On the threshold of adulthood: A new approach for the use of maturation indicators to assess puberty in adolescents from medieval England.

OBJECTIVES: This study provides the first large scale analysis of the age at which adolescents in medieval England entered and completed the pubertal growth spurt. This new method has implications for expanding our knowledge of adolescent maturation across different time periods and regions. METHODS: In total, 994 adolescent skeletons (10-25 years) from four urban sites in medieval England (AD 900-1550) were analyzed for evidence of pubertal stage using new osteological techniques developed from the clinical literature (i.e., hamate hook development, cervical vertebral maturation (CVM), canine mineralization, iliac crest ossification, and radial fusion). RESULTS: Adolescents began puberty at a similar age to modern children at around 10-12 years, but the onset of menarche in girls was delayed by up to 3 years, occurring around 15 for most in the study sample and 17 years for females living in London. Modern European males usually complete their maturation by 16-18 years; medieval males took longer with the deceleration stage of the growth spurt extending as late as 21 years. CONCLUSIONS: This research provides the first attempt to directly assess the age of pubertal development in adolescents during the 10th-17th centuries. Poor diet, infections, and physical exertion may have contributed to delayed development in the medieval adolescents, particularly for those living in the city of London. This study sheds new light on the nature of adolescence in the medieval period, highlighting an extended period of physical and social transition.

Brief communication: a proposed method for the assessment of pubertal stage in human skeletal remains using cervical vertebrae maturation.

The assessment of age-at-death in non-adult skeletal remains is under constant review. However, in many past societies an individual's physical maturation may have been more important in social terms than their exact age, particularly during the period of adolescence. In a recent article (Shapland and Lewis: Am J Phys Anthropol 151 (2013) 302-310) highlighted a set of dental and skeletal indicators that may be useful in mapping the progress of the pubertal growth spurt. This article presents a further skeletal indicator of adolescent development commonly used by modern clinicians: cervical vertebrae maturation (CVM). This method is applied to a collection of 594 adolescents from the medieval cemetery of St. Mary Spital, London. Analysis reveals a potential delay in ages of attainment of the later CVM stages compared with modern adolescents, presumably reflecting negative environmental conditions for growth and development. The data gathered on CVM is compared to other skeletal indicators of pubertal maturity and long bone growth from this site to ascertain the usefulness of this method on archaeological collections.

Brief communication: a proposed osteological method for the estimation of pubertal stage in human skeletal remains.

Puberty forms an important threshold between childhood and adulthood, but this subject has received little attention in bioarchaeology. The new application of clinical methods to assess pubertal stage in adolescent skeletal remains is explored, concentrating on the development of the mandibular canine, hamate, hand phalanges, iliac crest and distal radius. Initial results from the medieval cemetery of St. Peter's Church, Barton-upon-Humber, England suggest that application of these methods may provide insights into aspects of adolescent development. This analysis indicates that adolescents from this medieval site were entering the pubertal growth spurt at a similar age to their modern counterparts, but that the later stages of pubertal maturation were being significantly delayed, perhaps due to environmental stress. Continued testing and refinement of these methods on living adolescents is still necessary to improve our understanding of their significance and accuracy in predicting pubertal stages.