International Journal of Paleopathology最新文献

Objective

Overall, paleopathology trails behind related fields in exploring sex, gender, and sexuality in past societies. Here, we interrogatively synthesize scholarship on topics not included in similar reviews, focusing on sex estimation methods, and considering the social determinants of health; trauma; reproduction and family; and childhood – to highlight novel, social epidemiology- and social theory-informed frameworks and interpretive devices.

Conclusions

Many paleopathological interpretations focus on sex-gender differences relative to health, with increasing use of intersectionality. Others consistently project present-day ideologies about sex, gender, and sexuality (e.g., binary sex-gender systems) into paleopathological interpretations (i.e., presentism).

Significance

Paleopathologists have an ethical imperative to generate scholarship that contributes to social justice initiatives focused on dismantling structural inequalities, especially relative to sex, gender, and sexuality (e.g., homophobia), such as through denaturalizing presentist binary systems. They also have a responsibility towards greater inclusivity relative to researcher identity and diversification of method and theory.

Limitations

In addition to material limitations complicating reconstructions of sex, gender, and sexuality relative to health and disease in the past, this review wasn’t comprehensive. The review was also limited by the relative paucity of paleopathological work on these topics.

Suggestions for Future Research: The outlook for paleopathological research on sex, gender, and sexuality is, however, positive; paleopathology is well situated to tackle these aspects of social identity. Future work should consider critical, self-reflective movement away from presentism; more robust contextualization; and further engagement with social theory and social epidemiology theory and approaches, including the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD), social determinants of health, and intersectionality.

Objective

To test the hypothesis that a bioarchaeological focus on health-related care provision can contribute to the currently limited understanding of social practice in Early Anglo-Saxon England (mid5th-early7th centuries AD).

Materials

Published descriptions of pathology in 69 adult remains from the Early Anglo-Saxon cemetery of Worthy Park, southern England.

Methods

Three case studies (one examining likely need for care at an individual level and two at a population level) were undertaken using the bioarchaeology of care approach.

Results

Analyses indicate likely care provision (‘direct support’ and/or ‘accommodation of difference’) to Worthy Park individuals experiencing temporary or permanent disability. Interpretation suggests community interdependence, cooperation, flexibility and tolerance of difference, as well as cultural and socioeconomic mechanisms for managing physical and social challenges of ageing.

Conclusions

This study provides proof of concept that bioarchaeology of care analysis can offer new insights into social practice in this period.

Significance

This study demonstrates that a bioarchaeological focus on caregiving behaviours in an Early Anglo-Saxon community extends modern thinking about social relations in post-Roman Britain, offering a model for future investigations into social practice in this, and potentially other, periods. More generally, it illustrates the richness of results achievable when combining bioarchaeological and historical research.

Limitations

Reliance on secondary sources limited detail (and potentially accuracy) of interpretation possible.

Suggestions for further research

This study’s approach should be further tested and refined, either through application to different Anglo-Saxon (or other historic) populations or in a more thorough analysis of the Worthy Park sample itself.

Objective

Paleopathological analysis is combined with ethnohistorical, ethnographic and ethnomedical reports to assess the sociocultural implications for a historical nomadic Bedouin female following her survival of a below-knee amputation and multiple injuries to the stump.

Materials

A middle-aged female recovered from a nomadic-style burial dated to the Late Ottoman Period (1789–1918) in Jordan’s Wadi ath-Thamad region.

Methods

Macroscopic and radiographic assessment.

Results

A supracondylar femur (Hoffa) fracture, knee complex injury and lower leg amputation were observed on the right lower limb. Other pathological lesions that may have affected movement included bilateral os acromiale, intervertebral disc disease, osteoarthritis and right hook of hamate fracture.

Conclusions

The individual survived a below-knee amputation, two injuries to the stump, and likely experienced lower back pain. Mobility may have been painful, but she likely functioned within the community performing gender-specific daily tasks within the family tent and designated community female workspaces. Ethnohistoric and ethnographic reports suggest that marital demotion by other wives or a return to her father’s tent may have occurred.

Significance

Healed multiple injuries and amputation affecting one limb are rare in paleopathological literature.

Limitations

It is uncertain whether the amputation or either of the stump injuries occurred during the same event. If they resulted from separate events, slight hip joint osteoarthritis suggests that the amputation preceded the other injuries.

