A Comparative Study of Vertebral Pathologies and Anomalies in Two Medieval British Populations (original) (raw)
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American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1997
The pattern of degenerative joint disease (DJD) of the intervertebral and apophyseal joints of the vertebral column of 81 skeletons from the thirteenth to fourteenth century medieval priory cemetery of St. Andrew, Fishergate, York, was recorded in relation to their location of interment: eastern cemetery, southern cemetery, and intramurally (within the priory buildings). Archaeological context and ethnohistorical accounts support the interpretation that people of different social status were buried in these areas. Linear discriminant function analysis and paired Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests showed that the differences in vertebral column DJD pattern and severity among the three subgroups were not statistically significant. As the archaeological and historical evidence seems reliable, it is argued that the analysis of DJD of the vertebral column might not be ideal to study the effects of normal activity patterns, a conclusion which supports the results of recent bioarchaeological research. Further, high-low plots demonstrate that the differences in DJD pattern were located between intervertebral and apophyseal joints of individuals rather than between subgroups of the cemetery. It is thought that this difference was produced as a response to erect posture during bipedal locomotion, reflecting vertebral curvatures, rather than differing occupational stresses. Thus, due to biological constraints on its function, the vertebral column might not be an ideal structure to study markers of occupational stress. Am
An osteological analysis of two medieval individuals from Northern England
Osteological analysis of two individuals retrieved from a medieval cemetery in Fishergate, York will be discussed in this paper. The first individual (Y3743) is a young female adult approximately 18 years of age with congenital spinal bifida. The second individual (Y2699) belongs to an infant, approximately 2-3 years of age +/-6 months. The paper will analyse methods for formulating and assessing the sex, age-at-death, stature, non-metric traits, and pathology in these individual skeletal samples. Moreover, this paper will critically review the methods in question for level of applicability and overall accuracy.
American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2009
This study investigates the age-and sexrelated patterns in vertebral bone mineral density (BMD) and the relationship between BMD and vertebral osteophytosis (VO), using a specialized peripheral densitometer in a skeletal sample excavated from the British medieval village Wharram Percy. A total of 58 individuals were divided by sex into three broad age categories (18-29, 30-49, 501 years.). Each fourth intact vertebral centra was scored for VO and 5-mm thick coronal sections scanned in a specialized peripheral densitometer (GE Lunar Piximus DXA). Changes in BMD associated with age, sex, and VO severity were examined in the whole vertebral section, a strictly trabecular region, and a primarily cortical region of bone separately. Significant change in vertebral BMD was found to occur by middle age with little or no statistical change in BMD between middle and old age. Females in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).
Temporal Trends in Vertebral Size and Shape from Medieval to Modern-Day
PLOS One, 2009
Human lumbar vertebrae support the weight of the upper body. Loads lifted and carried by the upper extremities cause significant loading stress to the vertebral bodies. It is well established that trauma-induced vertebral fractures are common especially among elderly people. The aim of this study was to investigate the morphological factors that could have affected the prevalence of trauma-related vertebral fractures from medieval times to the present day. To determine if morphological differences existed in the size and shape of the vertebral body between medieval times and the present day, the vertebral body size and shape was measured from the 4th lumbar vertebra using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and standard osteometric calipers. The modern samples consisted of modern Finns and the medieval samples were from archaeological collections in Sweden and Britain. The results show that the shape and size of the 4th lumbar vertebra has changed significantly from medieval times in a way that markedly affects the biomechanical characteristics of the lumbar vertebral column. These changes may have influenced the incidence of trauma-induced spinal fractures in modern populations. Citation: Junno J-A, Niskanen M, Nieminen MT, Maijanen H, Niinimäki J, et al. (2009) Temporal Trends in Vertebral Size and Shape from Medieval to Modern-Day. PLoS ONE 4(3): e4836.
Vertebral pathologies and related activity patterns in two mediaeval populations from Spain
Collegium antropologicum, 2012
The main aim of this study was to explore the usefulness of several types of vertebral pathology as activity markers in osteological populations. A total of 2165 vertebrae from 124 individuals were studied. They were derived from cemeteries in two villages: Villanueva de Soportilla (Burgos, north of Spain), with a Christian population, and La Torrecilla (Granada, south of Spain), inhabited by Muslims. Degenerative joint diseases, Schmorl's nodes, compression fractures and spondylolysis with spondylolisthesis were analysed in individuals and separate vertebral pieces. All pathological conditions, except compression fractures, were significantly more frequent in males than in females, reflecting more intensive labour conditions for males. They were significantly more frequent in males from Villanueva, a border population of peasant-soldiers, than in males from La Torrecilla. They were also significantly more frequent in females from Christian Villanueva than in those from Muslim L...
