A Palaeopathological Study of the Vertebral Columns of the Japanese from Jomon to Edo Periods

Degenerative changes of the spine in people from prehistoric Okhotsk culture and two ancient human groups from Kanto and Okinawa, Japan

“…Degenerative changes of the lumbar spine were found to be frequent in contemporary and archeological populations, including the Canadian Inuit (Merbs, 1983;Bridges, 1994;Larsen, 1997;Resnick, 2002;and many others). In Japan, the lumbar spine was found to be most affected in the Jomon, Yayoi, early-modern Edo and recent Japanese samples (Wada, 1975;Suzuki, 1978;Fukushima, 1988). Severe osteophytes on the body of the lumbar vertebrae were most frequent not only in the Kumejima series but also in the medieval Kamakura samples.…”

“…Because risk factors for degenerative disease of the spine consist of not only age but also selected activities, many physical anthropologists have investigated degenerative changes of the spine from prehistoric and historic human populations in order to reconstruct their life activity (Suzuki, 1978(Suzuki, , 1998Fukushima, 1988;Bridges, 1994;Lovell, 1994;Lieverse et al, 2007;Moromizato et al, 2007;RojasSepúlveda et al, 2008). In general, upright bipedal humans exhibit more marked degenerative changes of the spine than other hominoids (Jurmain, 2000).…”

“…This is one of the merits of studying degenerative changes of the spine in skeletal populations. However, because it is necessary to obtain large initial numbers of samples for epidemiological comparison, only a few studies have been performed in Japan (Suzuki, 1978(Suzuki, , 1998Fukushima, 1988).…”

A study of Skeletal Remains with Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis(DISH) from the Edo Period, Japan.

“…From a paleopathological point of view in Japan, though the concept of DISH has been recognized only relatively recently, very little is known about cases showing both spinal and extraspinal hyperostotic changes, with the exception of only spinal osteophytes under the diagnosis of SD. One of the present authors (Suzuki, 1978) described various pathological changes appearing in 188 vertebral columns from the Jomon (prehistoric) to the Edo period, and concluded that the most common pathology in those people was SD. He also reported one possible case of AS in an adult male among them, however, in this case a large segment of vertebral column and both sacroiliac joints were missing.…”

“…The degree of osteophytosis on each vertebra has been classified into several categories in the study of archeological skeletal materials (Nathan, 1962;Rogers, 1966;Chapman, 1970). In Japan, many osteological studies have been carried out on osteophytosis of SD in both archeological and modern dry bone specimens (Nakamura, 1930;Koike, 1956;Wada, 1975;Tsuji, 1970;Suzuki, 1978).…”