STRAIGHT TO THE HIPS: Pelvic inlet morphology as an indicator of nutritional status in two urban, post-medieval Dutch collections.

Nutritional and socio-economic status are often considered as being closely related. In skeletal collections, these forms of status are studied using non-specific stress indicators. This research focusses on one nutritional status. Pelvic inlet morphology is repeatedly suggested to be a good proxy for nutritional status, but this never has been systematically analysed. This thesis examines pelvic inlet morphology together with other indicators, namely cribra orbitalia and maximum femoral length for two samples of different socio-economic status. This to verify the usefulness of the shape of the pelvic inlet as a nutritional status indicator. This research shows that the relationships between the different indicators are not significant, that they differ between subsamples and that they do not all follow the expected pattern. The correlations between pelvic morphology and cribra orbitalia, and between pelvic morphology and maximal femoral length, suggest that if pelvic morphology is...Show moreNutritional and socio-economic status are often considered as being closely related. In skeletal collections, these forms of status are studied using non-specific stress indicators. This research focusses on one nutritional status. Pelvic inlet morphology is repeatedly suggested to be a good proxy for nutritional status, but this never has been systematically analysed. This thesis examines pelvic inlet morphology together with other indicators, namely cribra orbitalia and maximum femoral length for two samples of different socio-economic status. This to verify the usefulness of the shape of the pelvic inlet as a nutritional status indicator. This research shows that the relationships between the different indicators are not significant, that they differ between subsamples and that they do not all follow the expected pattern. The correlations between pelvic morphology and cribra orbitalia, and between pelvic morphology and maximal femoral length, suggest that if pelvic morphology is influenced by periods of stress, it results of different causes of stress or different periods of stress than the other indicators, since most correlations are quite low and some of them contradict each other within subsamples. Furthermore, sex is found to influence individual measurements of the pelvis, but it has no real effect on the pelvic inlet index. Lastly, the individuals from Arnhem seem to have a slightly lower nutritional status than those from Zwolle, but differences are not pronounced. Even though the results are not significant and confounding factors are numerous, this is the first study that explores pelvic measurements in relation to nutrition for the Northern Europe and the first to provide pelvic data for Dutch samples.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

STRAIGHT TO THE HIPS: Pelvic inlet morphology as an indicator of nutritional status in two urban, post-medieval Dutch collections.