Growth in Afro‐Caribbean slave populations

Higman, B. W.

doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330500312

Cited by 57 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Angel (1976) provided osteometric data from American Blacks from several small samples, and he briefly reported on 25 individuals from the Catoctin Furnace cemetery (Angel, 1980;Burnston, 1980a). Aside from Higman's (1979) analysis of slave stature and growth from historical data, we can still repeat Dailey's (1974:ll) comment that "we know virtually nothing about the stature, diseases and nonmetrical variations of black populations during the slave period." These limitations led Saksena (1974) to use a collage of modern coastal West African skeletal samples as representatives of the ancestral stock, and to compare them to American Blacks and Whites along an osteometric continuum.…”

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confidence: 83%

Osteology of a slave burial population from Barbados, West Indies

Corruccini

Handler

Mutaw

et al. 1982

American J Phys Anthropol

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A unique seventeenth-nineteenth century slave cemetery population from Newton plantation, Barbados, allows examination of craniodental characters in relation to ethnohistorical data. Age-at-death estimates suggest life expectancy at birth of 29 years and low infant mortality; historical demography, however, suggests life expectancy of 20 years and very high infant mortality. Tooth decay, bilateral tooth loss, periodontal disease, root hypercementosis, and severe enamel hypoplasia are high in frequency. The teeth yield evidence of such cultural practices as pipe-smoking and incisor mutilation. Several skeletal features reflect periodic near-starvation. Directional and fluctuating dental asymmetry, relative tooth size, and hypoplasia distribution suggest slaves experienced considerable weaning trauma; metabolic stress at this time exceeded that of prenatal and immediate postnatal periods. Odontometrics and dental and cranial nonmetric traits indicate that modern Blacks are intermediate between the ancestral slaves and modern Whites but more similar to the latter, suggesting effects of environmental covariance exceed those of genetic admixture. Nonmetric trait distributions show nonrandom patterns according to area of burial in the cemetery, a possible result of family segregation.

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confidence: 83%

Osteology of a slave burial population from Barbados, West Indies

Corruccini

Handler

Mutaw

et al. 1982

American J Phys Anthropol

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“…To compare from Angel and Kelley samples, eighteenth-century farm slaves at 170.5 (N = 15), nineteenth-century farm slaves at 170.2 (N=20), and Catoctin industrial slaves at 171.6 (N = 7) do not differ much either between themselves or from Engerman's sample of 518. U.S. slaves (1828-1860) at 171.6 (reworked by Higman, 1979). Two kinds of evidence for stature exist:…”

Section: Staturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A possible third source is statures measured from cadavers, from which a number of variables in methodology occur. Evidence from the living includes Engerman's (reworked by Higman, 1979) slave samples (contemporary to FABC) of 518 US. males at 171.6 and of 299 females at 158.6.…”

Section: Staturementioning

confidence: 99%

Life stresses of the free Black community as represented by the First African Baptist Church, Philadelphia, 1823–1841

Ángel

Kelley

Parrington³

et al. 1987

American J Phys Anthropol

119

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The congregation of the Reverend Henry Simmons (First African Baptist Church at 8th & Vine, Philadelphia) from 1823 to 1841 used a cemetery rediscovered through subway expansion which was carefully excavated by M. Parrington and S. Pinter in 1983-1984; currently 75 adults were available for study. As an overall health indicator, longevity at 38.9 years (N = 39) female and 44.8 (N = 36) male indicates more stress on females. Probable causes of stress are inadequate nutrition for the performance of arduous labor, pregnancy, and childrearing, unsanitary living conditions, limited exposure to sun, and extensive exposure to infectious diseases. Nutritional indicators of stature, dental lesions, skull base height, and pelvic brim index scarcely advance over 1790-1820 Catoctin Furnace, Maryland, slaves' indicators. Disease evidence includes limb-distorting rickets in one child who died at age 8, anemia, and arthritis; but the incidence of arthritis was less than at Catoctin. Genetic traits are chiefly African. Family links show in details: os acromiale in about 30%. This plus less violence (fewer fractures) suggests community strength developing.

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“…Nutrition also seems, to a large extent, to be responsible for "racial" differences in adult stature. This has been amply demonstrated by the secular increases of stature in populations that were once disadvantaged (Greulich, 1957;Meredith, 1976;Malina, 1979;Roche, 1979;Higman, 1979). The reverse has also been observed, i.e., socioeconomically advantaged groups, such as Harvard and Wellesley college freshmen, have shown no significant increase of stature in recent decades (Bawkin and McLaughlin, 1964;Damon, 1974).…”

Section: Nutrition and Public Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clinical applications of physical anthropology

Robinow

1982

Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

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In recent decades physical anthropology has moved from its more traditional confines into many areas of clinical interest including growth and development, nutrition, clinical medicine, dysmorphology, and physical fitness. The "clinical applications" of physical anthropology is a broad topic, given the space limitations of a review. Hence, selected clinical applications, emphasizing anthropometry at the expense of physiology and genetics, are considered. Since the author is a pediatrician, the review concentrates largely on areas dealing with children.In the nineteenth century, physical anthropologists were largely limited to a few measuring tools: anthropometer, weighing scales, calipers and measuring tapes, and were handicapped by somewhat primitive statistics. Modern workers have enlarged their inventory of measuring tools, improved their methodology, and greatly refined the statistical treatment of data.Earlier physical anthropologists concentrated on a rather limited group of study areas: (1) the dimensions of the human body and their variation with age, sex and race, and, to a lesser extent, with occupation and social class; (2) prehistory and human evolution; (3) taxonomy of human races; and (4) the relationship between cranial dimensions and intelligence.Contemporary physical anthropologists continue to study the first two topics. In the third area, emphasis has changed from "racial" to "ethnic" differences. Racial taxonomies by anthropometric criteria have proved futile. "It is difficult to define races and the usefulness of this concept, at least as applied to man, is doubtful" (Carmelli and Cavalli-Sfoma, 1979, p. 41). Genetic affinities between populations are better expressed in terms of blood group and plasma protein polymorphisms. Interest in the fourth area waned after Pearson (1906) showed the extremely low correlations between head size and intelligence, though occasional studies in this area continue to surface (Susanne, 1979).Perhaps a major change in recent decades has been the impressive growth in the application of physical anthropology to clinical problems. For purposes of this review, the following areas of clinical application have been selected: (1) growth and development; (2) nutrition and public health; (3) clinical medicine; (4) dysmorphology; and (5) physical fitness and sports. GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENTThe late 1920s saw a rather sudden burst of interest in the causes of individual differences, both mental and physical. It was hoped that long-term studies of children 0096-848X/82/2501-0169$03.50 cc)

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Growth in Afro‐Caribbean slave populations

Cited by 57 publications

References 12 publications

Osteology of a slave burial population from Barbados, West Indies

Osteology of a slave burial population from Barbados, West Indies

Life stresses of the free Black community as represented by the First African Baptist Church, Philadelphia, 1823–1841

Clinical applications of physical anthropology

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