Tracy Prowse
Address: Dept. of Anthropology
Chester New Hall, Room 514
McMaster University
1280 Main Street West
Hamilton, ON L8S 4L9
Chester New Hall, Room 514
McMaster University
1280 Main Street West
Hamilton, ON L8S 4L9
less
InterestsView All (23)
Uploads
Papers by Tracy Prowse
Rebecca J.Gilmour, Megan B.Brickley, ErikJurriaans, Tracy L.Prowse
Objective
This study uses biomechanical data from tibiae to investigate the functional consequences of lower limb fractures. Adults with malunited fractures are hypothesized to have experienced altered mobility, indicated by asymmetric tibial cross-sectional geometries (CSG).
Materials
Ninety-three adults from Roman (1st to 4th centuries CE) Ancaster, UK and Vagnari, Italy (Ancaster n = 16 adults with lower limb fracture:53 without fracture; Vagnari n = 5:19)
Methods
Biplanar radiographs were used to quantify and compare tibial CSG properties and asymmetries between individuals with and without fractures to femora, tibiae, and/or fibulae. The amount of angulation, rotation, and overlap, indicative of linear deformity, were measured for each fracture. Individuals who loaded their fractured leg differently than their opposite, uninjured leg were identified using outlying amounts of CSG asymmetry.
Results
Two Ancaster individuals had poorly aligned fractures. None of the Ancaster or Vagnari individuals with lower limb fractures had CSG properties or asymmetries outside the calculated normal ranges.
Conclusions
Regardless of how a fracture healed, individuals at Ancaster and Vagnari generally resumed mobility after trauma whenever possible.
Significance
This research contributes information about injury recovery and suggests that resilient behaviors and persistent mobility may have been valued or required responses to fracture in the study communities. This work advises that impairment should not be inferred based solely on the appearance of lesions.
Limitations
Site, sex, and age patterns in injury recovery are not evaluated due to sample size limitations.
Suggestions for further research
Biomechanical assessments of post-traumatic function in varied cultural contexts are advised in order to further characterize the impact that physical and social factors have on injury recovery.
Plasmodium falciparum is a significant human pathogen, particularly in the historical context of the ancient Mediterranean region. The causative species of malaria are “invisible” in the historical record, while malaria as a disease entity is indirectly supported by evidence from literary works (e.g., the Hippocratic Corpus, Celsus’ De Medicina) and non-specific skeletal pathological responses. Although ancient DNA may demonstrate the presence of a pathogen, there remain theoretical and methodological challenges in contextualizing such molecular evidence.
Here we present a framework to explore the biosocial context of malaria in 1st–4th c. CE central-southern Italy using genomic, literary, epidemiological, and archaeological evidence to highlight relationships between the Plasmodium parasite, human hosts, Anopheles vector, and environment. By systematically integrating these evidentiary sources, our approach highlights the importance of disease ecology (e.g., climate and landscape) and human-environment interactions (e.g., land use patterns, such as agriculture or infrastructure activities) that differentially impact the potential scope of malaria in the past.
Stable isotope analysis of 18O isotope abundance in long surviving biogenic tissues of plants or animals is a well-recognised and accepted method for establishing proxies or indicators for environmental change,[1-5] palaeoecological studies[6-14] or geographic provenance.[15-21] In recent years, the 18O isotope abundance analysis of bio-apatite in bone or tooth enamel of modern human remains has also been used for determining geographic provenance and geographic life trajectories in a forensic context.[22-24] With the advent of instruments capable of on-line or continuous-flow 2H stable isotope analysis, methodologies and applications for the 2H analysis of bone collagen, human hair, and nails have been reported to determine geographic origin of ancient and modern man.[25-28]
Given the widely acknowledged resilience of tooth enamel to diagenetic changes,[13] we wondered if it would be possible to gain useful information from the 2H isotopic record locked into the hydroxyl groups of tooth enamel although studies of the 2H isotopic abundance in tooth enamel appear to be nonexistent in the scientific literature. The apparent lack of published research in this area might be for the following reasons:
(I)
Compared with the mineral calcium hydroxylapatite, Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2, carbonate ions in bio-apatite such as tooth enamel replace hydroxyl ions and even phosphate ions,[29, 30] yet only approximate weight percentage figures for the degree of carbonate incorporation have been published.[31] For this reason bio-apatite is more accurately described chemically as carbonate-rich, hydroxyl-deficient apatite.[29] As the degree of carbonate substitution in tooth enamel is not precisely known, it could be suspected that the prospective yield of H2 could be too small to be reliably measured.
(II)
Due to the theoretical possibility of hydrogen exchange in bio-apatite, potentially measurable δ2H-values may not convey any meaningful information. However, in comparison with the pKa-values at 25°C of 14 or 15.5 for the dissociation of water (H2O <−> OH- + H+) or of ethanol into ethoxide and a proton (C2H5OH/C2H5O- + H+), respectively, the pKa-value for the dissociation of OH- to yield O2- + H+ is 24, thus making the hydroxyl ion 108.5 times weaker a proton donor than ethanol, or 1010 times less likely to dissociate and, hence, less susceptible to H exchange than water.
Based on our search of the available literature no published protocols exist for sample preparation and analytical methods to obtain δ2H-values from the hydroxyl fraction of tooth enamel through isotope ratio mass spectrometric analysis.
In this paper we present results of a proof-of-concept study that aimed to establish the feasibility of measuring the 2H stable isotope composition of ground tooth enamel by continuous-flow isotope ratio mass spectrometry (CF-IRMS) coupled on-line to a high-temperature conversion elemental analyser (TC/EA) and assess the usefulness of enamel δ2H values as an archaeological or forensic proxy for a person's geographic origin during late childhood when late erupting molars are being formed.""