South Africa's Current Transition in Temporal and Spatial Context

This article analyses South Africa's current postapartheid transition in the light of earlier transformations of its social and economic order. The first of these prior transformations is the abolition of slavery and the shift to liberal capitalism, which took place in the early nineteenth century. The second is the rapid industrialization of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Each of these transformations, as well as the current transition, is explained as being partly the outcome of a broad shift in capitalist practice, innovated in the metropoles of the global economy. Due to South Africa's situation within global economic networks, each of these shifts, at different times, raised the threat of a dislocation in South Africa's prevailing social order. However, each prior transformation and, it will be argued, the current transition, has been 'managed' by established elites so as to ensure minimal change to the overall distribution of privilege. This conservative 'management' of shifts in capitalist practice, it is suggested, has been facilitated through South African elites' historic engagement with cultural discourses circulating across a global terrain. In this article then, contemporary South Africa is located within both material and discursive networks which have historically influenced the country's distribution of privilege.     

Changes in the distribution of osteoarthritis over historical time

A total of 2635 skeletons recovered from different sites in England was examined for the presence of osteoarthritis (OA); 206 were from pre-medieval sites, 1453 from medieval sites and 976 from post-medieval sites. Where OA was considered to be present in a joint, the site was noted and for each time period the total number of anatomical sites with the condition was determined and the number of major sites with OA (10 in number) was expressed as a proportion of this total. There were no differences in the distribution of osteoarthritis between the pre-medieval and medieval periods but there were between the medieval and post-medieval periods. In the post-medieval period the proportion of osteoarthritis of the knee increased whereas that of the hip decreased; the proportion of osteoarthritis of the hands also increased whereas that of the wrist decreased. Other data presented indicate that patellofemoral disease is about twice as common as tibio-femoral disease in both medieval and post-medieval periods and that lateral compartment disease is almost as common as medial compartment disease.     

Unilateral spondylolysis

Of 54 vertebrae with spondylolysis, five were found with a unilateral lesion. The unilateral lesion was sometimes associated with hypoplasia of the ipsilateral lamina or by differences in the size and position of the facet joints and by posterior wedging on the affected side. Radiologically there may be sclerosis in the pedicle on the normal side. In one case a healed fracture was noted on the apparently normal side indicating that the lesion originally had been bilateral.     

Osteoarthritis in a Black Death cemetery in London

Age-specific prevalence rates were determined in a group of skeletons recovered from a Black Death plague pit in London. The disease showed the expected increase in prevalence with age but these rates were lower than those in the contemporary population and the disease was more frequent in men than in women. In the majority of cases the disease affected one joint only and there were no cases of generalized osteoarthritis. The sites most commonly affected were the facet joints of the spine, the acromioclavicular joint and the hands; there were relatively few cases in which the large joints were affected but the knee was slightly more frequently affected than the hip.     

Rates for the job. Measures of disease frequency in palaeopathology

Measures of disease frequency are discussed and their use in palaeopathology illustrated with examples, both hypothetical and real. It is shown that prevalence rates are the appropriate rates to use when calculating the frequency of diseases in skeletal populations. The extent to which prevalence rates accurately reflect those in the living population from which the skeletons were derived is also considered and it is suggested that they are a reasonable approximation for diseases that do not shorten life span, but not for those that do. Finally, suggestions are made for dealing with missing data.     

Inter-observer variation in coding osteoarthritis in human skeletal remains

Thirty-eight participants at the VIIIth European Meeting of the Paleopathology Association took part in a study of inter-observer variation in scoring osteoarthritis in human skeletal remains. Ten specimens representing different joints were used and five criteria of osteoarthritis were scored. Eleven of the 38 participants ranked themselves as beginners, 13 as experienced and six as very experienced; the data were subsequently examined using the results from these 30, comparing beginners with experts. Agreement as to whether or not changes were present on the specimens and on the degree of change was seldom complete but was greater when scoring eburnation and the presence of new bone on the joint surface than for the three other criteria. There was little difference between beginners and experts. Although all the specimens were chosen to meet our published criteria for osteoarthritis, the experts were unanimous is agreeing the diagnosis in only three cases and the beginners in only one. These results suggest that more work needs to be done to develop operational definitions for the classification of disease in palaeopathology and that great care must be taken when comparing disease frequencies between studies.