Did women work hard too? a study of upper limb loading through cross-sectional geometry in Medieval and post-Medieval skeletal samples from the Netherlands

The study of how repetitive physical activity affect bone shape and how bone reacts to mechanical forces such as torsion or bending has gained attention on the last few years. Mechanical loading and cross-sectional geometry studies have been especially useful to understand transition from hunter-gathering into agricultural practices, and sexual dimorphism and sexual division of labour. Studies comparing mechanical loading in female against male individuals suffer from an inherent bias that obscure the results: hormonal difference between male and females and, therefore, muscle distribution, might obscure the activities and resistance to forces that women presented in the past. There is a necessity for a comprehensive body of work that focuses on women’s cross-sectional properties, a comparable dataset that allows researchers to better understanding how female bodies react to mechanical forces. There are studies that are trying to fill in this research gap, such as Macintosh and...Show moreThe study of how repetitive physical activity affect bone shape and how bone reacts to mechanical forces such as torsion or bending has gained attention on the last few years. Mechanical loading and cross-sectional geometry studies have been especially useful to understand transition from hunter-gathering into agricultural practices, and sexual dimorphism and sexual division of labour. Studies comparing mechanical loading in female against male individuals suffer from an inherent bias that obscure the results: hormonal difference between male and females and, therefore, muscle distribution, might obscure the activities and resistance to forces that women presented in the past. There is a necessity for a comprehensive body of work that focuses on women’s cross-sectional properties, a comparable dataset that allows researchers to better understanding how female bodies react to mechanical forces. There are studies that are trying to fill in this research gap, such as Macintosh and colleagues’s (2017) work on prehistoric women’s cross-sectional properties compared to known modern-days athletes and control group. This research aims to contribute to the growing body of work that can be utilised to better understand female mechanical loading patterns. In order to do that, cross-sectional properties of the dominant humerus of women from the Netherlands will be analysed. The research wishes to “zoom-in” in time and space and compare the response to mechanical loading from medieval and post-medieval Dutch populations, where status and context is known. Five populations where selected: Alkmaar, Arnhem, Klaaskinderkere, Delft and Zwolle, to be able to compare upper limb loading of not only medieval and post-medieval populations but urban and rural populations with widely different-socio economic conditions, going from really high-status (Delft) to low economic conditions (Klaaskinderkerke). The results did not show any statistically significant differences per se, but small differences were still registered, with medieval, lower status populations presenting a higher resistance to bending and torsion than post-medieval urban, higher status populations. Populations with lower cross-sectional values presenting a higher Imax/Imin ratio, meaning that the since less physical activity was affecting these bones, these forces where not coming from several directions like what would happen if you were subjected to torsion and bending forces more frequently, making the shape of the bone shaft less circular than those individuals whose resistance to forces is higher. Even though the results did not confirm our hypothesis, it is still valuable to have access to data on female mechanical loading with its kwon context so it can be used as reference for further research.Show less

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Did women work hard too? a study of upper limb loading through cross-sectional geometry in Medieval and post-Medieval skeletal samples from the Netherlands