A health assessment for imperial Roman burials recovered from the necropolis of San Donato and Bivio CH, Urbino, Italy.

Imperial Roman burials recovered from the sites of San Donato and Bivio CH, located in the city of Urbino, Italy were examined for skeletal lesions. Observed pathologies include arthritis, trauma, periostitis, cranial pitting and enamel hypoplasia. All of the adults exhibited at least one enamel hypoplasia. In general, the adult males exhibit greater rates of skeletal pathologies than the females. Clearly, chronic health problems appear to be common among all adults; nearly 89% of them exhibit at least one form of skeletal lesion. This is in stark contrast to what is seen for the sub-adults. Only one sub-adult showed skeletal lesions. Acute health problems may have been the primary contributing factors for the death of the children recovered from the site. Despite previous research and attention to malaria as a critical health problem of Roman sub-adults, it does not seem to be an issue for this burial sample. We compare the frequency of cranial pitting and periostitis for the Urbino burials to several other Imperial Roman skeletal samples as a means to assess the potential for malaria and other casual factors for the observed lesions. In conclusion, we see the extreme rate of skeletal lesions for this community as indication of an extremely poor quality of life for these Romans.

Italian populations during the Copper Age: assessment of biological affinities through morphological dental traits.

The Copper Age (3rd millennium BC) was characterized by considerable socioeconomic transformations and coincided with the discovery of metallurgy. In this study we reconstruct the peopling of Italy during this period on the basis of dental morphology traits. Dental remains from 41 sites throughout Italy were analyzed; only three of the sites (Laterza and two from Sicily) span from the late Copper Age to the early Bronze Age. To work with adequate samples, we pooled the collections into nine geographically and culturally homogeneous groups. Dental morphological traits were scored on 8,891 teeth from 1,302 individuals using the ASUDAS scale. The correlation between the mean measure of divergence and geographic distances (calculated as air distances) was computed. Multidimensional scaling with the minimum spanning tree and maximum-likelihood methods was applied to assess the relationships between groups. The results revealed a substantial genetic homogeneity among the populations throughout the Italian peninsula during the Copper Age with the exception of Sardinia, which tends to diverge from the continental samples. Phenetic and geographic distances correlate highly significantly only when the southern samples from Sicily and Laterza are removed from the analysis, which indicates that these groups may have experienced genetic admixture with external populations.

Evidence for new Neanderthal teeth in Tabun Cave (Israel) by the application of self-organizing maps (SOMs).

Morphological and metrical study suggested that seven human teeth from Tabun Cave, Israel were part of the upper dentition of a single, probably Neanderthal, individual renumbered as Tabun BC7. An enamel fragment gave ESR age estimates of 82+/-14 ka (early U-uptake) and 92+/-18 ka (linear uptake) and an age estimate of 90(+30)(-16) ka using U-series disequilibrium. Although metrical analyses suggested Neanderthal affinities, definitive assessment was difficult as the values often fell into the ranges of both Neanderthal and Levantine early modern human samples. Therefore, two further classification analyses were conducted (neural networks using self-organizing maps and homogeneity analysis). Both identify Tabun BC7 as a Neanderthal. Neural networks are a promising tool for paleoanthropological studies as they can provide reliable classifications even with incomplete data.

Newly recognized Pleistocene human teeth from Tabun Cave, Israel.

Seven human teeth from Tabun Cave, Israel, curated at the Natural History Museum London since 1955, are of uncertain provenance and identity. They are all from the upper dentition, without duplications, and are characterized by a similar preservation. The Catalogue of Fossil Hominids (1975) suggested that they might have derived from Tabun Layer A (Bronze Age to Recent). However, one of us (AC) noted some distinctive features of these teeth that warranted further study. They are here assigned to a single individual, Tabun BC7. Their morphology and metrics were then compared with the frequency of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene groups from Europe, North Africa and Middle East. A fragment of the right M3 crown of Tabun BC7 was removed for ESR and U-analysis, and it was determined that only samples from Layer B have similar dose values. Using the sediment dose values of layer B, preliminary age estimates of 82 +/- 14 ka (early U-uptake) and 92+/-18 ka (linear uptake) were obtained. U-series disequilibrium determined from other samples attributed to Layer B resulted in a U-uptake history close to linear uptake, giving a very comparable age estimate of 90(+30)(-16) ka. The dose value previously obtained on an enamel fragment from the Tabun C1 dentition is nearly double the value measured for BC7, and tentative age estimates for C1 were in the range of 143+/-37 ka. However, due to uncertainties in the exact provenance of the human fossils, we cannot confirm that C1 is older than the new tooth sampled here, and both C1 and BC7 can be attributed to Layer B on chronological grounds. On the basis of chronology, dental morphology and metrics, the specimen named Tabun BC7 was identified as a probable Neanderthal.

Height and BMI of Italian immigrants to the USA, 1908-1970.

We analyze self-reported anthropometric data pertaining to 2140 adults who emigrated to the United States, mainly from southern Italy, between 1908-1928 and 1960-1970. The mean height of immigrant men was 165.5 cm: they were taller than contemporary southern Italian men by 0.5-7.3 cm in different periods. The mean height of the Italian immigrant women born before 1952 was 157.6 cm, less than the national average. At the end of the 1990s, national women average height was 162 cm, 159.5 cm for southern women. There were age-related increases of weight and BMI: overweight was more prevalent in the 40-49 years age category. In the male sample, the mean values of BMI were within the overweight range in all age classes. The prevalence of obesity was higher in the male sample than among US men, whereas it was virtually identical in the women's sample and much higher than the values reported for several European countries for the period 1970-1980.