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Porotic hyperostosis, cribra orbitalia, femoralis and humeralis in Medieval NW Spain

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Abstract

Cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis are amongst of the most commonly palaeopathological features recorded in archaeological individuals and are useful to test the general health status in ancient human population, particularly in non-adults (infants, children and adolescents). Despite of the relatively large amount of debate papers about this topic, their aetiology is still under debate and their recording is not standardised. In contrast, postcranial cribrae (femoralis and humeralis) are infrequently addressed. This paper aims to analyse cranial and postcranial porotic lesions, and their relationship with living conditions and dietary patterns, in all available Medieval collections from NW Spain (Pontevedra necropoleis, Adro Vello and Capela do Pilar). Presence/absence, severity, healing grade and co-occurrence of lesions were recorded, and a new photographic scale to determine the severity and healing degrees in postcranial cribrae is advocated as well. Cribra orbitalia (78%) and cribra femoralis (70%) are the most frequent lesions, with porotic hyperostosis (42%) and cribra humeralis less common (38%). Adults display higher grades of severity in cribra orbitalia than non-adults. A healing age pattern was documented in all lesions. No obvious trend/pattern with δ13C and δ15N—used as proxies for diet—was observed. High rates of porotic lesions in NW Spain have been attributed to interactions between several phenomena, as a multifactorial response to a possible dietary influence from high consumption of marine resources and/or infection by fish parasites. Our results highlight the importance of registering postcranial porotic lesions and healing degrees along with diet. In addition, photographic scales are useful to guide and standardise the recording process.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the Museo Provincial de Pontevedra, Museo Provincial de Lugo and Dirección Xeral de Patrimonio Histórico da Xunta Galicia for providing access to the skeletal collections. Thanks to the directors of archaeological interventions (Adolfo Fernández, Javier Chao, José Carro Otero, María del Carmen Masa Vázquez and Iván Álvarez Meraio) and all other members of the teams for their assistance during the archaeological fieldwork. We thank Antonio Martinez Cortizas for his suggestions and comments in an early version of the manuscript. Special thanks go to María del Carmen Masa Vázquez for her help and support to both of us. Thanks to Tim Mighall for his help in an early version of the manuscript.

Funding

This project is funded by Grupos de Referencia Competitiva (ED431C 2021/32). OLC is funded by a JIN-2019 postdoctoral fellowship. This work was supported by the projects Plan Nacional Retos JIN 2019 (PID2019-111683RJ-I00) from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación; Beca Leonardo a Investigadores y Creadores Culturales 2020 de la Fundación BBVA, as well as Galician Paleodiet (ED481D 2017/014), Gain project ‘persoal investigador finalista nas convocatorias de axudas do ERC no marco do H2020’ (2020-CP037) and GPC (ED431B 2018/20) all funded by Xunta de Galicia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Group EcoPast (GI-1553), Area of Archaeology, Department of History, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15782, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Elvira Mangas-Carrasco & Olalla López-Costas

  2. Archaeological Research Laboratory, Stockholm University, Wallenberglaboratoriet, 10691, Stockholm, Sweden

    Olalla López-Costas

  3. Laboratory of Anthropology, Department of Legal Medicine, Toxicology and Physical Anthropology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, 18012, Granada, Spain

    Olalla López-Costas

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  1. Elvira Mangas-Carrasco
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  2. Olalla López-Costas
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Correspondence to Elvira Mangas-Carrasco.

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Mangas-Carrasco, E., López-Costas, O. Porotic hyperostosis, cribra orbitalia, femoralis and humeralis in Medieval NW Spain. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 13, 169 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-021-01432-y

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