International Journal of Osteoarchaeology最新文献

Dental data can reveal evidence for a past population's oral health, nutrition, and certain cultural activities. This study aims to explore oral health and dental attrition during the late Bronze Age in order to explore health outcomes in different subgroups as well as aspects of foodways and changes in subsistence strategies during the second millennium BCE in northwest China. To do this, the skeletal remains of adult individuals associated with the Siwa material culture (1400–1100 BC) from the Mogou site (n = 28) were macroscopically assessed and compared with previously published data derived from a subsample of individuals associated with Qijia period material culture complex (1750–1400 BC) from the same site. The results show that the Siwa-period population experienced a high frequency of carious lesions and antemortem tooth loss associated with advanced attrition (of both molars and nonmolar teeth), which did not vary significantly by sex. Females had a higher prevalence of carious lesions and antemortem tooth loss than did males, while males had a higher prevalence of dental calculus. These male/female health outcomes are also attested during the earlier Qijia period at the Mogou site. The Siwa period differs from the Qijia in that females experienced slightly worse attrition than their predecessors. Overall, oral health does not diverge significantly between the Qijia and Siwa periods, suggesting that the factors that contributed to oral health including dietary practices may have persisted diachronically for individuals buried at this site.

The Philistines lived on the coastal region of the Eastern Mediterranean during the Iron Age. It is thought they were one component of the “sea peoples,” migrating to the southern Levant from the Aegean region in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age (Fischer & Bürge, 2017; Oren, 2000). Their lands contained the cities of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gath, Gaza, and Ekron. Ancient Egypt lay to the south, and to the east was the Kingdom of Judah. These cities flourished from the 12th to 6th centuries BCE (Maeir et al., 2013; Yasur-Landau, 2010).

A fascinating study published in this issue by Kalisher and their team examined the remains of those people previously excavated from a cemetery at Ashkelon dating from the 10th to 8th centuries BCE (Master & Aja, 2017). They investigate lifestyle in the population by focusing on the ways they used their teeth (Kalisher et al., 2024). In order to understand how people used their teeth in the past, we can study both macrowear and microwear. Macrowear indicates the worn areas of the teeth that are visible to the naked eye, which may take many years to form. Microwear requires microscopy to visualize tiny scratch marks resulting from abrasion of the tooth surface and is thought to reflect how the teeth have been used in the weeks prior to death.

Distinct from the kind of tooth wear we all experience from chewing food, it was found that 11% of individuals exhibited severe and distinctive wear compatible with use of the teeth as a tool, or a third hand. The evidence for the use of the teeth to process materials was very similar in men and women. Furthermore, the abnormal tooth wear was found in both adults and older children. This would suggest that in a subset of the population (perhaps certain families involved with particular trades), the teeth were used as tools and the children were trained in these techniques by the adults. It was noted that a number of the wear patterns match those found in other preindustrial coastal communities around the world. The types of wear noted indicate the use of the teeth in paramasticatory activities such as gripping, anchoring and stripping of fibers. It seems plausible that such activities were undertaken for coastal trades such as making fishing nets, ropes, boats, baskets, and related crafts.

This research highlights the seafaring connections of the Philistines and demonstrates the role of the mouth as a tool in early societies. The fact that only a tenth of the population had such distinctive tooth wear is important. It would seem to indicate the specialization of certain families in the population who undertook those trades requiring the use of their teeth to manufacture their goods 3000 years ago.

Sex estimation from human skeletal remains is fundamental in osteoarcheology and forensic anthropology. The increasing availability of reference skeletal collections across the world has allowed the development of morphological and metric methods for skeletal sex estimation, some of which may be implemented in specialized computer software. The present study aims to evaluate the freely available SexEst software, which utilizes cranial and postcranial measurements, and different classification models for sex estimation, on a contemporary Greek population comprising of 227 (126 males and 101 females) adult individuals. After the calculation of intra-observer error to assess the repeatability of the measurements, the proposed variables were tested for classification accuracy individually and in different combinations. Based on the results, the postcranial models outperformed the cranial ones in all cases and can be adequately applied on a Greek population sample. The light gradient boosting (LGB) algorithm yielded the highest correct classification rates when no missing values exist, while the linear discriminant analysis (LDA) models should only be used when dealing with missing data. The highest classification accuracy for a 0.65 posterior probability threshold was reached when utilizing a combination of postcranial variables (89.67%), while the lowest was achieved with the cranial measurement “Glabella-occipital length” (45.00%). The same models yielded the highest and lowest accuracy for a 0.5 probability threshold, with values of 92.96% and 67.73%, respectively. Combining variables yielded higher accuracies in both skeletal regions, suggesting that the software would be more helpful in cases of intact skeletons. The loss of classification accuracy due to population specificity further corroborates the need to include different ancestries in sex estimation software.

