Spondylolysis in non‐adult skeletons excavated from a medieval rural archaeological site in England

Abstract

Spondylolysis is studied in a large series of non-adult skeletons, ranging in age at death from 28 weeks gestation to 18 years old, from the deserted medieval village of Wharram Percy. The aim is to shed light on the age of occurrence of the lesion. Among those with complete lumbar spines, the prevalence of spondylolysis is 0.7%. The prevalence in adults from this group is 12% with no age patterning. Age of occurrence of spondylolysis in this population is inferred generally to be during late adolescent or early adult life. This contrasts with a published study of a modern reference group, unselected for activity patterns or medical complaints, which reported that in most cases spondylolytic defects had already formed by 6 years of age. The Wharram Percy group appeared to resemble rather more the pattern seen today in those involved in strenuous activities, such as competitive sports, both in the relatively late age of occurrence of defects and in the eventual high prevalence. This may be consistent with the observation that, during adolescence, individuals in medieval rural communities were beginning to take on adult tasks which would have been physically strenuous. However, it is unclear why individuals from Wharram Percy did not also form defects in early childhood as modern children appear to. A late age of occurrence appears consistent with published data which suggest a paucity of cases in non-adults in British archaeological populations.

Spondylolysis and lifestyle among prehistoric coastal groups from Brazil

“…On the other hand, Mays (2007), studying age at occurrence of spondylolysis in a medieval population, discuss that the skeleton generally bears a cumulative record of the trauma suffered during life. Therefore, for injuries that continue throughout adulthood, there tends to be increasing prevalence in successively older age cohorts in a skeletal population, since older individuals will have experienced more years at risk of acquiring injury.…”

“…However, studies based on archaeological series suggest a later age for onset of the lesion, with few examples of children and younger adolescents affected (reviewed by Merbs, 1996b). Even in a quantitatively representative and appropriate series for statistical analyses, Mays (2007) found only 0.7% of immature individuals affected, even though the rate was 17.9% in the 18–29‐year bracket. Among adults, the archaeological series show widely varying frequencies, possibly as a function of the small number of individuals or the use of different methods to estimate age, thus not allowing to associate occurrence of the lesion with increasing age.…”

The Cro-Magnon babies: Morphology and mortuary implications of the Cro-Magnon immature remains

“…However, these criteria are not compatible with the age group to which CM 4252-5 belongs, as they appear progressively during fusion of the elements (Lewis, 2017). The youngest archaeological individual for whom this diagnosis has been proposed has an estimated age-at-death of 6 months post-partum (Mays, 2007). Therefore, none of the etiologies mentioned appears to be compatible with the morphology of femur CM4252-5.…”