Scars of Parturition? Influences Beyond Parity

In the 40 years since the phrase ‘scars of parturition’ was coined, studies have attempted to show the relationship between scars on the bony pelvis and parity history. Despite numerous studies, the relationship of parity and scarring remains unclear. The challenge facing these studies is the rarity of skeletal collections of known parity. The alternative study approach is examining relationships between scars and factors other than pregnancy‐related strains that may affect their manifestation. Skeletal remains of 312 individuals were examined for scarring at the dorsal pubic surface, pubic tubercle, preauricular sulcus, interosseous groove and iliac tuberosity. Pelvic and femoral measurements were also taken. Features were compared according to sex and age. Principal components analysis was performed to assess the influence of body and pelvic size on scar manifestation. Scars occurred in both sexes, although they were more common and more severe in females. Scar severity remained unchanged or increased with age in both sexes. Females had smaller bodies but larger pelves than males. The interspinous and transverse inlet diameters and the femur measurements increased with age. Principal components analysis showed that body and pelvic sizes represented the majority of the observed variation, with scars occurring more commonly in small‐bodied individuals with large pelves, most of which were females. Both sexes also show a difference in the magnitude of scarring at the pubis and ilium. These results suggest that weight‐bearing and pelvic stability may be a better explanation for scarring than parturition‐related strain. Female pelves are more flexible and require more ligamentous stabilization, causing increased scar formation. The weight‐bearing strain on male pelves may sometimes also be sufficiently large to cause similar scars. Future studies may be able to test this theory on samples of known parity history. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Skeletal pathology of a high‐ranking official from Thrace (Turkey,last quarter of the 4th century BC)

A male human skeleton from Thrace dated at around 320 BC was found in a wealthy tomb 12 km from what is now Tekirdağ, Turkey. The occupant of the tomb died at the age of 40–45 years and has a pathologic left humerus caused most probably by traumatic injury. It is 9 cm shorter than the right humerus. A drainage fistula penetrating into the medullary cavity occurs at its proximal end. Due to severe arthritic destruction, the left humeral head has completely lost normal articulation, with the glenoid cavity of the left scapula displaying, in turn, severe erosive lesions and important reduction in its articular surface. A marked abscess is discernible bilaterally on the chondro‐costal sternal end. The individual also has a hip with a total sacroiliac joint fusion and shows slight or moderately developed exostoses on different parts of his skeleton. These joint destructions most likely indicate that he suffered from chronic osteomyelitis and septic arthritis. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Age‐at‐Death Estimates from a Disarticulated,Fragmented and Commingled Archaeological Battlefield Assemblage

Estimation of age‐at‐death is an important and challenging part of any investigation of human remains. Extensive research has been undertaken on this subject as demographic information contributes much to bioarchaeological and forensic work. Disarticulated, fragmentary and commingled human remains occur from a wide range of spatial and temporal contexts, and estimation of age‐at‐death can be particularly challenging in these collections. This study evaluated the impact of preservation on techniques that might be applied and their relative utility, using human remains from the site of the Smith's Knoll associated with the Battle of Stoney Creek, a War of 1812 collection from Ontario Canada with some supporting documentary evidence on age‐at‐death. Features assessed were the pubic symphysis, auricular surface and epiphyseal fusion in the innominate. An age‐at‐death estimate was produced for 16 out of 19 individuals considered; the highest minimum number of individuals (MNI) was 24 (right radius) from 2701 identifiable fragments. The pubic symphysis made no contribution to construction of a demographic profile, but as has been suggested previously epiphyseal fusion was useful in this respect. Results demonstrate that previous statements regarding preservation of the auricular surface and its utility in fragmented and poorly preserved collections need to be carefully evaluated. Although 129 fragments of innominate were recorded just one had an auricular surface and post auricular area that could be fully assessed. Transition Analysis was easier to apply than techniques developed previously, and findings from this study suggest that use of the forensic prior distribution could assist in assessment of battlefield assemblages. These results raise some valuable points that need to be considered in any future attempts to improve age‐at‐death estimates using the auricular surface, and important questions regarding expectations for estimation of age‐at‐death in disarticulated, fragmented and commingled collections of human bone. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluation of uniradicular teeth for age-at-death estimations in a sample from a Pampean hunter-gatherer cemetery (Argentina)

