Tracy Betsinger | SUNY Oneonta (original) (raw)

Papers by Tracy Betsinger

Genetics, Evolution, Variation, 2013

Bones of Complexity: Bioarchaeological Case Studies of Social Organization and Skeletal Biology, 2017

The Fetus: Biology, Culture, and Society - Berghahn Books, 2017

How the dead are buried in an archaeological context provides a wealth of cultural information, b... more How the dead are buried in an archaeological context provides a wealth of cultural information, but also speaks to the concept of individuality and personhood in the past. While fetal remains have until recently been largely omitted from archaeological analysis due to poor preservation and misidentification, the study of mortuary customs associated with fetal remains provides a unique opportunity to explore the concept of fetal identity. When the living bury the dead, they ascribe a sense of personhood and who that individual was within their community; therefore, it is assumed that if fetal or stillborn individuals were given a similar status to infants and young children their burial context should be similar. The Drawsko 1 rural cemetery site is located in northwestern Poland and dates between the 17th and 18th centuries. For this study, 47 subadult individuals (6 months in utero – 4 years) were used to explore various aspects of the burial context, specifically the use of a coffin, the inclusion of grave goods, and geographic location within the cemetery. Results demonstrate that within the three age classifications (perinate, post-neonatal, and child), there were no statistically significant differences (Fisher’s exact, p<0.05) in regards to the use of a coffin, the inclusion of grave goods, or location within the cemetery. This homogeneity in burial context suggests that fetal individuals were ascribed a similar type of personhood or identity as older children, like associated with the concept of “potentiality” and what that individual may have contributed to their community had they lived.

Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports, 2017

Pre-Columbian frequencies of bone-disseminated non-venereal treponemal disease (yaws, treponarid)... more Pre-Columbian frequencies of bone-disseminated non-venereal treponemal disease (yaws, treponarid) increase with the shift to food production. This increase is associated with two subsistence corollaries: sedentism and settlement aggregation. The later prehistory of East Tennessee includes two socio-politically distinct maize-intensive sedentary agriculturalist phases: Dallas (AD 1300-1550) and Mouse Creek (AD 1400-1600). The Dallas phase is widely distributed across both steep-sided narrow and broad river valleys within the catchment areas of three reservoirs (Tellico, Melton Hill, Chickamauga). The Mouse Creek phase is confined to a single reservoir (Chickamauga) and differs from Dallas in social status/role and settlement organization. Physiographic differences (affecting population density and agricultural productivity) and changes in settlement organization potentially affect treponemal disease prevalence. This study tests these variables in ten sites segregated by phase and geographically by the three reservoirs. Treponemal disease was considered minimally present in a sample based on two levels of diagnostic reliability (i.e., pathognomonic and indicative). Results indicate that physiography does not consistently impact treponemal disease visibility. Negating the role of settlement organization, temporal differences occur only within the Chickamauga Reservoir, suggesting other testable epidemiological influences of extrinsic (e.g., internal Dallas cultural diversity, regionally varying sex roles) and intrinsic (i.e., frailty, disease synergisms) variables.

Objectives: Deviant burials can reveal important information about both social and individual ide... more Objectives: Deviant burials can reveal important information about both social and individual identity, particularly when the mortuary record is supplemented by an examination of skeletal remains. At the postmedieval (17th to 18th c. AD) cemetery of Drawsko (Site 1), Poland, six individuals (of n 5 285) received deviant, anti-vampiristic mortuary treatment. A previous study using radiogenic strontium isotope ratios (x5 0.7112 6 0.0006, 1r, n 5 60) found that these " vampires " were in fact locals, not migrants to the region targeted for deviant burial due to their status as immigrant outsiders. However, considerable geologic overlap in strontium isotope ratios across the North European Plain may have masked the identification of at least some nonlocal individuals. This study further contextualizes strontium isotope ratios using additional biogeochemical data to test the hypothesis that additional nonlocals were present in the Drawsko cemetery. Methods: Stable oxygen and carbon isotopes from the dental enamel of 58 individuals interred in both normative and atypical burials at Drawsko were analyzed. Results: Both d 18 O c(VPDB) (x5 24.5 6 0.7&) and d 13 C ap isotope values (x5 213.6 6 0.8&) displayed little variability and were not significantly different between vampire and normative burials, supporting prior strontium results of a largely local population. Nevertheless, homogeneity in oxygen isotope values across other northern European sites makes it difficult to speculate about isotopic regional diversity, leaving open the possibility that additional migrants to the region remain undetected. Additionally, carbon isotope values point to a locally sourced diet dominated by C 3 resources but with some supplementation by C 4 goods that likely included millet, fitting with historic descriptions of postmedieval diet in Poland. Conclusions: Those interred as vampires appear local to the region and thus likely underwent deviant funerary treatment due to some other social stigma not apparent from the skeleton.

