engleski

Vertebral pathologies in two early Modern period (16th-19th century) populations from Croatia

In order to test to what degree Schmorl’s nodes (SN), osteophytosis of the vertebral bodies (VO), and osteoarthritis of the articular facets (OA) are useful indicators of activity-related stress, an analysis of their frequencies and distributions in two early Modern period skeletal samples from Croatia - Koprivno and Sisak - was conducted. Historic and contemporary ethnographic sources suggest that living conditions were more demanding in Koprivno, and that a sexual division of labor existed in both populations. A total of 2552 vertebral bodies (990 from Koprivno and 1562 from Sisak) and 5186 articular facets (2135 from Koprivno and 3051 from Sisak) were analyzed. Koprivno exhibits significantly higher total frequencies of SN, VO and OA than Sisak, and in both series total frequencies of SN and OA are significantly higher in males. When, however, the series were analyzed by age and sex categories, the same trend was noted only in SN. Additionally, while VO and OA were strongly correlated with increased age in both sites, the frequencies of SN were not correlated with ageing. This study therefore suggest that SN are useful indicators of lifestyle-related physical stress, while VO and OA are - because of their more varied etiologies and strong positive correlation with advanced age - less useful markers of activity-related stress.

bioarchaeology; vertebral pathologies; degenerative joints disease; activity-related stress

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