systemic bone loss affected by hormonal change around menopause. On the other hand, the two pelvic “old age” traits have stronger relationship with mandibular bone height in males because these two traits have more regular and predictable patterns of morphological changes. These changes are likely to be associated with the different roles of male and female pelves in reproduction. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

In this study, I use bioarchaeological data derived from human burials to evaluate subsistence change in mid-to-late Holocene central California (circa 4950-200 B.P.). Previous investigations in the region have proposed two competing models to account for changes in subsistence patterns. The seasonal stress hypothesis argues that the increased reliance on acorns and small seeds during the late Holocene led to improved health status, since these resources could be stored and used as a “buffer” against seasonal food shortages. In contrast, resource intensification models predict temporal declines in health during the late Holocene, as measured by a decline in dietary quality and health status, increased population crowding, and greater levels of sedentism. I test the hypothesis that health status, as measured by childhood stress and disease indicators, declined during the late Holocene in central California. I analyzed 511 human skeletons from ten archaeological sites in the Sacramento Valley and San Francisco Bay area to investigate temporal and spatial variability in diet and health. I analyzed a subset (n = 111) of this sample to evaluate prehistoric dietary patterns using carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios. Indicators of health status show significant temporal and regional variation. In the Valley, tibial periosteal reactions, porotic hyperostosis, and enamel hypoplasias significantly increased through time, implying a decline in health status. In the Bay, health indicators show little temporal variability. However, inter-regional comparisons indicate a higher prevalence of stress and disease indicators among Bay Area skeletons than in the Valley skeletal series. The stable isotope data from human bone collagen and apatite also indicate significant interregional differences in prehistoric diets between the Bay and the Valley. In the Bay, diets shifted from high trophic level marine foods to a more terrestrially focused diet over time. In the Valley, there are no significant dietary trends observed in the data. Dental caries and antemortem tooth loss are significantly more prevalent in the Valley than in the Bay, and closely match the isotopic findings. The paleopathological findings provide support for late Holocene resource intensification models posited for the Valley, but not for the Bay Area.

This research evaluates the 469 excavated human skeletons of the pre-Hispanic Lima population from Huaca 20 in the Maranga Complex in modern-day Lima, Peru dating to the beginning of the Middle Horizon (ca. 600-900 AD), for evidence of biological stress. From ca. 562-594 CE drought conditions occurred west of the Andes mountains, presumably having an effect on the Lima population and potentially causing this population biological stress. The purpose of this research is to examine whether or not the prolonged drought period negatively impacted the Huaca 20 sample. To evaluate the biological impact of this environmental stress, methods based on the Global History of Health (Steckel et al, 2011) were employed. The Huaca 20 sample was separated according to stratigraphic evidence of significant flooding which marked the end of the drought conditions. The majority of biological stress markers evaluated showed no significant difference between time periods. This result may be due to factors such as migration, the state of preservation of the sample, the biological stress being of too short a duration to appear on the skeleton, and/or the Lima population’s ability to adapt to drought conditions through sociocultural strategies. Mortuary data was employed to further the understanding of the potential negative effects of the prolonged drought period. Based on the two radiocarbon dates collected at Huaca 20 and the evidence of the end of the drought in the form of at least two flooding events, shortly after the drought period Huaca 20 was not used for domestic purposes but shifted to use as a mortuary site. The majority of mortuary goods did not show a significant different between time periods. Undecorated spindle whorls and undecorated spindle whorls showed a significant decline between the pre-flood and peri-flood time periods. This decline may be related to a decline in access to resources. The findings add a biological perspective to the discussion of the possible effects of the prolonged drought period on the Lima. It also provides an basis for comparison of biological markers of stress with other contemporaneous Andean peoples, as well as other populations experiencing environmental stress. This research will further illuminate on periods of environmental stress, which have occurred throughout history. The better understood responses to environmental stress are both postivie and negative, the better the world community today can prepare for them.