PLOS ONE, 2015

Traumatic injuries can be used as general indicators of activity patterns in past populations. Th... more Traumatic injuries can be used as general indicators of activity patterns in past populations. This study tests the hypothesis that contemporaneous (10th–12th century) rural and urban populations in medieval Poland will have a significantly different prevalence of non-violent fractures. Traumatic injuries to the post-cranial skeleton were recorded for 180 adults from rural Giecz and for 96 adults from urban Poznań-Śródka. They were statistically analyzed by body region and individual skeletal element. Results reveal that Giecz had a significantly higher rate of trunk fractures than Poznań-Śródka (Fisher’s exact, p<0.05). In particular, rib and vertebral fractures were more common in Giecz males and females than in their Poz- nań-Śródka counterparts. Traumatic injuries in the extremities were comparable between the two samples, suggesting similar risks of trauma to these regions. These results indicate that in early medieval Poland, activities associated with a rural lifestyle resulted in more inju- ries. These stress or accidental fractures, which are related to a high-risk setting, were not consistent with an urban lifestyle. Overall, agricultural populations like Giecz were engaged in a laborious lifestyle, reflected in a variety of injuries related to repetitive, high-risk activi ties. Although urban populations like Poznań engaged in craft specialization participated in repetitive activities, their lifestyle resulted in lesser fracture-risk.

by Amanda Agnew, Joel Blondiaux, Ursula Wittwer, Susi Ulrich-bochsler, Guntis Gerhards, Sotiris Manolis, Ioanna Moutafi, Carina Marques, Hedy Justus, Tracy Betsinger, Zsolt Bereczki, Maria Teschler-Nicola, Rimantas Jankauskas, Anna Kjellström, and Friederike B . Novotny

PLOS One, 2014

Apotropaic observances-traditional practices intended to prevent evil-were not uncommon in post-m... more Apotropaic observances-traditional practices intended to prevent evil-were not uncommon in post-medieval Poland, and included specific treatment of the dead for those considered at risk for becoming vampires. Excavations at the Drawsko 1 cemetery (17th–18th c. AD) have revealed multiple examples (n56) of such deviant burials amidst hundreds of normative interments. While historic records describe the many potential reasons why some were more susceptible to vampirism than others, no study has attempted to discern differences in social identity between individuals within standard and deviant burials using biogeochemical analyses of human skeletal remains. The hypothesis that the individuals selected for apotropaic burial rites were non-local immigrants whose geographic origins differed from the local community was tested using radiogenic strontium isotope ratios from archaeological dental enamel. 87Sr/86Sr ratios (50.7112¡0.0006, 1s) from the permanent molars of 60 individuals reflect a predominantly local population, with all individuals interred as potential vampires exhibiting local strontium isotope ratios. These data indicate that those targeted for apotropaic practices were not migrants to the region, but instead, represented local individuals whose social identity or manner of death marked them with suspicion in some other way. Cholera epidemics that swept across much of Eastern Europe during the 17th century may provide one alternate explanation as to the reason behind these apotropaic mortuary customs, as the first person to die from an infectious disease outbreak was presumed more likely to return from the dead as a vampire.

