The relocation and analysis of 80 skeletons from the Cedar Grove Cemetery, located in southwest Arkansas, provides an opportunity to examine the level of health and nutrition experienced by Afro-Americans in the post-Reconstruction South (1878-1930). The demographic profile lends support to the interpretation that Cedar Grove participated in the nationwide decline in Afro-American health. The high frequencies of skeletal lesions indicative of dietary deficiencies and infectious disease demonstrate that this was a highly stressed population. For this analysis, adult femoral thin sections (15 females and 14 males) are examined histologically. These data provide support to the assertion that the Cedar Grove population experienced poor health. Measures taken from the sections include cortical thickness, percent cortical area, and mean number of resorption spaces and forming osteons per square millimeter of bone. As a group, they demonstrate low percent cortical area compared with well-nourished normals. They also show high rates of resorption to formation, thereby disrupting the balance necessary for normal cortical bone maintenance. The pattern established for bone porosity in this group is not a function of age but rather is due to other factors, most likely nutrition and disease stress. What may be unique about this group is that males, as well as females, experienced problems with calcium homeostasis and normal maintenance and repair of bone. Taken together, these data support the interpretation that diet and health were substandard in the post-Reconstruction South.
A FIELD GUIDE FOR HUMAN SKELETAL IDENTIFI-CATION, 2nd ed. By Kenneth A. Bennett. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. 1993. 113 pp. ISBN 0-398-05884-9. $32.75 (paper).Designed for quick and easy access by forensic anthropologists, A Field Guide for Human Skeletal Identification is a collection of previously published standards and information for identifying unknown human remains. In the introductory section Bennett appropriately points out that the ideal situation for human identification is in the laboratory where references and technology are readily accessible. For myriad reasons this ideal is not always met and examinations of human remains must be conducted in various "field situations. This manual is designed expressly for use in those situations.Bennett brings together in one place information and standards from the literature relevant to human identification, especially information that is not readily committed to memory. It is presumed that this manual will serve solely as a reference for professional forensic anthropologists who also possess an expert knowledge and ability in human osteology, dental anatomy, and skeletal biology as well as anthropometry. The manual is divided into four sections: ethnic affiliation, age estimation, sex determination, and stature estimation. It is the first section, attribution of ethnic affiliation, that contains the most obvious changes and additions from the first edition of this manual. Included here are cranial and post-cranial discriminant function coefficients that were generated from the Forensic Data Bank at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Bennett argues that these newly generated coefficients are more applicable to contemporary individuals than those generated from older anatomical collections. Obvious omissions in this section are any standards for "ethnic" groups other than American whites and blacks and any standards
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