This thesis studies the, by the Museum of London Archaeological Services (MoLAS) analyzed and shared, open source osteological database of the Chelsea Old Church cemetery site OCUoo. Based on this...Show moreThis thesis studies the, by the Museum of London Archaeological Services (MoLAS) analyzed and shared, open source osteological database of the Chelsea Old Church cemetery site OCUoo. Based on this data set, the study aims to research whether there is a correlation between obesity associated diseases, such as: osteoarthritis, gout, and diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH), and body mass. In addition, it attempts to research whether there's a sex-based difference that may influence such a correlation. It does so by creating three subsidiary question that are meant to lead to answering the main question. Subsequently, a sample selection according to the criteria required for this study (adult, sex determined, availability of femoral head breadth metric data). This sample selection will be further tailored by implementing the revised Ruff et al. (2012) body mass estimation equation, before it will undergo statistical data analysis with the use of the SPSS statistics program. The result depicts a data set that's relatively balanced and has a normal distribution. It may be noted that the mean of the body mass (kg) of those with pathological diagnoses lies higher than for those without. As well as that the pathologies follow suit as expected in regard of their prevalence in a certain sex. Osteoarthritis is more common among female individuals while gout and DISH are more common among male individuals. These notions could indicate that there may be a correlation; however, the statistical analyses resulted in the acceptance of the null hypothesis as there's no statistical significance. Therefore, against expectations and contemporary studies, it can be assumed that there's no correlation between obesity-associated diseases and body mass.Show less
Prior to the nineteenth century, disability studies generated a diverse body of work, usually evoking potentially naive or blanketing generalizations about the positions of disabled people...Show morePrior to the nineteenth century, disability studies generated a diverse body of work, usually evoking potentially naive or blanketing generalizations about the positions of disabled people throughout history. To counter the prevailing narrative of disability as an individual medical illness or weakness, this thesis uses an approach that recognizes the diverse and complex character of disability as ingrained in culture and power relations. The skeletal collection of Middenbeemster (The Netherlands) was examined by using Tilley's (2021) 'The Bioarchaeology of Care Methodology’. Different skeletal indicators of disablement were examined to infer evidence of care. As a result, using this approach for three individuals, this thesis has qualitatively determined what this care likely involved in detail. The Index of Care has contributed to the development of plausible and possible narratives of their experiences. It revealed valuable information about identities, caregiver-recipient dynamics, and the Middenbeemster community within their context. The three individuals coped with a visible disability, and the community would know they coped with a disability just by looking at them. Nevertheless, each of them was buried like any other individual of the Middenbeemster community, without evidence of selection or segregation. During this post-medieval period, these disabled adults were cared for in the privacy of the home by close relatives. They were assigned a social identity with (untraditional) positions and modified or decreased tasks as required to accommodate them. With reduced self-sufficiency and mobility, their survival indicates the community's tolerance and understanding of disability to a certain extent and active care provision within small family groups. Carrying such demands required considerable commitment, organization, and flexibility. The fact that the disabled survived for years is evidence of the value of strong family ties, which were perhaps motivated by their faith, with prevailing ideals of almsgiving. Not every physically challenged person in Middenbeemster required special care; some, like Sara/0945, were clearly able to have quite normal lives and potentially contribute to the family's finances. In this respect, the research contributes to a deeper knowledge of past viewpoints, attitudes, and practices within the Dutch and Middenbeemster communities about health and disease.Show less
The focus of this study is to assess sexual dimorphism of non-metric and metric characteristics of the mandible of a Dutch post Medieval rural population from the Middenbeemster polder in the...Show moreThe focus of this study is to assess sexual dimorphism of non-metric and metric characteristics of the mandible of a Dutch post Medieval rural population from the Middenbeemster polder in the province of Noord Holland in the Netherlands. The mandible is not seen as a reliable feature for sex estimation in research on Dutch Medieval populations based on non-metric traits. Studies on populations around the world show that the mandible is a reliable tool for estimating sex, provided that metric measurements of the mandible are used. This study focuses on the re-evaluation of the mandible as a reliable tool for sex estimation by studying both non-metric and metric sexual dimorphism of the mandible in a Dutch population. The development of a technique that reliably estimates mandibular sex in Dutch medieval populations would be a great contribution to the field of bioarchaeology. Sex estimation is paramount for the reconstruction of demographic structures of past societies. In this thesis sexual dimorphism based on both non-metric and metric is assessed. 90 samples from the Middenbeemster with known sex are used for measurement and observations. This sample consists of 40 females and 50 males. The non-metric scores are compared to known sex to assess reliability. The metric measurements are analysed using binary logistic regression and tree modelling to assess if the specific measurements are reliable in estimating sex of an unknown individual. The overall accuracy of the non-metric sex estimation is very low and therefore not reliable for further use. The metric measurements have a higher reliability rate, especially the bigonial breadth and the mean of the maximum ramus height. With the use of these two measurements a cross validated classification accuracy of 80.2 percent can be achieved. In conclusion, after re-evaluating the mandible it appears that the mandible can be used with high accuracy in sex estimation in the Dutch population of Middenbeemster and maybe in other North Western European populations from the post Medieval time period, which has to be assessed by future research.Show less