Age-at-death estimation is one of the most important aspects of bioarchaeological and forensic investigations. A set of analysis carried out with the osteological sample recovered from Chenque I site (Lihué Calel National Park, La Pampa province, Argentina) aims to test the applicability of multiple methods to obtain reliable information about its demographic composition and structure. In the present paper the results of the evaluation of the structure of uniradicular teeth are presented and discussed. It has been previously stated that chronological age is highly correlated with pulp dimensions in these teeth, because dentine deposition continue during all life. Strong correlation has been also identified with periodontal retraction and apical translucency. The analysis of the structure of these teeth offers useful information in order to obtain age-at-death estimations of the individuals they belonged to. Dental age-at-death estimations of the control sample were obtained evaluating some skeletal markers (pubic symphysis and auricular surface of coxae), and then compared with the dental analysis. The formulae whose results showed strong correlations with the skeletal estimations were applied to another sample, composed of teeth that were not associated with any skeletal marker of age. The evaluation of premolars and lower central incisors offers estimations that are consistent with those obtained from the evaluation of the pelvic bones, so that the application of these formulae is an alternative method to obtain estimations in archaeological samples from similar contexts.     

宋代安南使节广西段所经路线考

宋代是中越双边关系的草创期,各种外交制度和模式都处在摸索和调适之中,其中就包涵了安南使节使宋路线的选择。廉州道是北宋前期安南使节优先选择的路线,但钦州道后来居上,取而代之,成为宋代安南使节使宋的主要线路,邕州道凭借其全程陆路的优点,地位亦有日益增重的趋势。路线选择背后蕴含着深刻的历史和自然背景,如历史的惯性,交通干线和贸易中心的变迁,接待花费与交通成本,以及气候、地形和路线距离等自然因素。     

Age‐at‐death assessment using the os pubis and the auricular surface of the ilium: a test on an identified Asian sample

This paper reviews the results of blind tests of two morphological methods of age‐at‐death estimation. These tests were performed on a known age‐at‐death and sex sample taken from a collection of a Thai population. The first technique is based on the age related changes of the pubic symphysis according to the Suchey‐Brooks system, and the other concerns the metamorphosis of the auricular surface of the ilium elaborated by Lovejoy and colleagues. This is the first time that these methods have been tested on skeletal material from Asia. The results indicate that, for both methods, bias and inaccuracy increase with age and true age tends to be underestimated. As a consequence, age‐at‐death assessment based on these two techniques should be avoided on Asian archaeological series or forensic cases. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimation of adult skeletal age‐at‐death: statistical assumptions and applications

We examine the statistical assumptions underlying different techniques of estimating the age‐at‐death of a skeleton from one or more age indicators. The preferred method depends on which property of the distribution of the data in the reference sample is preserved in the skeleton to be aged. In cases where the conditional distribution of age given indicator is preserved, we provide ‘look‐up’ tables giving essentially unbiased age estimates and prediction intervals, using a large reference sample and the auricular surface and pubic symphysis age indicators. Where this assumption is violated, but the conditional distribution of indicator given age is preserved, we find that an alternative model which attempts to capture the biological process of development of an individual has some attractive features, which may make it suitable for further study. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Walter Moxon and His Thoughts About Language and the Brain

Walter Moxon wrote a well-timed paper in 1866 on aphemia with accompanying right sided hemiplegia. Like many other investigators of this apparent lopsidedness of the articulatory system for human speech, Moxon had to reconcile left hemisphere specialization for this function with the overriding law of symmetry, which for a large sector of the scientific community was a sine qua non of the anatomy and function of high level animal cognition. His reasoning was essentially that since the right dominant hand (and hence the left hemisphere) in some sense led overall bilateral limb movement patterns, that the right side of the tongue would lead whole tongue movement for articulation, the left side following in some mechanical sense. Thus, Moxon could link left hemisphere dominance for handedness as well as for speech. His theory was that “attention” was focused on the left hemisphere during limb movement development, under his assumption that the articulators were limbs as well as the arms and hands. The present paper will examine the professional life of Moxon and his 1866 paper, as well as the scant commentary that it has elicited in the literature on the history of left hemisphere dominance for the human articulatory function.     

Walter Moxon and his thoughts about language and the brain

Walter Moxon wrote a well-timed paper in 1866 on aphemia with accompanying right sided hemiplegia. Like many other investigators of this apparent lopsidedness of the articulatory system for human speech. Moxon had to reconcile left hemisphere specialization for this function with the overriding law of symmetry, which for a large sector of the scientific community was a sine qua non of the anatomy and function of high level animal cognition. His reasoning was essentially that since the right dominant hand (and hence the left hemisphere) in some sense led overall bilateral limb movement patterns, that the right side of the tongue would lead whole tongue movement for articulation, the left side following in some mechanical sense. Thus, Moxon could link left hemisphere dominance for handedness as well as for speech. His theory was that "attention" was focused on the left hemisphere during limb movement development, under his assumption that the articulators were limbs as well as the arms and hands. The present paper will examine the professional life of Moxon and his 1866 paper, as well as the scant commentary that it has elicited in the literature on the history of left hemisphere dominance for the human articulatory function.     

