A tale of two cities: A comparison of urban and rural trauma in Medieval Denmark

Collier, Larissa; Primeau, Charlotte

doi:10.1016/j.ijpp.2018.10.002

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…This pattern is also found in a study of stress and accidental fractures of the postcrania in Poland during the same period by Agnew et al (2015). By contrast, Conversely, Collier and Primeau (2019) compare trauma in rural and urban cemeteries from medieval Denmark (1050–1536 CE), and find that individuals in the urban sample faced a higher relative risk of trauma and that the distribution of traumatic injuries across the body differed between the samples. Mant's (2018) study of 19th‐century admissions records to London Hospital (urban) compared to provincial records (rural) similarly reveals a greater proportion of admissions (of children) with traumatic injuries to London Hospital.…”

Section: Bioarchaeological Studies Of Urbanizationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Toward a bioarchaeology of urbanization: Demography, health, and behavior in cities in the past

Betsinger

DeWitte

2021

American J Phys Anthropol

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Urbanization is one of the most important settlement shifts in human history and has been the focus of research within bioarchaeology for decades. However, there have been limited attempts to synthesize the results of these studies in order to gain a broader perspective on whether or how urbanization affects the biology, demography, and behavior of humans, and how these potential effects are embodied in the human skeleton. This paper outlines how bioarchaeology is well-suited to examine urbanization in the past, and we provide an overview and examples of three main ways in which urbanization is studied in bioarchaeological research: comparison of (often contemporaneous) urban and rural sites, synchronic studies of the variation that exists within and between urban sites, and investigations of changes that occur within urban sites over time. Studies of urbanization, both within bioarchaeology and in other fields of study, face a number of limitations, including a lack of a consensus regarding what urban and urbanization mean, the assumed dichotomous nature of urban versus rural settlements, the supposition that urbanization is universally bad for people, and the assumption (at least in practice) of homogeneity within urban and rural populations. Bioarchaeologists can address these limitations by utilizing a wide array of data and methods, and the studies described here collectively demonstrate the complex, nuanced, and highly variable effects of urbanization.

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Section: Bioarchaeological Studies Of Urbanizationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Toward a bioarchaeology of urbanization: Demography, health, and behavior in cities in the past

Betsinger

DeWitte

2021

American J Phys Anthropol

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“…High‐intensity agriculturalists and hunter‐gatherers exhibit significantly higher rates of long bone fractures in contrast to low‐intensity agriculturalists (ibid). Currently, there is a growing body of data on the traumatic injury risks posed to farmers and citizens in medieval and post‐medieval Europe (Agnew et al, 2015; Collier & Primeau, 2019; Djuric et al, 2006; Grauer & Roberts, 1996; Judd & Roberts, 1999; Mant, 2019; Milner et al, 2015; Novak & Šlaus, 2012; Tumler et al, 2021). Much less is known about the rates and patterns of skeletal fractures in pastoral communities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The hazards of the pastoralist lifestyle: Evidence from postcranial fractures in Middle Bronze and Early Iron Age populations of the Forest‐Steppe Altai, Russia

Tur,

Svyatko,

Rykun

et al. 2024

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

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A global comparison has shown that subsistence‐specific practices influenced the risk of postcranial fractures in prehistoric hunter‐gatherers and agriculturalists. Much less is known about pastoralists in this regard. The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence and patterns of postcranial injuries of herders in the Forest‐Steppe Altai, Russia. Skeletal samples associated with the Andronovo Culture of the Middle Bronze Age, and Staroaleyka and Kamen Cultures of the Early Iron Age were studied. Long bones of 595 adults were examined for evidence of antemortem and perimortem injuries. Fracture frequencies were calculated per individual and per skeletal element, and the differences were evaluated statistically. While assessing per individual, the relative risk with a 95% confidence interval was calculated as well. All of the observed fractures were healed. This study suggests that pastoralists sustained not only traumatic, but also stress injuries. There were sex‐related differences in the rates, patterns, and location of the injuries. In the males, the main reason of fractures could have been high‐velocity incidents during horseback riding and using horse‐drawn vehicles. In the females, the majority of the injuries were possibly associated with accidents when walking (short falls and twists of ankle) and milking. Females of the Staroaleyka Culture sustained fractures of the limb bones significantly more often than those of the Kamen Culture, probably as a result of differences in their daily activities. In terms of the total fracture rates, the Forest‐Steppe Altai pastoralists and their neighbors seem to have surpassed low‐intensity agriculturalists but lag behind hunter‐gatherers and high‐intensity agriculturalists. More datasets are needed to further elucidate the association between postcranial fracture risk and subsistence‐specific practices and environments within the Eurasian Steppe, where pastoralism has been the predominant form of economic activity for millennia.

