Vertebral pathologies and related activity patterns in two mediaeval populations from Spain.

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to explore the usefulness of several types of vertebral pathology as activity markers in osteological populations. A total of 2165 vertebrae from 124 individuals were studied. They were derived from cemeteries in two villages: Villanueva de Soportilla (Burgos, north of Spain), with a Christian population, and La Torrecilla (Granada, south of Spain), inhabited by Muslims. Degenerative joint diseases, Schmorl's nodes, compression fractures and spondylolysis with spondylolisthesis were analysed in individuals and separate vertebral pieces. All pathological conditions, except compression fractures, were significantly more frequent in males than in females, reflecting more intensive labour conditions for males. They were significantly more frequent in males from Villanueva, a border population of peasant-soldiers, than in males from La Torrecilla. They were also significantly more frequent in females from Christian Villanueva than in those from Muslim La Torrecilla, where the women mainly worked at home. The benefits and limitations of the study of these vertebral pathologies are discussed.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 17 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.