Culturally Determined Patterns of Violence: Biological Anthropological Investigations at a Historic Urban Cemetery

The dark satanic mills: Evaluating patterns of health in England during the industrial revolution

OBJECTIVE

this research seeks to investigate the impact the industrial revolution had on the population of England.

MATERIALS

Pre-existing skeletal data from 1154 pre-Industrial (1066-1700 CE) and 4157 industrial (1700-1905) skeletons from 21 cemeteries (N = 5411).

METHODS

Context number, sex, age-at-death, stature and presence/absence of selected pathological conditions were collated. The data were compared using chi square, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, t-tests and logistic regression (α = 0.01).

RESULTS

There was a statistically significant increase in cribra orbitalia, periosteal reactions, rib lesions, fractures, rickets, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, enamel hypoplasia, dental caries and periapical lesions in the industrial period. Osteomyelitis decreased from the pre-industrial to industrial period.

CONCLUSION

Our results confirm the industrial revolution had a significant negative impact on human health, however the prevalence of TB, treponemal disease, maxillary sinusitis, osteomalacia, scurvy, gout and DISH did not change, suggesting these diseases were not impacted by the change in environmental conditions.

SIGNIFICANCE

This is the largest study of health in the industrial revolution that includes non-adults and adults and considers age-at-death alongside disease status to date. This data supports the hypothesis that the rise of industry was associated with a significant decline in general health, but not an increase in all pathological conditions.

Toward a bioarchaeology of urbanization: Demography, health, and behavior in cities in the past

Urbanization is one of the most important settlement shifts in human history and has been the focus of research within bioarchaeology for decades. However, there have been limited attempts to synthesize the results of these studies in order to gain a broader perspective on whether or how urbanization affects the biology, demography, and behavior of humans, and how these potential effects are embodied in the human skeleton. This paper outlines how bioarchaeology is well-suited to examine urbanization in the past, and we provide an overview and examples of three main ways in which urbanization is studied in bioarchaeological research: comparison of (often contemporaneous) urban and rural sites, synchronic studies of the variation that exists within and between urban sites, and investigations of changes that occur within urban sites over time. Studies of urbanization, both within bioarchaeology and in other fields of study, face a number of limitations, including a lack of a consensus regarding what urban and urbanization mean, the assumed dichotomous nature of urban versus rural settlements, the supposition that urbanization is universally bad for people, and the assumption (at least in practice) of homogeneity within urban and rural populations. Bioarchaeologists can address these limitations by utilizing a wide array of data and methods, and the studies described here collectively demonstrate the complex, nuanced, and highly variable effects of urbanization.

A new approach to recording nasal fracture in skeletonized individuals

OBJECTIVE

This work describes a new method for recording nasal fracture in skeletonized individuals, suitable for use in biocultural studies of violence and fracture in past societies.

METHODS

The method consists in recording the 'side of fracture', 'side of deviation', 'type of fracture', 'other facial fractures', and stage of 'bone remodeling'.

RESULTS

A lateral impact force to the facial area is typical of interpersonal violence. This may result in a unilateral nasal fracture and/or a laterally deviated nose. Given the predominance of right-handedness in human populations, side of fracture and, especially, side of deviation, may be useful indices of interpersonal violence. As regards fracture type, although a distal fracture of the nasal bones is the most common type, their comminution may be associated with higher impact forces. The presence of other facial fractures may also be an indicator of high-energy impacts.

CONCLUSIONS

Different patterns of nasal trauma may be consistent with different etiologies.

SIGNIFICANCE

The method is focused at improving our ability to distinguish the direction and type of impact that caused the injury and, in particular, whether, at a population or sub-group level, such injuries are likely to be predominantly due to violence or to other causes.

LIMITATIONS

Well healed fractures of the nasal bones or injury to the septum may be difficult to identify. Also, it is not possible to confirm if nasal and other facial fractures are temporally concurrent.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

To test this method using skeletal collections with known trauma history or 3D prints of modern nasal injuries of known etiologies.

"Against Shameless and Systematic Calumny": Strategies of Domination and Resistance and Their Impact on the Bodies of the Poor in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Mid-Victorian British characterizations of Ireland and much of its population blamed race and "moral character" for the widespread poverty on the island. The Irish poor were portrayed as a "race apart" whose inherent failings were at least partly to blame for the mortality they suffered during the Great Famine of 1845-1852. Recent excavations at Kilkenny workhouse and Spike Island convict prison have produced skeletal assemblages from this critical period. These collections have enabled bioarchaeological analysis of parameters mentioned by the Victorians as indicative of the distinctiveness of the Irish poor: stature, interpersonal violence, and tobacco use. Bioarchaeological data indicate that the differences between Irish and British populations in stature and risk of violence were exaggerated. Such characterizations, we argue, were part of a strategy of "Othering" that served to legitimize colonial domination. This exertion of power did not go uncontested, as the pattern of tobacco use may be indicative of forms of passive resistance.

