A health assessment of high status Christian burials recovered from the Roman-Byzantine archeological site of Elaiussa Sebaste, Turkey.

The purpose of this study is to assess the state of health of 116 individuals whose remains were excavated from Byzantine period burials underneath the floor of an important Christian basilica from the site of Elaiussa Sebaste, Turkey. Elaiussa Sebaste was a Mediterranean coastal community, which began as a Roman town and continued as an early Christian Byzantine community until the end of the 7th century AD. The burials date from the middle of the 6th through the middle of the 7th centuries AD. We attempt to determine how high social status has influenced the type and frequency of skeletal lesions exhibited in this sample. All strata of this population show a number of chronic and acute health problems as indicated by skeletal lesions. Yet, only the frequency of degenerative joint disease (DJD) differs by sex, with males exhibiting a higher rate of DJD than females, p=0.09. There is no difference in the frequency of trauma among adult males and females. Non-specific skeletal lesions (cribra orbitalia, porotic hyperostosis, and periostitis) often associated with dietary and general stressors, but also with specific systemic diseases, are common in both sexes. The sub-adults primarily exhibit periostitis of the long bones and do not show skeletal lesions specific to malaria. It seems that high social ranking did not prevent serious ailments from affecting the health of individuals living in the Elaiussa Sebaste community.

Cranial trauma in iron age Samnite agriculturists, Alfedena, Italy: implications for biocultural and economic stress.

The Samnites are an Iron Age protohistoric people from the central region of Italy. The skeletal remains are from the Alfedena necropolis, 6th through 5th centuries B.C. Macchiarelli et al. (Antropologia Contemporanea 4 (1981) 239-243) were the first to report on cranial trauma for this population, presenting four cases with extreme injuries. We re-examined this well documented skeletal population for additional examples of trauma. Previously unexamined remains from Alfedena, excavated at the turn of the 20th century, are also included in our analysis (Mariani. 1901. "Aufidena", ricerche archeologiche e storiche del Sannio settentrionale. Roma: Acc Naz Dei Lincei). Of the 209 adult crania examined, 12.9% of them exhibited trauma. Analysis of location and frequency of cranial trauma revealed that cranial injuries to the head appear to originate from all directions. The high rate of cranial trauma underscores the violent circumstances experienced during the Iron Age protohistoric period of central Italy. Males are much more likely to exhibit cranial injury than females (P = 0.009). We conclude that the injuries received by Samnite male farmer-warriors occurred while defending pastoral-agricultural resources. Trauma rates are similar for some Iron Age populations and not for others. Behavior associated with violence during the Iron Age period can not be generalized for all populations found in Italy.

If a population crashes in prehistory, and there is no paleodemographer there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Catastrophic episodes (e.g., epidemics, natural disasters) strike with only limited regard for age. A large percentage of catastrophic mortality in a population can lead to a death distribution that resembles the living distribution, which includes greater numbers of older children, adolescents, and young adults than typical mortality profiles. This paper examines both the population implications of a large catastrophic mortality event, based on the Black Death as it ravaged medieval Europe, and its long-term effects on age-at-death distributions. An increased prevalence of epidemic disease is a common feature of reconstructions of the shift to agriculture and the rise of urban centers. The model begins with a hypothetical Medieval living population. This population is stable and characterized by slow growth. It has fertility and mortality rates consistent with a natural-fertility, agrarian population. The effects of catastrophic episodes are simulated by projecting the model population and subjecting it to one large (30% mortality) catastrophic episode as part of a 100-year population projection. A pair of Leslie matrices forms the basis of the projection. The catastrophic episode has important, long-term effects on both the living population and the cumulative distribution of death. The living population fails to recover from plague losses; at the end of the projection, population is still less than 75% its pre-plague level. The age-at-death distribution takes on the juvenile-young adult-heavy profile characteristic of many archaeological samples. The cumulative death profile based on the projection differs from that produced by the stable model significantly (P < 0.05) for 25-50 years after the plague episode, depending on sample size.

Model life table fitting by maximum likelihood estimation: a procedure to reconstruct paleodemographic characteristics from skeletal age distributions.

A procedure is presented that uses the regression coefficients for the Coale and Demeny west model life tables to model selected demographic characteristics from skeletal age-at-death distributions. Model death distributions were constructed and compared to a given skeletal distribution, using methods of maximum likelihood estimation to determine the best fit. Two chi-square tests are employed to evaluate the degree of fit. The resulting model includes estimates of demographic characteristics including gross reproductive rate, crude birth rate and life expectancy. The procedure is applied to three archaeological skeletal samples as test cases: two from eastern North America and one from Mexico. These display a range of correspondence (between the best fitting model and the data) from good to poor. The proposed procedure is a potentially powerful tool for both reconstructing paleodemographic rates and illuminating differences between typical human patterns and those found in archaeological populations.