Directional bilateral asymmetry in human sacral morphology

Directional bilateral asymmetries in human gross skeletal morphology are largely attributable to differential mechanical loading from handedness during endochondral bone growth. While much has been done in the way of identifying directional asymmetries of the upper limb in relation to handedness, comparatively little research has focused on asymmetry in the lower body. The present paper analyses asymmetry in the human sacrum in a sample of 238 modern individuals. Measurements of right and left sides of the lateral and posterior breadths of the alae and the maximum height of the auricular surface were used. Asymmetry was calculated as: [(left side − right side) ÷ right side] * 100. Directional asymmetry was identified using a one‐sample t‐test against a hypothesized mean of zero. Significant directional asymmetry (P < 0.05) was found in all three dimensions. The pattern of asymmetry is consistent with models describing the influence of right‐handedness on the lower body, which predicts that left side dimensions will be larger. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spondylolysis and lifestyle among prehistoric coastal groups from Brazil

Southern Brazilian prehistoric coastal series were examined for the presence of spondylolysis. All defects occurred at the pars interarticularis, most at L5 (51%), with the vast majority bilateral and complete (86.2%). Frequencies decreased from young adulthood (54.2%) through mid‐adulthood (33.3%) to older adulthood (12.5%), suggesting differential mortality among affected individuals. The high overall prevalence (29.6%) demonstrates that these groups experienced a strenuous lifestyle, with activities that required repetitive and vigorous movements of lumbar hyperextension and rotation. Archaeological data provide support to interpret this pattern. Throwing harpoons, rowing and wrestling fishing nets were likely the main activities associated with the defect among men. Continuous loading of weight, including plant resources, mollusks and nursing children, were probably the tasks associated with spondylolysis in women. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Towards an ‘optics of power’: technologies of surveillance and discipline and case-loading midwifery practice in New Zealand

Midwives in New Zealand achieved professional autonomy in 1990 with an amendment to the Nurses Act 1977. Predicated on a natural approach to childbirth it was envisaged that midwifery would counter the trend of increasing medicalisation of childbirth. Some 20 years later, we continue to be concerned by increasing rates of intervention in childbirth including caesarean section operations. Midwifery practice is no longer supervised in a hierarchical arrangement with the obstetrician at its peak, however, we suggest that new and more subtle disciplinary mechanisms have come to the fore post-1990. Drawing on Foucault's concepts of the ‘medical gaze’ and the ‘panopticon’ we describe the ways in which midwifery practice (and through them the bodies of childbearing women) continues to be disciplined to conform to obstetric norms.     

Death of a President and his Assassin—Errors in their Diagnosis and Autopsies

On July 2, 1881, Charles Julius Guiteau shot President James Abram Garfield in the right flank. The President died because of infection produced by the unsterile fingers and probes repeatedly inserted into the wound. The major complaint of the wounded President was intractable pain in his legs and feet. This symptom failed to alert the doctors to the possibility of vertebral and spinal cord injury. Garfield died with sepsis after 80 days of intense national concern, and for the patient there was psychological, physical, and nutritional deprivation. His autopsy revealed the bullet was not in the pelvis as his doctors had expected, but adjacent to the first lumbar vertebra it had shattered. The trial and execution of Guiteau split the medical community into those that considered him insane and those who felt execution was justified. Guiteau was delusional and his brain revealed chronic inflammation and histological features suggestive of syphilis. At the time, and since, the propriety of the execution has been questioned.     

Death of a president and his assassin--errors in their diagnosis and autopsies

On July 2, 1881, Charles Julius Guiteau shot President James Abram Garfield in the right flank. The President died because of infection produced by the unsterile fingers and probes repeatedly inserted into the wound. The major complaint of the wounded President was intractable pain in his legs and feet. This symptom failed to alert the doctors to the possibility of vertebral and spinal cord injury. Garfield died with sepsis after 80 days of intense national concern, and for the patient there was psychological, physical, and nutritional deprivation. His autopsy revealed the bullet was not in the pelvis as his doctors had expected, but adjacent to the first lumbar vertebra it had shattered. The trial and execution of Guiteau split the medical community into those that considered him insane and those who felt execution was justified. Guiteau was delusional and his brain revealed chronic inflammation and histological features suggestive of syphilis. At the time, and since, the propriety of the execution has been questioned.     