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“…The anatomical and sociocultural implications of trauma in the past are complex and multidimensional; as such, the theoretical landscapes, research questions and methodological systems used to investigate skeletal injuries are diverse (Gilmour, Brickley, Jurriaans, & Prowse, 2019; Lovell, 1997; Redfern & Roberts, 2019). Palaeopathological studies of skeletal injury have made important contributions to the interpretation of biocultural contexts in the past, addressing issues such as interpersonal violence (Erdal & Erdal, 2012; Fernández‐Crespo, 2017; Pfeiffer, 2016; Piombino‐Mascali, Bedini, Curate, Lippi, & Mallegni, 2006), age and gender (Curate, Lopes, & Cunha, 2010; de la Cova, 2012; Ives, Mant, de la Cova, & Brickley, 2017; Robbins, Gray, Mushrif‐Tripathy, & Sankhyan, 2012), social inequality and structural violence (Antunes‐Ferreira, 2015; de la Cova, 2017, 2012, 2010; Fernandes, Liberato, Marques, & Cunha, 2017; Osterholtz, 2012), subsistence strategies (Domett & Tayles, 2006; Lambert & Welker, 2017), territorial organisation (Collier & Primeau, 2019; Šlaus, Novak, Bedić, & Strinović, 2012), child abuse (Gaither, 2012; Wheeler, Williams, Beauchesne, & Dupras, 2013), surgical procedures or medical assistance (Binder et al, 2016; Giuffra & Fornaciari, 2017) and the provision of care (Dequeker et al, 1997; Lovell, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interpreting injury recidivism in a rural post‐medieval male individual from Bucelas, Portugal

Antunes‐Ferreira

Prates

Curate

2020

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

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Injury recidivism studies assess the lived experience of individuals who endure multiple traumatic incidents, conveying a nuanced contextualization of individual suffering within a reticulate of social and cultural processes. During a recent archaeological excavation, a skeleton of a middle‐aged male dating to the 17th–18th centuries AD was excavated in the churchyard of the Chapel of the Holy Spirit in Bucelas (Portugal). This individual exhibited a mixture of healed and healing fractures that prompted poor functional long‐term outcomes and an increase in the risk of death. Macroscopic and medical imaging (computerized tomography) analyses revealed lesions in the right shoulder, right and left ribs, fifth right proximal phalanx and right distal femur. Fracture complications include myositis ossificans and chronic osteomyelitis. The results are interpreted in the broader sociocultural circumstances of Bucelas during the early modern period, in order to investigate the causes of this individual's accumulated trauma and the possibility of health‐related care associated with it.

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A tale of two cities: A comparison of urban and rural trauma in Medieval Denmark

Cited by 7 publications

References 47 publications

Toward a bioarchaeology of urbanization: Demography, health, and behavior in cities in the past

Toward a bioarchaeology of urbanization: Demography, health, and behavior in cities in the past

The hazards of the pastoralist lifestyle: Evidence from postcranial fractures in Middle Bronze and Early Iron Age populations of the Forest‐Steppe Altai, Russia

Interpreting injury recidivism in a rural post‐medieval male individual from Bucelas, Portugal

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