Accepted Manuscript: The Lives and Deaths of Young Medieval Women: The Osteological Evidence
WRITTEN SOURCES FROM THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD focus mainly on the activities of adults, particularly males and often those from the wealthier sections of society. Recent scholarship has attempted to redress this balance by giving attention to medieval women and children, but we are still limited by what we can learn about the daily lives of all members of medieval English society. Osteology, the study of human skeletal remains, suffers from no such bias and can provide substantial and detailed information on growth, health and daily life of the general population. This paper presents the results of a new analysis of the skeletal remains of over 300 medieval girls and young women aged at between 14 and 25 years from a number of English cemetery sites. We incorporate data from the published archaeological literature as well as documentary evidence to provide new insights into the lives and deaths of young medieval women.
The Material Body, 2024
The analysis of human skeletal remains has the potential to inform us about the lives and deaths of individuals from the past. When dealing with burials exhumed from nineteenth century cemeteries, with well-preserved grave markers or coffin plates, documentary evidence can be utilised to create both historical and osteoarchaeological biographies and to explore how these different data collection methods complement each other. With the increasing clearance of cemetery sites and vaults in advance of development there is the opportunity to explore the lives of these individuals as well as contributing to advances in the methods used by osteologists for aging, sexing and diagnosing pathological conditions. In 2016 the cemetery to the north-east side of the church of St George’s, Bristol was excavated by Avon Archaeology Ltd in advance of building works. This cemetery had been in use from around AD 1820-1880 and 383 burials were exhumed and recorded. Sixty-six of these individuals were marked by coffin plates or grave stones allowing their identity to be known. Whilst several named skeletal collections from the period have been explored from London and the Midlands, this is the first collection from Bristol with named individuals. This chapter illustrates the importance of encouraging developer funding for the full excavation of nineteenth century skeletal material to enable a holistic understanding through the collaboration between osteoarchaeological and historical research, allowing us to fill gaps in our knowledge about less studied groups, such as women, children and those of lower social status. The nineteenth century was a time of rapidly increasing population and urbanisation, with increasing bureaucracy and documentation to go along with it. For the period that St George’s graveyard was in use, we have access not only to parish registers, but also street directories, death certificates, census records, and newspaper articles, which provide us with a wealth of information relating to age at death, occupation, family status and childbirth, place of birth, and causes of death and injury. This gives us the opportunity to compare the osteological analysis to these independent sources of evidence for the named individuals, not only to blind test our methodologies of aging and sexing, but to aid in our understanding of the causes of injury and disease and how they manifest on the skeleton. Here we present case studies of a selection of named individuals excavated from the cemetery including Mark Kelson whose injury was reported in the local press, Maria Taylor and Thomas Rokeby Price whose death certificates state they died from tuberculosis, and Elizabeth Cumberland, originally from London, who lived until the age of 85 years. Research so far has allowed us to gain new insights into the lived experience of the inhabitants of Bristol in the nineteenth century, adding to our knowledge of the healing time for fractures, our understanding of the manifestations of tuberculosis on the skeleton, and the effect of the longevity of individuals on the body within this period.
"Palaeopathological and palaeoepidemiological analyses of human skeletal remains are some of the most important bases for the reconstruction of life of past populations. The assessment of frequency and degree of pathological alterations contributes to conclusions of a population’s health status, labour conditions, and environmental influences. Degenerative diseases of the spine are among the most common lesions observed in archaeological human remains. The large number of excavated Early Mediaeval cemeteries in Germany enables the comparison of contemporary populations increasing the reliability of conclusions regarding their living conditions. In this study, 112 adult individuals with largely complete and well preserved spines from the Early Mediaeval population of Mannheim-Seckenheim were analysed for pattern and degree of degenerative changes of the spine. The severity of degeneration was recorded using modified categories originally presented by Lutter (1984) for spondylosis deformans and spondylarthrosis deformans scaling from 0 to 4. In addition, the presence of Schmorl’s nodes was recorded and the vertebrae were examined for signs of Scheuermann’s disease. In general, there was a high prevalence of degenerative diseases of the spine and males were affected more often and to a greater degree than females. The frequency of spondylosis deformans and spondylarthrosis deformans increased with age. In comparison with other Early Mediaeval series there was a much higher prevalence of degenerative diseases in Mannheim-Seckenheim, although most instances were mild manifestations. No cases of Scheuermann’s disease (defined as three adjacent vertebrae with wedging of 5° or more and anterior extensions) were identified in the studied sample."