Skeletal evidence for violent trauma from the bronze age Qijia culture (2,300-1,500 BCE), Gansu Province, China

This research explores how social and environmental factors may have contributed to conflict during the early Bronze Age in Northwest China by analyzing violent trauma on human skeletal remains from a cemetery of the Qijia culture (2300-1500 BCE). The Qijia culture existed during a period of dramatic social, technological, and environmental change, though minimal research has been conducted on how these factors may have contributed to violence within the area of the Qijia and other contemporaneous material cultures. An osteological assessment was conducted on 361 individuals (n = 241 adults, n = 120 non-adults) that were excavated from the Mogou site, Lintan County, Gansu, China. Injuries indicative of violence, including sharp- and blunt-force trauma that was sustained ante- or peri-mortem, were identified, and the patterns of trauma were analysed. Violent injuries were found on 8.58% (n = 31/361) of individuals, primarily adult males. No evidence of trauma was found on infants or children. Cranial trauma was found on 11.8% (n = 23/195) of the adult individuals examined. Of these, 43.5% (n = 10/23) presented with severe peri-mortem craniofacial trauma. The high rate of perimortem injuries and their locations indicate lethal intent. This lethality, in addition to the fact that individuals with trauma were predominantly male, suggest intergroup violence such as raiding, warfare, or feuding. Both social and environmental factors may have contributed to this conflict in the TaoRiver Valley, though future systematic archaeological and paleoenvironmental data will be needed to disentangle the many potential causal factors.

Time after time: individuals with multiple fractures and injury recidivists in long eighteenth-century (c. 1666-1837) London

Investigating injury recidivism and individuals with multiple injuries is an area of growing interest in bioarchaeology. Differentiating between whether an individual sustained multiple injuries, represented by antemortem healed fractures, in one incident or in multiple incidents over the life course, is a major challenge. This research analyzed the skeletal remains of 721 adults (402 males, 319 females) from five post-medieval cemeteries from London, UK, known to include working class individuals for evidence of skeletal trauma - fractures, myositis ossificans, subluxations/dislocations, blunt force trauma, and sharp force trauma. A total of 164 individuals had more than two fractures; males were significantly more likely to have multiple (2+) fractures than females. An investigation of fracture recidivism incorporating a relative timeline of fracture events was possible because 14 individuals (12 males, two females) were identified as injury recidivists, meaning they had a combination of antemortem healed, antemortem healing, and/or perimortem fractures. This paper examines the distribution and relative timing of these fractures, incorporating contemporary clinical as well as social and historical context, noting that the majority of the fractures were likely to be caused by accidental mechanisms.

An accident at work? Traumatic lesions in the skeleton of a 4th millennium BCE "wagon driver" from Sharakhalsun, Russia

The study of ante-mortem trauma is a popular and important aspect of palaeopathological analysis. The majority of publications focus on a particular assemblage, skeletal element or type of fracture, with case studies of single individuals with multiple/unusual traumata being much rarer in the literature. This paper presents the case of an adult male from the Bronze Age site of Sharakhalsun, Russia, buried, uniquely, in a sitting position on a fully assembled wagon, who displayed evidence for multiple healed ante-mortem fractures of the cranium, axial and appendicular skeleton. The mechanisms and likely etiologies of the fractures are presented, with reference to modern and 19th century clinical literature, and possible interpretations suggested: that the individual was involved in a severe accident involving a wagon or draft animals, or both, a number of years before his death. The suggestion is also made that the unique burial position of the individual was a form of commemoration by the community of the survival and recovery of the individual from such a serious incident.

Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya

The nature of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers remains disputed, with arguments in favour and against the existence of warfare before the development of sedentary societies. Here we report on a case of inter-group violence towards a group of hunter-gatherers from Nataruk, west of Lake Turkana, which during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene period extended about 30 km beyond its present-day shore. Ten of the twelve articulated skeletons found at Nataruk show evidence of having died violently at the edge of a lagoon, into which some of the bodies fell. The remains from Nataruk are unique, preserved by the particular conditions of the lagoon with no evidence of deliberate burial. They offer a rare glimpse into the life and death of past foraging people, and evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers.

Cultural patterns of trauma among 19th-century-born males in cadaver collections

Comprehending violence among bioarchaeological and historical groups is a topic of recent interest among biological anthropologists. This research examines trauma among African American and Euro-American males of low socioeconomic status born between 1825 and 1877. A total of 651 male skeletons from the Cobb, Terry, and Hamann-Todd anatomical collections were macroscopically evaluated for skeletal trauma, based on the presence of fractures and weapon-related wounds, and statistically analyzed according to ancestry, birth (Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction), combined ancestry - birth, and collection cohorts. Results indicated that African Americans and Euro-Americans expressed ethnic differences in regard to interpersonal violence. To interpret these disparities, documentary data were used to reconstruct the socioeconomic and cultural environment of these individuals. This research emphasizes the importance of evaluating skeletal data within the context of class, culture, and environment so that behavioral patterns observed in the skeleton can be better understood.