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2014

Mortuary treatments are ways in which archaeologists can learn about the culture and lifestyle of... more Mortuary treatments are ways in which archaeologists can learn about the culture and lifestyle of past societies, in terms of how they view the dead. The dead, however, can continue to play a role in the lives of the living, which may also be reflected in funerary rites and burial treatments. This article explores the social agency of the dead, focusing on the ‘vampire burials’ of the post-medieval Polish site of Drawsko 1. These burials, identified through their grave goods, provide a unique opportunity to learn how vampire folklore and the deceased ‘vampires’ influenced the living, most notably as ways to encourage social order, as an explanation for the unknown, and as an economic commitment.

International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 2013

Subsistence and Settlement Correlates of Treponemal Disease: Temporal Patterns in Pre-Columbian E... more Subsistence and Settlement Correlates of Treponemal Disease: Temporal Patterns in Pre-Columbian East Tennessee
MARIA OSTENDORF SMITHa* AND TRACY K. BETSINGERb
a Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4660, USA
b Department of Anthropology, State University of New York College at Oneonta, Oneonta, NY 13820, USA
After ca 1000 BC, coinciding with the transition to sedentism, tertiary stage treponemal disease apparently becomes osteologically pervasive in pre-Columbian North America. However, varying interobserver trepone- mal disease diagnostic thresholds, sampling error and the possibly ecosensitive nature of the pre-Columbian nonvenereal treponemal disease variants (i.e. yaws and treponarid) prevents subsistence-settlement pattern from becoming a reliable predictor of treponemal disease prevalence. This is particularly true of later prehis- tory with the transition from horticulture to intensive, maize-based agriculture. To address whether treponemal disease visibility does vary across this specific subsistence-settlement threshold, subadults (4+ years of age) and adults from 11 late prehistoric sites (N = 997) from the same geographic area of East Tennessee were sampled for the presence of treponemal disease. Six sites (N = 279) primarily date to the Late Woodland period (AD 700–900) and culturally belong to what is referred to as the Hamilton mortuary complex. The sample is archaeologically characterised as horticulturalist with presumably a dispersed farmstead or hamlet settlement pattern. Six sites (N = 718) date to the Late Mississippian (AD 1300–1550, Dallas phase) and are maize-intensive agriculturalists with a large, aggregate village settlement pattern. The sites were examined using three different levels of treponemal disease diagnostic confidence.
Treponemal disease raw frequency does indeed differ across the levels of diagnostic confidence between the total Late Woodland horticulturalist sample (4.3–5.5%) and total Late Mississippian maize agriculturalist sample (5.4–6.5%). The meaning is complex as the Dallas phase sample may have a socially segregated elite; the mound-interred (1.8%) relative to the village-interred (6.1–7.4%) exhibited significantly fewer cases of treponemal disease. Tentatively, treponemal disease visibility does appear to co-associate with sedentism and perhaps (if the mound-interred Dallas individuals are elites) also aggregated settlement.

International Journal of Paleopathology, 2013

Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH or Forestier’s disease) is a pathological conditio... more Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH or Forestier’s disease) is a pathological condition of unknown etiology characterized by the exuberant antero-lateral flowing (‘dripping candle wax’) ossi- fication of the anterior spinal ligaments. Clinical data indicate it is a progressive male-predilected pathology manifested in middle age, which steeply rises in prevalence after aged 60. It has become pale- opathologically relevant because it has been clinically associated with an affluent lifestyle. Archeological examination of the prevalence of DISH is often undertaken on European samples and frequently in monas- tic contexts. There are no prevalence data for pre-Columbian samples from North America. The present study establishes baseline information from four prehistoric Late Mississippian period (AD 1300–1600) samples (N = 389) from the upper Tennessee River Valley. Two probable cases and one possible case of DISH (all male) are identified, reflecting less than one percent of the adult sample, and 1.2 percent (2/172) of males. The low prevalence compared to European monastic samples and non-New World cemetery contexts suggests socioeconomic or interpopulational genetic differences that may be tested with sub- sistence and community health-status controlled osteoarchaeological comparisons within and outside of North America.