This preliminary study aims at reconstructing the life history, including dietary patterns, mobility, and health conditions, of a high-class noblewoman (M154) from the late Shu state (晚蜀), the period of Kai Ming regime (開明氏), in the Shuangyuan Village Cemetery of the Eastern Zhou period (770–221 BC), Chengdu Plain, China, as a way to provide a glimpse into the human lifeway in the late Shu culture period under the impact of non-local cultures. We combined skeletal pathological observations with multi-isotope (carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen) analyses of bone collagen, enamel, and dentin serial sections and analyzed multi-tooth enamel from the remaining 10 humans in the cemetery as comparative data. The results suggest that the occupant of M154, a female who died at around 30 years of age, consumed mainly rice (C₃-based crop) and high animal protein throughout her life, was weaned at 2–3 years of age, experienced physiological stresses after weaning and at 7–8 years of age but recovered from both rapidly (less than a year), which probably was related to better care, and that the timing of physiological stress embodied in isotopic profiles from incremental dentin sections is consistent with the observed enamel hypoplasia and cribra orbitalia. She more likely lived with the local population from childhood to adolescence and did not experience long-distance migrations. After 7–8 years of age, she consumed relatively stable food resources and lived a stable life until death. Here, we show the stable and well-cared-for life history of a high-ranking noble of the late Shu state, providing new insights into the study of the ancient Shu people and a reference for further research.

Many mid-19th-century immigrants to New Zealand are presumed to have been in pursuit of a “better life” than was achievable in their origin countries. Here, we utilize histological analyses of internal indicators of enamel growth disruption (accentuated lines [ALs]) in 19 European and Chinese immigrants and five colony-born children from three 19th-century Otago sites. Observations of regular enamel microstructure were used to estimate a chronology of periods of enamel growth disruption. Clear or potential ALs were present in 18/19 (95%) adults and 4/5 (80%) subadults. Mean occurrence of ALs was higher in Chinese individuals than in European individuals between birth and 1 year of age (Chinese mean = 11; European mean = 3.8) and between 3 and 5 years of age (Chinese mean = 12.7; European mean = 1.3). Potential prenatal ALs were observed in three colony-born children. Although similar stressors such as malnutrition and infectious disease would have been present in both Europe and China, their expression in these individuals may reflect the embodiment of different push factors that stimulated emigration to New World colonies such as New Zealand. The presence of ALs in colony-born children indicates some continuation of developmental stressors in New Zealand. The results presented here highlight the value of utilizing microscopic analyses on poorly preserved archeological samples that are frequently excluded from histological examination. This preliminary glimpse into enamel formation disruption challenges the ubiquitous 19th-century narrative of New Zealand as free from the hardships of industrial revolution era Europe and sheds light on the stresses of childhoods spent in rural China and the potential attractions of the Pacific goldfields in comparison. Future work with larger sample sizes will contribute to a critical exploration of experiences of childhood physiological stress in those who lived and died in colonial New Zealand.

A global comparison has shown that subsistence-specific practices influenced the risk of postcranial fractures in prehistoric hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists. Much less is known about pastoralists in this regard. The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence and patterns of postcranial injuries of herders in the Forest-Steppe Altai, Russia. Skeletal samples associated with the Andronovo Culture of the Middle Bronze Age, and Staroaleyka and Kamen Cultures of the Early Iron Age were studied. Long bones of 595 adults were examined for evidence of antemortem and perimortem injuries. Fracture frequencies were calculated per individual and per skeletal element, and the differences were evaluated statistically. While assessing per individual, the relative risk with a 95% confidence interval was calculated as well. All of the observed fractures were healed. This study suggests that pastoralists sustained not only traumatic, but also stress injuries. There were sex-related differences in the rates, patterns, and location of the injuries. In the males, the main reason of fractures could have been high-velocity incidents during horseback riding and using horse-drawn vehicles. In the females, the majority of the injuries were possibly associated with accidents when walking (short falls and twists of ankle) and milking. Females of the Staroaleyka Culture sustained fractures of the limb bones significantly more often than those of the Kamen Culture, probably as a result of differences in their daily activities. In terms of the total fracture rates, the Forest-Steppe Altai pastoralists and their neighbors seem to have surpassed low-intensity agriculturalists but lag behind hunter-gatherers and high-intensity agriculturalists. More datasets are needed to further elucidate the association between postcranial fracture risk and subsistence-specific practices and environments within the Eurasian Steppe, where pastoralism has been the predominant form of economic activity for millennia.

