The goal of this thesis research is to test if the prevalence of vertebral pathological conditions reflect hard labour/tough life in the Arnhem Eusebiuskerk population and a lowstatus, middle...Show moreThe goal of this thesis research is to test if the prevalence of vertebral pathological conditions reflect hard labour/tough life in the Arnhem Eusebiuskerk population and a lowstatus, middle-status and high-status population from London. The vertebral pathological conditions that have been compared are vertebral osteoarthritis, osteophytes, intervertebral disc disease, Schmorl’s nodes and fusion. First, the prevalence of the vertebral pathological conditions have been compared between the Arnhem population and the three London populations. After that, the prevalence has been compared between the males and females within each population followed by a comparison of the prevalence across the age categories. The latter has been done for each population as well. Lastly, the male and female sample of the populations have been compared separately between the Arnhem population and the three London populations. To summarise, there does seem to be a relationship between vertebral pathology and social status in the Arnhem and London populations. Most vertebral pathological conditions are namely more prevalent in the low-status Arnhem population than in the higher status London populations. The prevalence of the vertebral pathological conditions in the lowstatus St. Arnhem population is similar to that of the low-status St. Bride’s Lower Churchyard population. Based on this, it can be inferred that the vertebral pathological conditions are more common in the lower status populations than in the higher status populations of this thesis. This could have been the result of the kind of labour these status groups were involved in. Furthermore, there does seem to be a difference in the prevalence of the vertebral pathological conditions between males and females; in three out of four populations (all except the St. Benet Sherehog population) males may have had harder working conditions than the females. When the prevalence in the male and female sample of the population were compared between Arnhem and the three London populations separately, a trend can be seen that may indicate that at least the males of the Arnhem population had harder working conditions than those in the other populations. The results have also shown that there are some biases. The first bias is that the statistically significant differences in the vertebral pathological conditions are more influenced by the male sample than by the female sample in all populations with Schmorl’s nodes likely being influenced by biological variation to some extent. Furthermore, the development of many of the vertebral pathological conditions are, at least to some extent, influenced by age in all populations.Show less
The purpose of this thesis is to discuss vertebral osteoarthritis and its relation to activity patterns. Osteoarthritis is the most common disease affecting vertebrates and humans, and thus, a...Show moreThe purpose of this thesis is to discuss vertebral osteoarthritis and its relation to activity patterns. Osteoarthritis is the most common disease affecting vertebrates and humans, and thus, a closer inspection of its etiology and expression on past populations would further illustrate the causation of the disease. This present research attempts to explore osteoarthritis in a rural post medieval Dutch population with the aim to detect the behavioral patterns of this community. The Middenbeemster population is known to have been engaged in demanding physical activities as is expected for a rural community of the eighteen hundreds, hence a study on the relative skeletal material would prove the impact of these activities on the body, and especially on bones. For the present thesis 50 adult individuals (both sexes) were examined for evidence of spinal osteoarthritis and the results are the following: men exhibited higher percentages of osteoarthritic joints in comparison to women, and they were mostly affected in the lower regions of their spine. Women also showed a great number of degenerative changes, but mainly in their upper thoracic area. The results suggest exposure to different stress levels, which probably resulted from distinct activities. Additionally, the disease was found to be significantly more prevalent in older ages, although the presence of a considerable number of affected young individuals was also noted. Further research on the Middenbeemster population will be able to test the present results about gendered division in labor and thus, provide greater insights to the daily life of post medieval people.Show less
