Chronic Maxillary Sinusitis in Medieval Sigtuna,Sweden: A Study of Sinus Health and Effects on Bone Preservation

Frequencies of maxillary sinusitis in the population of the medieval town Sigtuna, Sweden, were examined. The first aim was to explore the occurrence of sinus conditions in this urban population, and the second was to investigate the effects of preservation in relation to these changes. The skeletal sample consisted of 274 adolescent and adult individuals buried ca 970–1530 AD. The maxillary sinuses were examined for different types of skeletal change related to sinusitis. The severity and location of these changes were recorded, together with the preservation of the sinus. When the diagnostic criteria for bone preservation from previous studies was used, i.e. the preservation of at least one complete antral floor, the results showed that 97.7% (n = 157) of the individuals were affected, with older individuals showing more severe bone changes. In the entire (i.e. more fragmented) sample, 94.5% (n = 259) showed signs of sinusitis. Again, older individuals showed more severe bone changes, and males were more frequently affected. Also, an increased frequency over time was found. The maxillae were subdivided into groups of bone preservation, and the results showed that there was a significant relation between preservation and the registered presence and severity of sinusitis. The results may be used as a cautionary note against investigating the occurrence of maxillary sinusitis without considering the skeletal preservation factor. There was no correlation between preservation and sex or age groups. This suggests that the differences between younger and older and male and female were not a result of preservation alone and could be considered as trustworthy. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Life and death on a Barbadian sugar plantation: historic and bioarchaeological views of infection and mortality at Newton Plantation

Despite the rise in African Diaspora bioarchaeology, poor preservation and sampling bias has impeded Caribbean research. Paleodemography and infectious diseases are assessed here for 46 skeletons exhumed in 1997–98 from a slave cemetery at Newton Plantation (ca. 1660–1820). Life expectancy is closer to historic predictions than in earlier craniodental studies. High rates of periosteal infection were encountered but no evidence of specific skeletal diseases. Absence of sequelae does not support Newton as a healthy population relative to others. Rather, extreme stress, particularly for Newton females, is evidenced by the lowest relative mean age at death of any diaspora skeletal sample, and many mild to moderate lower limb infections in men, women and adolescents attest to injuries on the sugar gangs. Activity stress and abuse, coupled with disease and malnutrition, culminated in high mortality and replacement. This first comprehensive study of health on a Caribbean sugar plantation contributes to a growing biology of the African Diaspora and over three decades of Newton Plantation research. Specifically, it demonstrates the importance of systemic, multidisciplinary and comparative approaches to reconstructing the complex life stresses of slavery. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Temporal and Spatial Distribution of Treponemal Infection in South Florida: An Epidemiological Approach

Bioarchaeological analysis of the MDM site (8DA11) in Miami, Florida (ad 400–1200) has identified human skeletal remains with lesions suggestive of and consistent with treponematosis. A population and epidemiological approach was utilised to compare the MDM site to geographically neighbouring skeletal samples from the Highland Beach mound (8PB11) (ad 600–1200) and Fort Center (8GL12) (ad 1–500/1000). These samples were then integrated with data from previous research on proliferative skeletal lesion prevalence on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Population comparisons suggest a higher prevalence of proliferative skeletal lesions in Atlantic coastal populations as opposed to the nearest sampled site from the interior (p < 0.00001), a trend seemingly different from Gulf Coast populations. This investigation details the presence of treponemal disease in the Everglades archaeological region likely as early as ad 400, and the southern terminus in the contiguous United States that treponematosis has been reported. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Skeletal and Surgical Evidence for Acute Osteomyelitis in Non‐Adult Individuals

Osteomyelitis is a non‐specific infection of the bone and bone marrow. In the past acute osteomyelitis (AO) led to high mortality especially in non‐adults. Nevertheless, its diagnosis in archaeological populations is rare. Documented individuals with known cause of death offer a unique opportunity to study this condition. This article aims to describe the bone lesions in non‐adults diagnosed with AO at the Coimbra University Hospital (CUH) and now belonging to the Coimbra Identified Skeletal Collection (CISC). Moreover, mortality rates and demographic profiles for individuals aged ≤18 years old and diagnosed with AO in the CUH, between 1923 and 1929, were also determined. The 5 (1%) non‐adults in the CISC with AO listed as cause of death were selected for this study, and their bones were analysed macroscopically and radiologically. The skeletal remains of one individual revealed a small area of new bone formation in the shaft of the left femur. Radiography of this bone showed a radio‐opaque area in the diaphysis. The other four individuals show evidence of surgical treatment, responsible for many cases of disability in the past. In the 7‐year period under analysis, 122 juveniles were diagnosed with osteomyelitis and admitted for surgery at the CUH, 43 (35.2%) of which were diagnosed with AO. Sixty‐five per cent of the cases of AO occurred between the ages of 8 and 15 years, with boys twice as frequently affected as girls, and lower limb bones were involved in 91% of AO cases. AO was responsible for 76.9% of the deaths. This study of pre‐antibiotic non‐adults may help to recognize skeletal signs of AO and their surgical treatment in unidentified skeletal remains. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Infectious diseases and eating habits at Herculaneum (1st century AD,southern Italy)