This paper explores the implications of the conformation of formal burial areas in the southernmost limit of agricultural dispersion in South America. Previous research proposed the development of cemeteries or formal burial areas due to specialization in using specific habitats and the development of territorial ownership. From a paleoecological background, we hypothesize that hunter-gatherers intensified resource exploitation and develop territoriality in population growth and pressure over resources. The expectation is that formal burial areas emerged in this context to legitimize the ties with the territory and ensure exclusive access to the land and its resources. To evaluate this hypothesis, we analyzed a mortuary context from southern Mendoza (Central Western Argentina), named Ojo de Agua, by describing the site's characteristics, burial modality, presence of grave goods, age at death profile, and evidence of violence. This site has two main conditions for handling our hypothesis: (1) the chronology and spatial localization coincide with the temporal and geographic dispersion of pre-Hispanic cultigens; (2) systematic procedures during fieldwork led us to access a significant amount of information not available in other mortuary contexts of the area. Our results point to Ojo de Agua as a cemetery that emerged in the frame of increasing territoriality and conflict with neighboring groups and permitted us to improve our knowledge about the dynamic relationship between human population, environment, and cultural responses in the context of intensification and contact with food production. These results deepen recent studies in the same line but with a greater resolution.

At the beginning of the Portuguese maritime expansion (15th century), ships loaded with various goods, including sub-Saharan enslaved individuals, began to arrive in Portugal. In 2009, osteoarchaeological remains of these individuals were recovered for the first time in Valle da Gafaria, Lagos. Attending to their African origin and given that several studies have shown that the human body generally conforms to Bergmann's and Allen's rules, in this study, the physique of 63 adult individuals from the Valle da Gafaria site is tested against ecogeographical predictions. For that purpose, body shape (assessed by the femoral head diameter to femoral length index) and intralimb proportions (brachial and crural indices) were compared with those of 200 identified Portuguese skeletons. Results showed that the Lagos females' body shape and intralimb proportions differed significantly from those of the Portuguese, being more ‘tropically adapted’ (i.e., more ‘linear’ body shape with elongated distal limb segments). For the Lagos' males, the reduced sample size advises caution in the interpretation of the results. Although the specific origin of the Lagos individuals is not yet known, and different individuals may have come from relatively different regions of sub-Saharan Africa, with specific climatic adaptations, the results generally agree with the ecogeographical expectations. This study not only allows for the first glimpse into the body shape and limb proportions of enslaved Africans arriving in Portugal but also confirms that morphometric analyses of the long bones may be a valuable complement to investigate the latitude origin of an osteoarchaeological assemblage.

The analysis of familial relationships among individuals co-buried in a shared tomb is crucial for understanding burial practices and the underlying social organization of ancient human society. However, archaeological interpretation of these relationships has traditionally relied on conjecture and circumstantial evidence. The development of next-generation sequencing technologies makes it possible to obtain genomic data from ancient individuals and thus can further estimate the genetic relatedness among these individuals in an accurate manner. In this study, we obtained the genomes of four individuals excavated from a single tomb in northern China. We found that three out of the four individuals were from a nuclear family, including the parents and their son, while the remaining female individual was genetically unrelated to the others. Our study not only shows that the burial custom was organized based on both biological relatedness and social kinship ties but also suggests the presence of likely female exogamy in ancient China. Finally, we find the genetic profile of these individuals carried a majority ancestry from the sedentary agriculturalists from the Central Plains of China and subtle ancestry that derived a gene pool associated with nomadic pastoralism, implying a long-standing genetic continuity among ancient populations in northern China, but with genetic and cultural connections with nomadic groups during the 11th to 13th centuries.

During research conducted in 2019 regarding pelvic shape in population groups and its effects on successful delivery, one of the individuals studied was a Late Dynastic/Coptic Egyptian female mummy approximately 14–17 years old (USNM catalogue number 258601). She had an associated fetus that was wrapped and placed between her legs during mummification (USNM 258602). In 1908, the mother and child were excavated and autopsied for analysis. Field notes from 1908 said she had died from obstetric complications. For our 2019 study, the mummy was CT scanned to acquire the measurements of her pelvis and determine if cephalopelvic disproportion played a role in her death. While examining the CT images, elements of what was believed to be the fetus were identified in the mother. However, there were repetitions of elements, and a second fetus was discovered in the chest cavity of the mummy. The mother was carrying twins. For this study, re-scanning by CT and plain film radiography of the torso were performed on the mother as well as plain film radiography on the external fetus. Additionally, records and photographs from the 1908 expedition were reviewed to gather additional information on the mummy. Results note this mummy was pregnant with twins and in the middle of the birthing process at the time of her death.