American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2011

Treponemal disease is known to be associated with the compromised community health of permanent v... more Treponemal disease is known to be associated with the compromised community health of permanent village settlement. This association explains its high visibility in the village-based, arguably chiefdom level, agriculturalist societies of late prehistoric (AD 1300–1600) North America. Within chiefdom-level societies, health differences have often been demonstrated between mortuary-defined “elite” and “nonelite” individuals. This theoretically should predict status-based differences in treponemal disease visibility. The prediction is tested in a five-site osteological sample (N = 650) from the Dallas phase (AD 1300–1550), a simple mortuary-defined two-tiered presumptive chiefdom level maize agriculturalist socioeconomic context from lower east Tennessee. The Dallas phase results affirm a general pre-Colombian North American pattern of no sex differences and display comparable adult to subadult frequencies. The study also reveals that given a sufficient sample size, “elites” do indeed exhibit a significantly lower frequency of tertiary stage treponemal disease. This can be attributed to better baseline health, which has been previously demonstrated in this sample. It may also be affected by the mortuary inclusion of achieved status individuals whose good health may have facilitated sociopolitical advancement. Another pattern that emerged is an apparent young adult age bias in disease visibility. This suggests that tertiary treponemal disease morbidity may either directly or synergistically factor in early adult age at death. Future research will address the veracity of this association. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2011. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

PLOS One, 2010

Background: The patterning cascade model of tooth morphogenesis accounts for shape development th... more Background: The patterning cascade model of tooth morphogenesis accounts for shape development through the interaction of a small number of genes. In the model, gene expression both directs development and is controlled by the shape of developing teeth. Enamel knots (zones of nonproliferating epithelium) mark the future sites of cusps. In order to form, a new enamel knot must escape the inhibitory fields surrounding other enamel knots before crown components become spatially fixed as morphogenesis ceases. Because cusp location on a fully formed tooth reflects enamel knot placement and tooth size is limited by the cessation of morphogenesis, the model predicts that cusp expression varies with intercusp spacing relative to tooth size. Although previous studies in humans have supported the model's implications, here we directly test the model's predictions for the expression, size, and symmetry of Carabelli cusp, a variation present in many human populations.

American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2008

Previous researchers hypothesized that tooth types forming during early childhood should be less ... more Previous researchers hypothesized that tooth types forming during early childhood should be less sexually dimorphic than those forming during later childhood, if sex hormone concentration differences between males and females increase progressively throughout childhood and can affect tooth size. Descriptive tooth size data have recently been cited in support of this hypothesis, particularly with respect to differences in sexual dimorphism among the tooth types of tooth classes. The present study tests this hypothesis for the mesiodistal dimension of human permanent teeth using published data for incisor, premolar, and molar tooth classes from seven diverse populations. The sample size for each tooth type per population was at least 50. This study also tests a modification of this hypothesis which takes into account the postnatal testosterone surge in males and the low levels of sex hormones in both sexes prior to puberty. Predictions are developed for both the original and modified hypotheses. The “D” statistic, the total area of nonoverlap between the phenotypic distributions of males and females, is used to quantify sexual dimorphism. Comparison of D values for different tooth types within tooth classes across these seven populations does not strongly support either hypothesis. These results suggest that gross changes in sex hormone concentrations during development are not related to population-wide patterns of sexual dimorphism among the tooth types of human permanent tooth classes, as recent studies indicate. This finding is consistent with other studies which suggest that sex hormones have only a minor role in generating crown size sexual dimorphism. Am J Phys Anthropol 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Books by Tracy Betsinger

Berghahn Books, 2017

As a biological, cultural, and social entity, the human fetus is a multifaceted subject which cal... more As a biological, cultural, and social entity, the human fetus is a multifaceted subject which calls for equally diverse perspectives to fully understand. Anthropology of the Fetus seeks to achieve this by bringing together specialists in biological anthropology, archaeology, and cultural anthropology. Contributors draw on research in prehistoric, historic, and contemporary sites in Europe, Asia, North Africa, and North America to explore the biological and cultural phenomenon of the fetus, raising methodological and theoretical concerns with the ultimate goal of developing a holistic anthropology of the fetus.