Despite numerous studies, little is known about the influential factors impacting treponemal disease susceptibility. Yet, forms of treponemal disease, specifically yaws, are a major source of morbidity in the developing world. Bioarchaeological materials may assist with deficit by testing full ranges of disease expression. This study explores the relationship between treponemal disease ecology, specifically yaws, and susceptibility through six southeastern United States archaeological samples. Results show early life health experiences have a relationship to later life disease expression. However, influences of climate may only be seen at a cross-regional level. Finally, although nutrition, as evidenced by subsistence strategy, may play a role, within this study, frequencies of treponemal disease are higher in smaller, kinship based groups, rather than large scale societies due to patterns of disease epidemiology. These results should assist with the eradication campaign of yaws announced by the World Health (WHO) organization by 2020.

Bioarchaeologists work to reconstruct the past using skeletal remains inside a framework influenced by archaeological data. One area, into which bioarchaeologists have sought to provide insight, is the reconstruction of physical activities through skeletal indicators. These indicators of activity include looking at skeletal changes such as development of osteoarthritis, osteon remodeling, dental modifications, cross-sectional bone geometry (CSBG) and changes to muscle attachment sites, also known as entheseal changes. The study of entheseal changes has received much attention as researchers have hypothesized that a direct correlation between muscle use and entheseal size exists. Researchers sought to interpret specific movements such as spear-throwing or kayaking by examining the muscle attachment sites involved in those movements and analyzing the robusticity of the entheses. CSBG has also been used to analyze activity levels and interpret the degree of manual labor an individual was involved in. These analyses are based on the biomechanical interpretation of bone as structure that reacts to mechanical stress by increasing bone thickness. This research tested the hypothesis that changes to entheseal size in the humerus would correlate to changes in CSBG. Entheseal changes were analyzed using two methods, the Hawkey and Merbs (1995) and Mariotti et al. (2007) methods. Both methods were analyzed in terms of their ease of use and intraobserver error rates. The Mariotti et al. (2007) method of scoring entheseal changes was found to have more instances of a significant intraobserver error rate than the Hawkey and Merbs (1995) method despite the improved photographs and more detailed descriptions provided by the authors. Both entheseal scoring methods were used to analyze the correlation between entheseal changes and CSBG in the form of the polar moment of area (J) as standardized for size (J'). CSBG has been found to have stronger correlations with mechanical use and this research sought to identify relationships between entheseal development and J' in the humerus. Entheses scored using the Mariotti et al. (2007) method were more frequently found to have a significant correlation with CSBG, while only one enthesis scored using the Hawkey and Merbs (1995) method was found to have a significant correlation (p <.05) with CSBG. This implies that the method used greatly affects the identifiable correlations between entheseal changes and CSBG. Refined methods and more research are necessary before entheseal changes can be accurately used in activity reconstruction.

In 2013, Mississippi State University recovered 67 individuals from the Mississippi State Asylum Cemetery (1855-1935) in Jackson, Mississippi. The first goal of this research was to investigate heterogeneous frailty and varying life histories between MSA skeletal demographic groups. The second goal was to contextualize the MSA skeletal data via comparisons of MSA oral pathology and mortality data to other contemporaneous institutional skeletal samples in the U.S. as well as non-institutional skeletal samples in the southern U.S. Oral pathology data included linear enamel hypoplasias, caries, and antemortem tooth loss and demographic data included age and sex estimations. Results did not reveal any significant differences in oral health or mortality within the MSA sample. Additionally, the comparison of institutional samples exhibited generally similar prevalence of oral pathologies, but the MSA sample exhibited fewer individuals with oral pathologies and higher life expectancy than non-institutional comparative samples.

