Nutritional reconstruction in an early modern population: searching for a relationship between dental microwear and bone element composition

Author(s):  
Paweł Dąbrowski ◽  
Michał Jerzy Kulus ◽  
Joanna Grzelak ◽  
Cyprian Olchowy ◽  
Tomasz Staniowski ◽  
...  
2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 679-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Manabe ◽  
J. Oyamada ◽  
Y. Kitagawa ◽  
K. Igawa ◽  
K. Kato ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-161
Author(s):  
Anna Myszka ◽  
Janusz Piontek ◽  
Jacek Tomczyk ◽  
Marta Zalewska

AbstractAccording to medical knowledge, physical activity plays a role in osteoarthritic changes formation. The impact of occupation on osteoarthritic changes development in past human populations is not clear enough, causing problems with interpretation. The aim of the current study is to examine the relationship between osteoarthritis and entheseal changes. Skeletal material comes from the late medieval, early modern population from Łekno (Poland). The sample consists of 110 males and 56 females (adults only). Osteophytes, porosity and eburnation were analyzed in the shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee, and ankle. Entheses on the humerus, radius, femur, and tibia were examined. Standard ranked categorical scoring systems were used for the osteoarthritic and entheseal changes examination.Males with more developed osteophytes in the shoulder have more “muscular” upper limbs (higher values of muscle markers). Males with more developed osteophytes in the hip and knee are predicted to have more “muscular” lower limbs. Males with more developed osteoarthritis in the shoulder, wrist, hip, and knee exhibit more developed entheseal changes. Males with more developed entheses tend to yield more developed osteophytes (all joints taken together) and general osteoarthritis (all changes and all joints taken together). Females with more developed entheses have more developed osteoarthritis in the elbow, wrist, and hip. Individuals with more developed entheses have much more developed osteophytes. When all the three types of changes are taken together, more “muscular” females exhibit more developed osteoarthritis. The lack of uniformity of the results, wild discussions on the usage of entheses in activity patterns reconstruction and other limitations do not allow to draw unambiguous conclusions about the impact of physical activity on the osteoarthritis in past populations and further studies are needed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 829-857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted McCormick

AbstractCurrent approaches to the history of early modern population thought focus on the state and secular governance, while standard treatments of Restoration and Augustan “political arithmetic” emphasize its economic or social-scientific content. This article recovers nonsecular uses of demographic quantification, excavating the use of political arithmetic in religious polemic between ca. 1660 and ca. 1750. As a form of empirical natural philosophy, political arithmetic suited the polemical needs of latitudinarian Anglicans and others combating deism, atheism, and preadamism; the demographic regularities it revealed furnished evidence of providential solicitude, while the history of population growth was a potential prop for scriptural chronologies. A strand of “sacred” political arithmetic thus contributed to natural theology while modeling—albeit inconsistently—new historical applications for empirical methodology. The article concludes by considering possible causes for the decline of this “sacred” strand of demographic quantification, while suggesting connections between it and better-known secular forms of Enlightenment-era population thought.


2005 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 2-39
Author(s):  
Jaroslav Miller

Most surveys of urban growthin the long sixteenth century stress the comparatively high level of early modern population mobility encouraged by the emergence of qualitatively new phenomena in the spheres of economics, culture, and religion. There is also a prevailing consensus among historians referring to “natural decrease theory.” Historical demographers have suggested that, because of the high mortality rates caused by epidemics, wars, natural catastrophes, and continual problems with hygiene, the natural increase of the urban population was either moderate or nonexistent. Therefore, it was primarily immigration that either produced the rise or compensated for population losses.


2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Gerd Schwerhoff ◽  
Benjamin Seebröker ◽  
Alexander Kästner ◽  
Wiebke Voigt

AbstractOver the last decades social scientists have alleged that violence has decreased in Europe since late medieval times. They consider homicide rates a valid indicator for this claim. Thorough source criticism, however, raises serious doubts about the decline thesis having any substantial empirical foundation. Forms and contents of the sources are immensely heterogeneous and a closer look at the alleged richness of the data uncovers remarkable gaps. Furthermore, medieval and early modern population estimates are highly unreliable. Thus, we argue that historical research on violence should return to focus on specific historical constellations, accept the need for painstaking source criticism and pay careful attention to the contexts of violence.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina Bertilsson ◽  
Lisa Nylund ◽  
Maria Vretemark ◽  
Peter Lingström

Abstract Background With the aim to study dental pathological lesions in an early Swedish modern population, with special reference to sex variances of dental caries, the prevalence and distribution of dental caries and tooth wear were determined in complete and partial human dentitions from an early modern-time city graveyard (1500–1620) excavated in Gamlestaden, Gothenburg, Sweden. Methods Partial and complete dentitions were examined through visual inspection and using a dental probe. Pathologies were studied, evaluated and presented by teeth and alveoli. Results The study population consisted of 308 individuals. A total of 4,951 teeth in adults and 1,660 teeth in children were examined. Caries prevalence in the studied population was 55% and the highest prevalence of caries was found among the adults, where 68% of the individuals had at least one carious lesion. Caries experience (DMT > 0) in the entire population was 60%, and among adults caries experience was 76%. Women had significantly higher caries experience than men (p < 0.05). Caries was most prevalent in the molar teeth and least prevalent in the incisors and canines. Significant age-related increases in tooth wear were found, and a positive correlation between wear in molars and incisors (p < 0.001). Other clinical findings were signs of apical lesions, crowding of teeth, aplasia, non-erupted canines and calculus. Conclusions Findings show that dental pathological lesions affected a majority of the studied population, and indicate that women were more predisposed to dental disease than their male counterparts. Results are discussed from a multi-factorial explanation model including dietary, physiological and cultural etiological factors.


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