Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
demonstrates the importance of proper methods construction and critical analysis (see
DiGangi and Moore [Chapter 2], this volume). Scholars undertaking studies on small
samples should always prudently acknowledge, despite favorable results, that sampling
error (e.g., sample size, median age-at-death) may color or obscure results.
Multiple parameters that were tested across the temporal difference consistently pointed
to the Early Christian period as more stressed. Age-at-death patterns indicated that the Early
Christian sample experienced cribra orbitalia at an earlier age, sustained higher subadult
frequencies longer, and through the age category of 10
e
12 years, had higher frequencies
of unhealed lesions (p
0.05). Based on their assessment of the temporal context, political
autonomy was better for community health than an overarching civil authority. These results
corroborated previous research (
Van Gerven et al., 1981, 1990
). Considerable and varied bio-
archaeological research has also been conducted on the Kulubnarti and other Sudanese
Nubian material since the publication of this study (e.g.,
Adams et al., 1999; Buzon, 2006; Pre-
ndergast et al., 1986; Turner et al., 2006
).
<
Case Study: Pre- and Post-Spanish Contact in Peru
An example of how multiple stress indicators can be marshaled to assess differential
health stress is a multiple site assessment (a meta-analysis) of the post-Columbian conse-
quences of Spanish contact in the Lambayeque Valley in northern coastal Peru
(
Figure 7.5
b) (
Klaus and Tam, 2009
). This particular study illustrates how analysis can still
be effectively undertaken despite the (perennial) problem of small sample size or uneven
between-sample sizes. The goal of the study was simple: determine if there were negative
health consequences to Spanish contact (
Farnum, 2002; Klaus, 2008
). This is not simply con-
firming the obvious as there is ample evidence of differential stress in pre-Hispanic Peru
across subsistence and political change (e.g.,
Elzay et al., 1977; Toyne, 2002; Blom et al.,
2005; Grace, 2011
).
The Spanish entrada into the Lambayeque Valley occurred in 1532 but wide-reaching
sociocultural transformation apparently did not occur until the 1590s when several other
things happened: a settlement shift (dispersed communities to aggregate settlement), an
economic shift (subsistence agriculture to mono-crop [sugar cane or alfalfa] plantations),
and political subjugation (from a socioeconomic reciprocity system). This study compared
a late pre-Hispanic (900
e
1532 A.D.) multiple-site skeletal sample (n
272) with
¼
Early
e
Middle Colonial era (1536
e
1640 A.D.) (n
¼
386) and Middle
e
Late Colonial era
485) skeletal samples from a single cemetery in the town M
´
rrope
(north-west of the regional capital of Chiclaya).
Measures of systemic stress included (1) longitudinal growth stunting, (2) reduced female
fertility, (3) linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH),
17
(4) periostitis, and (5) porotic hyperostosis.
Growth stunting as measured by growth rate
18
(i.e., change in femoral length across age
categories) as an investigative tool derives from the observation that long bone lengths
(1640
e
1750 A.D.) (n
¼
17
See Hammerl (Chapter 10), this volume, for a discussion of linear enamel hypoplasia.
18
Growth rates have been effectively used as another way of assessing the synergism (causal interplay) of
cribra orbitalia and mortality (age-at-death) in the Sudanese Nubian material (
Hummert and Van Gerven,
1983
).