No

Bioarchaeologists and palaeopathologists have recently turned their attention towards one critical aspect of the study of the history of disease: health-related caregiving. In response, an approach, the bioarchaeology of care, and, within it, the web-based Index of Care (IoC) have been developed to enable the identification and interpretation of past caregiving. Here, we apply the IoC to Burial 86, a young adult (18–25 years) female from the late Mississippian period, Dallas cultural phase Holliston Mills site (40HW11; ca. ad 1348–1535), TN. Burial 86 exhibits pathologies specific to treponematosis. They also exhibit a suite of pathologies indicative of physical impairment, including a varus angular deformity in the right tibia that is potentially the result of a malaligned pathological fracture. Following the IoC, we determine that Burial 86 probably experienced moderate clinical impacts on several domains (e.g., musculoskeletal system) with various functional impacts on essential activities of daily living. This means that Burial 86 likely had a disability and likely received caregiving, though it is impossible to determine if the care was efficacious. That care was provided likely reflected the community of Holliston Mills' more egalitarian socio-political structure, which was unusual for the late Mississippian. It may also reflect Burial 86's agency, the presence of adequate resources at the site, as indicated by high frequencies of high status mortuary artifacts, or a combination of these factors. The mortuary program for Burial 86 does not indicate that they were marked as being different—in status or other social categories—than other community members. This study highlights how bioarchaeological evidence can be used to explore the downstream effects of chronic infections, such as treponematosis, throughout the body and across the life course, and the opportunities for health-related caregiving in past societies that these processes can potentially create.

Yes / This chapter describes a collaborative project funded by Grants for All, Arts Council England, led by artist Karina Thompson, together with researchers from the Biological Anthropology Research Centre (BARC), School of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences, University of Bradford. The artworks took digitised historic clinical radiographs and digitised human skeletal pathological data from the landmark Digitised Diseases, and From Cemetery to Clinic digital bioarchaeology resources developed by colleagues from Visualising Heritage as a starting point. In addition to a series of small-scale installations displayed alongside the Biological Anthropology Research Centre teaching collection, large-scale exhibition pieces were displayed as part of national and international exhibitions. Collectively these works draw attention to the potential of digital bioarchaeology, whilst ensuring the importance of humanising the documentation of disease through time.

The Xiongnu Empire (c. 200 BC – AD 100) was the first instance of imperial level organization by nomadic groups of the Mongolian steppe. Over a century of historical and archaeological research has produced a large body of scholarship on the political, military, and sociocultural structures of Xiongnu society. This study adds to the growing body of recent bioarchaeological research by using multiple lines of evidence to address the impacts of empire formation on the physical health of those who lived under the influence of Xiongnu rule. Models of Xiongnu empire formation posit stable access to Chinese agricultural goods and reduction in violent conflict as major motivating factors in establishing imperial-level organization among Mongolian nomadic groups. By gathering data from the skeletal remains of 349 individuals from 27 archaeological sites and analyzing the frequency of 10 dietary and health indicators, this study addresses these claims. The Xiongnu imperial expansion and administration resulted in the movement and/or displacement of nomadic groups, consequences that are documented in Chinese historical texts, but its impact on population structure is poorly understood. Craniometric data collected from this skeletal sample were used to conduct a model-bound biological distance analysis and fit to an unbiased relationship matrix to determine the amount of intra- and inter-group variation, and estimate the biological distance between different geographic and temporal groups. This skeletal sample includes individuals from 19 Xiongnu-period sites located across the region under Xiongnu imperial control. Individuals from eight Bronze Age sites in Mongolia were included to establish pre-Xiongnu health status. One agricultural site within the Han empire, contemporaneous with the Xiongnu, was included for comparison. The results of this study indicate that Xiongnu motivations for creating a nomadic empire were considerably more complex than current models suggest. Although historical texts document that the Xiongnu received agricultural products as tribute from China, dietary markers indicate the Xiongnu diet was more similar to that of their Bronze Age predecessors than to their agricultural Han neighbors. The movement of people across the Mongolian steppe during the Xiongnu period created a more phenotypically homogeneous population structure than that of previous Bronze Age groups.