This paper shows that many food remains excavated from Herculaneum were microbiologically contaminated, and that the Romans probably had continuous exposure to gastrointestinal diseases. However, palaeopathological analysis of skeletal remains from Herculaneum shows a low prevalence of non‐specific bone inflammation. Pomegranates and figs, consumed by the population, were mainly dried and invariably contaminated by Streptomyces, a bacterium that produces natural tetracycline, an antibiotic. Histological analysis of the human remains demonstrates fluorescence typical of this substance. The tetracycline‐labelled human remains show that the Roman inhabitants of Herculaneum ate food contaminated by Streptomyces, and this may explain the rarity of inflammatory bone diseases at the site due to non‐specific infection in the living population. This interpretation fits with therapeutic indications suggested by Roman physicians that preserved fruits were used to cure some inflammatory diseases. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Porotic lesions in immature skeletons from Stara Torina,late medieval Serbia

Porotic lesions of immature skeletons have been attracting scientific attention for more than a century. These changes have been documented worldwide and are considered to be one of the indicators of health and/or nutritional status of past human populations. These lesions have frequently been referred to as a nutritional stress indicator, a manifestation of iron‐deficiency anaemia, and a condition caused by chronic infections. In this study, 327 immature skeletons from the medieval graveyard of Stara Torina (Serbia) were examined for macroscopic signs of four types of porotic lesions: cribra orbitalia, femoral cribra, humeral cribra, and porotic hyperostosis. Femoral cribra was observed in 83.25% of femora, humeral cribra in 58.46% of cases, cribra orbitalia in 46.12% of orbits, while porotic hyperostosis was recorded in only 2.94% of skulls. The majority of skeletons affected by cribra presented symmetrical lesions. Association between all types of cribra was recorded in 33.33% of skeletons. Historical data supported the hypothesis that the investigated population was exposed to frequent infections, especially parasitic ones, which led to the development of porotic bone lesions via several mechanisms: parasite‐induced blood loss and diarrhoea (both iron and magnesium malabsorption) or anaemia as a hepcidin‐mediated body adaptive response to infection. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Serial craniectomies for intracranial infection 5.5 millennia ago

A skull found in a burial cave near Jericho with evidence of craniectomies dating approximately 5500 years ago had signs of frontal sinusitis and intracranial infection. The location of the three craniotomies in the frontal bone of this skull and evidence of the infection bursting from the sinus intracranially suggest that this is the oldest known cranial surgery performed due to symptoms of a medical aetiology : epidural infection.     

Periapical Lesions in Intentionally Modified Teeth in a Skeletal Sample of Enslaved Africans (Lagos,Portugal)

Intentional dental modifications are alterations of teeth usually performed as a ritual for aesthetic or identity purposes. However, the execution of the technique is not exempt from risk and can be related to a higher prevalence of dental pathology, more specifically through the exposure of the dental pulp and consequent periapical inflammation. With the aim of analysing the relationship between intentional dental modifications and periapical inflammation, the current study evaluated 81 skeletons (49 women, 19 men, and 13 individuals of unknown sex) of enslaved Africans from Lagos, Portugal (15th–17th centuries), of which 50 (61.7%) had intentionally modified teeth. In all, 2285 sockets and 2063 teeth were observed. Two hundred and three intentionally modified anterior teeth (27.2%) were identified. Twenty five individuals (30.9%) and 54 teeth (25 anterior and 29 posterior) showed macroscopic evidences of periapical lesions. In the anterior dentition, intentional modification was identified as the probable aetiology of 17 (68.0%) periapical lesions, mostly granulomata or cysts, but also abscesses. The association between intentional modifications of the dentition and the presence of periapical lesions was found in both the maxilla and mandible. These results suggest that this cultural practice can predispose teeth to periapical inflammation, which may cause pain and sensitivity to cold, heat, and pressure, and probably had a negative impact on the quality of life of these individuals. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Maxillary Sinus Infection in a 19th‐Century Almshouse Skeletal Sample

