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Cortical bone growth and dietary stress among subadults from Nubia's Batn El Hajar
Insights
Medieval Nubian children
Area of Science:
- Paleopathology
- Bioarchaeology
- Human skeletal biology
Background:
- Cortical bone growth is crucial for skeletal development and strength.
- Assessing bone growth in past populations provides insights into historical health and living conditions.
- The Kulubnarti population (Sudanese Nubia, 550-1450 AD) offers a unique dataset for studying medieval skeletal biology.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze cortical bone growth patterns in medieval children from Kulubnarti.
- To investigate potential nutritional stress indicators through bone morphology.
- To determine if dietary changes occurred over time within this population.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of 174 child skeletal remains from Kulubnarti.
- Measurement of tibia midshaft dimensions: total subperiosteal area, cortical area, medullary area, and percent cortical area.
- Comparison of bone growth metrics with modern data and historical stress indicators.
Main Results:
- While overall bone size and length growth were maintained, percent cortical area showed unusual patterns.
- These patterns suggest excessive endosteal resorption, indicating bone loss.
- The findings align with known nutritional stress in the Kulubnarti population.
Conclusions:
- The bone growth data suggest significant nutritionally related stress in medieval Kulubnarti children.
- Excessive endosteal resorption is a key indicator of this stress.
- There is no evidence for major dietary shifts throughout the studied period (550-1450 AD).
Abstract:
Cortical bone growth is analyzed for 174 children from a Medieval Christian population at Kulubnarti in the Batn el Hajar of Sudanese Nubia (550-1450 AD). Using the tibia as a representative long bone, total subperiosteal area, cortical area, medullary area, and percent cortical area at midshaft were calculated. While growth in total and cortical areas, as well as in length, appear to be fairly well maintained, percent cortical area reveals unusual growth patterns which reflect excessive endosteal resorption. Compared to the relative reduction in bone mass which has been observed in malnourished living children, as well as with previously reported evidence for stress in the Kulubnarti population, the present data support an interpretation of nutritionally related stress and of no major diachronic dietary change.