Suggestions for further research

Full pathological assessment of individuals with amputations may provide additional insight into impairment resolution, health problems and injury arising from impairment following amputation.

Objective

To characterize patterns in the taxonomic diversity of parasites infecting the population of Aalst, Belgium, between the 12th and 17th centuries.

Materials

14 sediment samples from seven cesspits dated 1100–1700 CE.

Methods

Digital light microscopy and Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

Results

We identified eggs of four species of helminths: whipworm (Trichuris trichiura), roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides), Echinostoma fluke and Dicrocoelium fluke. ELISA results for protozoal parasites were negative.

Conclusions

Taxonomic diversity of parasite infections remained constant from the 12th to the 17th centuries. Roundworm and whipworm, spread by poor sanitation, were dominant. Two species of zoonotic parasites were also identified, including for the first time ever in the Low Countries the Echinostoma fluke, which may have been spread by eating uncooked freshwater animal foods.

Significance

Analysis of sediment samples spanning such a broad chronology (six centuries) from a single city offers the opportunity to track diachronic change, which is rare in paleoparasitological studies.

Limitations

We were unable to acquire samples from cesspits dating to the 14th century.

Suggestions for further research

Additional data from other Low Countries towns may strengthen the patterns identified in this paper. A similar approach can be used to investigate towns in different regions of the world.

Objective

To present paleopathological evidence of a congenital anomaly with photographic support and a review that will help scholars to diagnose the condition.

Materials

Well-preserved skeletal remains of a child from central Colombia, dated 968–1046 CE.

Methods

Macroscopic examination and computerized axial tomography.

Results

Two holes were observed in the skull.

Conclusions

The pathology is consistent with a neural tube defect or an inclusion cyst.

Significance

Neural tube defects and inclusion cysts, in paleopathology, are rarely reported in children. The preservation and origin of the individual make this case valuable. The photographic support and the review is useful for other scholars in the field.

Limitations

It was not possible to determine a single cause.

Suggestions for future research

Review cases in identified osteological collections.

Objective

In 1971, Weiss identified a “scapula sign” comprising a defect at the inferior angle of the scapula in juveniles with vitamin D deficiency rickets, but this has been little studied since. This study aimed to explore pathological variation of this defect in juveniles with other skeletal manifestations of vitamin D deficiency rickets.

Materials and methods

527 juveniles, aged from birth to 12 years, from two post-medieval British assemblages were macroscopically evaluated to document the range of pathological changes at the inferior angle. Scapula maximum lengths were recorded and supplementary radiographs were assessed.

Results

Blunting, flattening or squaring of the inferior angle occurred in 34 of 155 (22%) juveniles with other indicators of rickets and occurred frequently in cases of severe active rickets. Coarsening of the border and cupping deformities were identified radiographically, as well as residual defects in healed cases. Scapula lengths in juveniles with active rickets did not consistently deviate from those expected in any age group.

Conclusions

The scapula sign is identifiable in some children with rickets. Differential diagnoses of scapula defects are important but the socio-cultural and environmental context of this sample suggests a link to vitamin D deficiency.

Significance

This finding expands the range of pathological changes known to occur in rickets, helping to improve recognition of this condition in past groups.

Limitations

Small sample sizes prevented observation of the defect in adolescents with rickets. Defects can affect the positioning of standardised scapula length measures, complicating assessments of growth impacts.

Suggestions for future research

Continued research into the range of skeletal changes that can develop in vitamin D deficiency to improve the identification of this deficiency in past groups.

Objective

To investigate diachonic and regional trends in the occurrence of pathologies in cattle in the Iron Age and Roman Netherlands. A key objective is to investigate whether the intensification of cattle husbandry in the Roman period was associated with an increase in pathology.

Materials

The data set consists of 167 sites with a combined total of 127,373 individual specimens for cattle, sheep/goat, horse, and pig.

Methods

A quantitative approach was used, investigating the frequency of pathologies over time and per region. For cattle, pathology frequencies were also investigated per type. Several multi-period sites were considered in more detail.

Results

Pathology frequencies increased during the Iron Age and Roman period. In cattle, joint pathology was most common, followed by dental pathology.

Conclusions

The overall frequency of pathology aligns with frequencies in other regions. Some pathological conditions in cattle can tentatively be linked to intensification, such as joint pathology at two sites in the Middle and Late Roman periods, an increase in dental pathology and trauma).

