Osteoarthritis at Roonka, Australia: A Local Biology

Osteoarthritis (OA) is described as an inevitable part of aging. Palaeopathological studies can challenge such ideas of universal biology. OA from the Australian Aboriginal site of Roonka is analyzed to test whether expectations from contemporary, ethnohistorical, and archeological data are held or whether OA at this place was distinctly different.

Human remains from Roonka, South Australia, date to the Holocene and are divisible into early and late periods. A total of 83 adults was analyzed. OA was defined using the criteria of Waldron and Rogers (1995). Analysis used both univariate and quasi-Poisson regression analysis.

Very few joints had evidence of OA except for the TMJ (28.8%). OA was concentrated on the upper body. Lower body OA was observed only in individuals with prior injury or disease. Comparison with human remains from along the Murray River indicates a similar pattern of joints affected but spatial diversity between the upper and lower Murray River.

The pattern of OA observed at Roonka corresponds with contemporary records of age development. However, epidemiological patterns were distinctly different. Except for people with prior injury or disease, OA was not prevalent. The comparison of Roonka with archeological samples demonstrates diversity during the Holocene and does not correspond to expectations of increasingly heavier workloads over time. The lack of concordance between the pattern of OA among people at Roonka and expectations based on other data reflects how embodied experiences of the condition are contingent on local entanglements of biology and culture.