In 1984, the Monroe County Parks Department in the Highland Park section of Rochester, New York, accidentally unearthed part of an unmarked cemetery while landscaping. The cemetery was in use from approximately 1826 to 1863 and was associated with the Monroe County Almshouse. Anthropological examination of dental and skeletal pathology revealed a high incidence of dental infection, known to occasionally be a causal agent of maxillary sinus infection. Therefore, maxillary sinus infections in this sample were studied to ascertain their relationship with dental infections, sex, and age at death. The maxillary sinuses of 99 skeletons were examined for evidence of infection. The presence, location, type and extent of dental infections in the posterior teeth were also recorded. Half the sample exhibited bone remodelling in the maxillary sinus (54 individuals). Dental infections were observed in 82 individuals. Forty‐eight demonstrated signs of dental infection and maxillary sinusitis. Statistical analysis revealed that dental infection and maxillary sinus infection were not statistically related. Rather, a rhinogenic method of infection seems likely, which would appear related to the squalid air quality the 19th‐century poor were exposed to in the almshouse and city tenements. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

PLAGUE AND POWER RELATIONS

Public policy and economic practice, quintessential expressions of institutional cognition, create an opportunity structure constituting a tunable, highly patterned,‘non‐white noise’ in a generalized epidemiological stochastic resonance that can efficiently amplify unhealthy living and working conditions, particularly within highly concentrated, marginalized urban populations, to evoke infectious disease outbreaks. This is especially true for the infections carried by socially generated ‘risk behaviours’ which are usually adaptations to histories of resource deprivation or marginalization. A number of local epidemics originating in such ecological keystone communities may subsequently undergo a policy and structure‐driven phase transition to become a coherent pandemic, a spreading plague which can entrain more affluent populations into the disease ecology of marginalization. We use this approach to contrast the ecological resilience of apartheid and egalitarian social systems, and apply these perspectives to the forthcoming social and geographical diffusion of multiple drug resistant (MDR) HIV from present AIDS epicentres to the rest of the United States.     

Exploring children's foodscapes

In this article, we discuss children's becoming as food consumers in the intersection of various foodscapes. We draw from a project, Children as co-researchers of foodscapes, where we have been working with children as co-researchers, using basically ethnographic methods, and as co-designers in a collaborative design effort. This article focuses on the findings from a theoretically inspired perspective, using the concept of foodscapes. These are food-related structures of different kinds, which evolve as the child explores them and where children as food consumers are generated. In this article, we highlight the scapes of taste, routines, people, things, commerce, child (as opposed to adult) and health and give brief accounts of the way the children related to them. Finally, we turn to the benefits of working with foodscapes for a better understanding of children's becoming as food consumers in the intersection of various foodscapes. This article is based on data gathered by the children, but also on our fieldwork notes and observations following the children in their foodscapes.     

Hans-Jörg Rheinberger as a Philosopher of Time**

When Hans-Jörg Rheinberger proposed the concept of epistemic things, he drew inspiration from the art historian George Kubler, who had considered the aesthetic object as resulting from problem-solving processes in The Shape of Time (1962). Kubler also demonstrated that a sequence of objects could retrace the progress that led to a solution that was afterwards accepted as the most classical. Parallel to Kubler, Rheinberger demonstrates how temporally extended activities of experimentation are condensed in the object, revealing the moments of innovation that lead to it. In the history of science as well as in art history, various trajectories can thus be grasped in the materially given. Rheinberger conceives of an object as a network of heterogeneous time strings. However, these are manifold: they cannot be thought of as making up a homogeneous temporality encompassing all the others as a temporal container and synchronizing them within it. Since the discovery of the Anthropocene, we no longer separate natural from cultural time, and no hegemonic historical narrative can be taken as unifying all the others. Historical epistemology as proposed by Rheinberger will be read as a contribution to constructing new models of natural as well as of cultural time.     

China and India Enter Global Markets: A Review of Comparative Economic Development and Future Prospects

An American economist specializing in the economic and business development of China as well as India presents the results of a focused comparison of their emergence as global economic powers in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries. More specifically, she selectively reviews the body of published research comparing China and India, with emphasis on the literature covering the two countries' economic achievements, the nature of reforms and institutions, as well as the overall social contexts within which development and growth are occurring. The author addresses such major questions as the importance of timing and location in the two countries' development trajectories as well as the implications of different modes of guidance (market versus state direction) for those trajectories. A concluding section identifies several possible directions for future research. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F010, O110, O530, P200, P520. 1 figure, 2 tables, 120 references.     