积极开展海洋人文地理学研究促进我国海洋开发

海洋经济地理研究工作大体上是从我国进行全国海岸带调查时开展起来的,前后开展了海岸带(包括从岸线起陆上10公里至水下-15米〈实际已达-35米〉的地带)的资源调查与评价、社会经济调查与评价、资源利用与开发设想,以及乡镇、县和市的综合开发研究(例如小区综合开发试验和县、市国民经济发展综合规划的研究)等项研究工作,取得了一批成果,也积累了一些经验,特别是发现了一些问题.由于这一时期是以     

Spondylolysis in a pre‐contact San Francisco Bay population: behavioural and anatomical sex differences

Spondylolysis refers to a separation of the spinal body from the arch. Researchers have documented that these fractures occur due to stresses related to activities involving the lower limb and back. Spondylolysis in sacral and lumbar vertebrae of 146 (66 males, 66 females, 14 indeterminates) California Amerinds were examined to determine whether sex differences were present. Sacral anatomy (i.e. sacralisation and lumbarisation, sacral base angles, and superior facet morphology) was analysed in relation to spondylolysis and sex, to explore whether sex differences could be better explained through activity patterns or anatomical variation. Spondylolysis afflicted 24 individuals (16.4%). Males had more than twice the rate of spondylolysis than did females (26% and 11%, respectively). Activity patterns, such as thrusting and throwing shafted obsidian points, could explain the sex differences. Males were most frequently buried with obsidian point artefacts, whereas females were buried with mortar and pestles. For sacral anatomy, only males had lumbarisation, and all other anatomical variation had no significant sex differences. Lumbarisation related to spondylolysis in males. In this study, sacral anatomical variation could not fully account for sex differences in spondylolysis; activity patterns provided a better explanation. Nonetheless, anatomical variation may predispose males to spondylolysis, or spondylolysis may affect sacral anatomy. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A possible fatal wounding in the prehistoric Pacific Islands

This paper reports two cases of prehistoric interpersonal violence from Taumako Island, southeast Solomon Islands. The first case is a young child with a bone point found in situ in a lower lumbar vertebra. It is concluded that this child most likely died as the result of the injury. The second case is a male of advanced age with a well‐remodelled depression fracture on the frontal bone of the skull. This individual also has a remodelled penetrating wound to the left iliac crest of the pelvis. Warfare is thought to have been endemic in much of the Solomon Islands before European arrival. However, besides the two cases reported here there is little other evidence of trauma in the Taumako population. The young child is the first case of an in situ weapon reported from the prehistoric Pacific Islands. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Limb bones asymmetry and stress in medieval and recent populations of Central Europe

Monitoring the degree of asymmetry in different parts of the human body can contribute to population studies, as it may be connected indirectly with the social structure, living conditions, and also with biomechanical stress affecting the person. Analysis of asymmetry may also assess preferential use of the right or left of the body during specific activities. This study is based on the measurements of bones of the upper and lower limbs of skeletons derived from the remarkable medieval cemeteries of Mikulčice‐Kostelisko (78 male, 132 female) and Prušánky (66 male, 69 female) (9th–12th centuries AD), and a series of skeletons representing a recent population from Bohemia (143 male, 157 female). The objective was to assess directional asymmetry (DA), fluctuating asymmetry (FA) and antisymmetry (AS) of the dimensions of the evaluated bones, and to use these data to compare the characteristics of the medieval and recent populations. DA was recorded in most dimensions. In the upper limb, the humerus exhibited the greatest expression of asymmetry, and, with the exception of the clavicle, DA was always more pronounced on the right side. Conversely, DA was less prevalent in the lower limb bones. It was more pronounced on the transverse, sagittal and circumferential dimensions of the diaphyses and epiphyses than on the length, and in most cases it was on the left side. The FA values were very low, and almost negligible in relation to the size. Nevertheless, FA was markedly more frequent on the lower than on the upper limb. In contrast to the medieval population, the recent population had higher FA and DA values. Thus, we propose that people from this medieval population were subjected to lower developmental stress than the recent sample. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于旅华美国游客手绘认知地图的中国旅游目的地意象研究

手绘认知地图是典型的非结构化的研究方法,以旅游为主题的手绘认知地图能够深入的探索旅游者对目的地人、地方或事物所持有的意象,尤其在跨文化的研究中独具意义.本研究通过客流跟踪的调研方式,获得了我国八个主要入境旅游城市美国团队游客的手绘认知地图。在此资料基础上从空间认知元素和空间认知结构两方面对跨文化旅游者目的地意象进行了分析,并讨论了其相对于居民城市意象的共性和个性。最后,发现跨文化旅游者目的地意象认知元素因旅游主题性而超越了城市的一般物质形态,空间认知符号化特征显著,并且呈现出明显的尺度差异。