Prehistoric health status of the Roonka population

Abstract

At Roonka in the Lower Murray Basin of South Australia, where excavations 1968–77 have produced a contingently related record of hunter‐gatherer population, cultural and habitat change which extends from 0,02kyr BP to 18kyr BP, the health status of the prehistoric population has recently been reexamined by radiography following upon an initial 1974/5 study of demography, palaelopathology and evolutionary relationships based upon gross external osteoanatomy. Interest attaches to the study from its origin as a response to a request from the immediately placed Aboriginal community of today for its conduct, in the hope that the effectiveness of their current community health programmes might be improvable from it as a baseline. The evolving range scope of genetic, developmental, social and occupational environmental conditions, and infection is examined throughout the period of time covered and is considered within the context of what has been proposed as a measure of population ‘vitality’ which in this instance has been estimated as a percentage frequency of individuals who appear to have avoided the effects of morbidity or who survived it sufficiently successfully to exclude it as a cause of death.

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