Wills,deeds, acts: women's civic gift-giving in Ottoman Istanbul

The waqf (plural awqaf) is the Islamic pious endowment founded for charitable purposes. The Ottoman waqf, especially between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, became a gift-giving practice of solidarity in which women played an active role in founding and maintaining endowments as benefactors. These endowments served almost exclusively civic public services. While there has been considerable research on women and waqf, by moving beyond interpreting the ostensible motives that are always intertwined with women's role as ‘family caretakers’ or ‘devout Muslims’, we attempt to suggest that, interpreted as acts of piety, awqaf, and especially those that were founded as organized spaces known as külliyes, became institutions by which women were able to cultivate (in themselves and others) civic identities, and articulate civic solidarities as citizens of their cities. This image of women as civic gift-givers recasts them as active citizens of Ottoman cities, especially Istanbul.     

The grotesque in the plays of Enda Walsh

This article attempts to outline the aesthetic of Enda Walsh's dramatic oeuvre, viewing it as fundamentally grotesque. Plays such as The New Electric Ballroom, The Walworth Farce, and Penelope have generally enjoyed a most enthusiastic reception; however, reviewers and critics have remained largely baffled as to where exactly these intoxicating pieces have left them. A plausible way of addressing the distinctive combination of citationality, the intermingling of genres, linguistic brilliance, circuitous structure, pathological interaction between characters, and the darkest humour, may consist in juxtaposing Walsh's technique with concepts of the grotesque as outlined, alternately, by Mikhail Bakhtin and Wolfgang Kayser. The consequent observations on the grotesque in Walsh's plays are followed by a query as regards the moral dimension of Walsh's aesthetic, focusing on their position in relation to Bakhtin's assertion of the liberating potential of the grotesque as opposed to Kayser's insistence on the grotesque coming across as essentially bleak and hopeless.     

Recent Books in the Field of Medieval Literature

The main objective of this article is to analyze the relationship between the novísimos poets—Pedro Gimferrer, Luis Antonio de Villena, Leopoldo María Panero, and Guillermo Carnero, among others—and the avant-garde movements in Spain. If during the forties the garcilasismo opposed the avant-garde, in the seventies, with the novísimos, the -ismos returned to be considered not as a radical change but as one more stage in the evolution of Spanish poetry. The -ismos are now considered not as a subversive departure from the past, but as part of Spanish artistic heritage and tradition, thus reconciling tradition and modernity or even converting the vanguard into literary tradition. The -ismos are described not as an absolute novelty but simply as a process of innovation in the same way, with their own poetic precedents, as the garcilasistas and the neoromantics of the past.     

Mineralogical And Chemical Investigations Of Bloomery Slags From Prehistoric (8th Century Bc To 4th Century Ad) Iron Production Sites In Upper And Lower Lusatia,Germany

More than 400 fayalitic bloomery slags from prehistoric iron production sites in Upper and Lower Lusatia, eastern Germany, as well as bog iron ore samples and intermediary samples of the smelting process, were analysed by chemical and mineralogical techniques. While the precursor bog iron ores exploited in the two regions under investigation were very similar in composition, consisting of low‐manganese/low‐barium as well as high‐manganese/high‐barium types of ore, pronounced differences in slag composition were detected. Slags from 17 investigated sites in Upper Lusatia showed average P₂O₅ contents between 1 and 3 mass%, whereas slags from 15 investigated sites in Lower Lusatia were generally much richer in phosphorus, reaching values as high as 7 mass% P₂O₅. Since a reasonable correlation exists between calcium and phosphorus contents in the slags of the latter sites, it is conjectured that deliberate addition of CaO to the ore/charcoal charge of the bloomery furnace may have taken place in order to fix the phosphorus in the slags effectively. In many samples, this conjecture is being supported by the detection of a slag mineral Ca–Fe phosphate Ca_9?xFe_1+x(PO₄)₇ that presumably crystallized from a residual phosphorus‐rich melt and shows a cotectic relationship to both Ca‐rich fayalite and wustite, as well as to members of the solid solution series magnetite–hercynite.     

Forms of lay association with the Order of the Temple

The present study investigates the development of three concepts of lay association with the Order of the Temple that have hitherto often been considered as distinctive from each other but that are, in fact, in many ways interconnected: the confrater, the donatus and the miles ad terminum. Examining the motivation of lay men and women to associate with the Temple, as well as the various implications of the forms of association they chose, the study argues that at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the constellation of the Order's confraternities underwent drastic changes and that these had been instigated by canon lawyers and formulated in the decrees of Lateran III and IV. As a response the donats, as a particular category of confratres, established themselves as the most prominent expression of lay association with the Temple. What is more, since the concept of the donat gained prominence when that of the Templar novice was in decline, it will also be argued that, for very different reasons, the concept of the Templar donat as well as that of the ‘temporary knight’ (miles ad terminum), which was as old as the Order itself, could eventually have been conceived and employed as two forms of novitiate in disguise, which helped attract the attention of laymen who would have otherwise been reluctant to profess fully into a military order.