Significance

This review revealed diachronic trends and linked them to developments in animal husbandry and highlights the importance of recording and publishing pathological lesions.

Limitations

The multi-causal origin of joint and dental pathology makes it difficult to relate them to the intensification of cattle husbandry.

Suggestions for further research

It is hoped that this review will stimulate further paleopathological research globally, especially systematic studies into foot pathologies.

Objective

This paper presents the current state of the art in the investigation of past malaria by providing an extensive review of previous studies and identifying research possibilities for the future.

Materials

All previous research on the detection of malaria in human skeletal material using macroscopic and biomolecular approaches is considered.

Methods

The approaches and methods used by scholars and the results they obtained are evaluated and the limitations discussed.

Results

There is a link between malaria and porous lesions with significantly higher prevalence in malaria-endemic areas, however, they are not pathognomonic or specific for malaria. Malaria can be identified using biomolecular techniques, yet, to date there is no completely satisfactory method that is able to consistently diagnose the disease.

Conclusions

Using macroscopic and biomolecular techniques, malaria can be investigated in past populations and the impact of the disease studied. Yet, this is not a straightforward process and the use of multiple lines of evidence is necessary to obtain the best results.

Significance

The extensive discussion on ways malaria can and cannot be identified in past populations and the suggestions for new approaches provide a steppingstone for future research into this debilitating, global disease.

Limitations

Malaria is a difficult disease to study archaeologically and successful identification depends on many intrinsic and extrinsic factors.

Suggestions for further research

More large-scale spatial analyses of porous lesions as well as targeting different tissues or molecules for biomolecular identification may improve the archaeological understanding of malaria.

Objective

The macromorphological characteristics and frequency of endocranial abnormal blood vessel impressions (ABVI) and periosteal appositions of dura mater (PADM), and their association with sex, age-at-death and scurvy-like lesions were studied. The possible etiologies of these lesions were discussed.

Materials

A total of 144 adult skulls excavated from an early modern (16th-19th c. CE) cemetery at the Czysty Square in Wrocław (Poland) were examined, most of which were intact.

Methods

The endocranial surface was inspected with an endoscope for the presence, location, and severity of ABVI and PADM. Frequencies of ABVI and PADM were grouped by sex and age-at-death.

Results

A little more than a half (53.5 %) of the examined skulls were affected by ABVI and/or PADM. PADM were more frequent in females. However, both alteration types occurred with similar frequencies across all age-at-death categories.

Conclusions

The high frequency of ABVI and PADM suggests that meningeal infections and/or hemorrhage among inhabitants of early modern Wrocław, especially in females, were common.

Significance

The paper emphasizes the need for using an endoscope in standard anthropological analysis of intact skulls, as it allows for a nondestructive inspection of the endocranial surface.

Limitations

The endoscope did not allow for an accurate examination of the middle cranial fossa.

Suggestions for further research

Comparative studies with other historical populations are necessary to better understand the possible etiologies of macromorphological and demographic characteristics of ABVI and PADM.

Objective

To evaluate the presence of Dicrocoelium sp. in a child from a Late Antique funerary context from Cantabrian Spain and discuss whether the infection is true infection or pseudoparasitosis.

Materials

Four skeletons, including one from a 5–7 year old child, have been analysed from the archaeological site of El Conventón, dated between the sixth and seventh centuries AD.

Methods

The paleoparasitological study was conducted through the analysis of soil samples from different parts of the skeleton and funerary context using the rehydration, homogenization, and micro-sieving method, and visualized through brightfield microscopy.

Results

A soil sample from the pelvic region tested positive for Dicrocoelium sp. (possibly D. dendriticum).

Conclusions

The child was infected with Dicrocoelium dendriticum, which based on archaeological and historical contexts may be related to hygiene or dietary behaviour.

Significance

We present one of the few cases of the identification of a Dicrocoelidae parasite directly associated with a human skeleton that provides historical knowledge of a zoonotic disease.

Limitations

The diagnosis of a zoonosis through the identification of ancient parasites is complex. In addition, Dicrocoelium sp. in association with skeletal human remains is rare due to the potential low prevalence of this parasite.

Suggestions for Further Research

Highlight the importance of paleoparasitological analysis to link parasitic infection diseases with socioeconomic issues by using funerary contexts with skeletal remains.