Brief communication: bone remodeling rates: a test of an algorithm for estimating missing osteons.

Frost (1987a) proposed an algorithm for estimating the number of missing osteons that correspond to observed osteon population densities (OPD). Such an algorithm should allow more accurate estimates of bone remodeling rates for skeletal remains for which in vivo labeling is not possible. In order to validate the algorithm, it was tested on an autopsy sample of 44 ribs. Estimates of activation frequency (mu RC) and bone remodeling rate (Vf,r,t) using the new algorithm are in reasonable agreement with age-matched tetracycline-based values. Although mean values for activation frequencies (mu RC) and bone formation rate (Vf,r,t) generated by the algorithm were generally lower, they fell below 1 standard error for only an age category that included all ages above the 5th decade. It is now appropriate to apply the algorithm to archaeological skeletal remains.

Assessing the reliability of paleodemographic fertility estimators using simulated skeletal distributions.

The reliability of published paleodemographic fertility reconstruction methods was assessed using simulated age-at-death distributions and a published cemetery series from a population with known birth rates. In the first test, the Brass ([1971] Biological Aspects of Demography, pp. 69-110) LOGIT models were used to generate 180 simulated skeletal samples of various sizes (N = 50, 100, 250) from hypothetical populations with known demographic rates. The base populations were expanding (r = 0.01), stationary, or declining (r = -0.01), yet all had the same life expectancy. Growth differences resulted from different fertility rates. The simulated skeletal series were then analyzed using the model life table fitting procedure outlined by Paine ([1989a] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 79:51-62), three commonly employed age ratio tests (Bocquet-Appel and Masset [1892] J. Hum. Evol. 11:321-333; Buikstra et al. [1986] Am. Antiquity 51:528-546), and one age-at-death ratio not previously published. In the second test the model life table fitting procedure was used to estimate fertility for a historical population, the Newton Plantation, Barbados (Corruccini et al. [1989] Am. Antiquity 54:609-614), with known demographic characteristics.

Effect of sample bias on paleodemographic fertility estimates.

Paleodemographers must work to understand how representative any archaeologically recovered skeletal series is and the potential effects of series bias on their demographic reconstructions. We examine two forms of bias: 1) infant underenumeration caused by differential preservation or incomplete archaeological recovery and 2) the underenumeration of individuals over age 45 related to methodological bias. We generated 60 simulated skeletal series of 250 individuals each based on the Brass ([1971] Biological Aspects of Demography (London: Taylor and Francis), pp. 69-110) logit models. In the first test, age bias was introduced deterministically for all individuals with age at death over 40 years using the Lovejoy et al. ([1985] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 68:1-14) bias estimates. In the second test, 50% of all individuals under 5 years old were removed from each simulated distribution. The simulated series were analyzed using the model life table fitting procedure developed by the authors (Milner et al. [1989] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 80:49-58; Paine [1989] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 79:51-62). Forms of adult age estimation bias described by Lovejoy and coworkers inflate estimates by 10-20% of the true crude birth rate (CBR) (the number of births per year per 1,000 population). Overestimation of fertility and birth rates increases both absolutely and as a percentage of the true rate as population growth increases. This bias is very consistent. Because Lovejoy and colleagues have estimated the methodological bias itself, its effects can be estimated. Infant underenumeration is a more serious obstacle. It is not presently possible to estimate infant underenumeration reliably without prior knowledge of fertility rates. This reduces fertility reconstructions based on infant-biased samples to minimum fertility estimates.

Brief communication: histological age estimation using rib and clavicle.

Histological methods for estimating age at death using osteon population densities for the rib, clavicle, and rib and clavicle combined are presented. Predicting formulas were generated from a sample of 40 individuals of known age, sex, and race. Independent samples of 12 ribs and 7 clavicles were used to test the formulas. Mean differences between known and predicted ages were 1.1 years, 2.6 years, and 3.4 years for the clavicle, rib and clavicle combined, and rib formulas respectively. An analysis of variance found no significant differences among the means for predicted and known ages. Since the formula based upon rib and clavicle combined has the higher standard error and r2, and includes data from different bones, it should provide better overall accuracy and reliability, and is recommended whenever both bones are available.

Limb joint surface areas and their ratios in Malagasy lemurs and other mammals.

Surface areas of humeral and femoral heads scale largely as a function of body size. However, differences in the relative sizes of these articular surfaces are correlated with differential joint mobility and force transmission through fore- and hindlimbs. They can therefore assist interpretation of the positional behavior of extinct species. In this paper, we document variation in ratios of humeral head surface area to femoral head surface area among extant primates and other mammals. We then examine a group of extinct primates: the subfossil lemurs of Madagascar. Many Malagasy lemurs, including some giant extinct species with very long forelimbs and short hindlimbs, have relatively small humeral heads and large femoral heads. We explore the adaptive implications of this pattern.