Osteology of a slave burial population from Barbados, West Indies

Abstract

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.

Health and disease at a South Carolina plantation: 1840–1870

“…The underrepresentation of infants is a ubiquitous problem in cemetery samples (Corruccini et al, 1982) and historical reconstructions from plantation records (Steckel, 1979a). The disparity between historical records and cemetery recovery for infants is illustrated at the Barbados Newton plantation where only 14.6% of the skeletons were small children or infants and the plantation records indicated that 37.1% of the population died before the age of 5 (Handler and Lange, 1978).…”

“…A much higher subadult mortality rate was indicated by the plantation records than would be indicated by the number of subadult skeletons recovered in the cemetery. The osteological analysis of this sample by Corruccini et al (1982) revealed much developmental disruption and dental pathology. They also found the genetic and odontometric distances of the slaves with modern American whites and blacks to be discordant with expected values.…”

Enamel hypoplasias and physiological stress in the Sima de los Huesos Middle Pleistocene hominins

“…Some studies of recent human groups interpreted peak frequencies of hypoplasias at a certain age as an indicator of time of weaning, which is known to vary according to subsistence strategy (Lanphear, 1990;Goodman et al, 1984;Corruccini et al, 1982). Weaning is considered the time of highest metabolic stress during early childhood in preindustrial societies and societies with low socioeconomic levels (Moggi-Cecchi et al, 1994), and therefore a possible cause of high rates of hypoplasia.…”

De morcegos e caveiras a cruzes e livros: a representação da morte nos cemitérios cariocas do século XIX (estudo de identidade e mobilidade soclais)

“…Estudos de cultura material vêm privilegiando particularmente pesquisas em cemitérios históricos, envolvendo ou não escavações, e estão se multiplicando as monografias sobre o assunto, em especial nos Estados Unidos, Canadá e Inglaterra (Anderson, 1993;Bender, 1988;Brock, 1991;Brooks, 1989; Brown, 1992 a e b; Clark, 1987;Coates, 1987;Combs, 1986;Crowell, 1981;Corrucini, 1982; Costello, 1987;Deetz, 1977;Deetz & Dethlefsen, 1978;Dethlefsen, 1981;Frascari, 1981;Gittings, 1988;Hall, 1986;Hannon, 1983;Jeane, 1989;Jordan, 1980;Kjolbye-Biddle, 1976; Lanphear, 1990;Uttle et aI., 1992;McGuire, 1988;Milbauer, 1989;Osborne, 1974;Owsley et ai., 1987;Parrington, 1987;Patterson, 1986;Pearson, 1982;Pocins, 1986;Richardson, 1993;Ridlen, 1983;Rodwell, 1989;Sexton, 1991;Slater, 1987;Stone, 1991;Stone & Russel, 1986;Trask, 1978;Trask& McNabb, 1986;Watters, 1987;Wurst, 1991, entre outros).…”