Photographic Atlas of Bioarchaeology from the Osteological Collection of Croatian Academy of ...

165 Pages·2013·16.28 MB·English

P h o t o g r a p h i c A t l a s o f
Bioarchaeology

from the Osteological Collection of the
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Manualia Universitatis studiorum Zagrabiensis
S a p i e n t i s a t !
P h o t o g r a p h i c A t l a s o f
Bioarchaeology

from the Osteological Collection of the
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Mario Šlaus
MSc, PhD, Full Professor
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Anthropological Center

Mario Novak
MSc, PhD, Research Associate
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Anthropological Center

Vlasta Vyroubal
Instructor
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Anthropological Center

Željka Bedić
Instructor
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Anthropological Center

Hrvoje Brkić
DDM, MSc, PhD, Full Professor
University of Zagreb School of Dental Medicine
Department of Dental Anthropology

Marin Vodanović
DDM, MSc, PhD, Assistant Professor
University of Zagreb School of Dental Medicine
Department of Dental Anthropology
PHOTOGRAPHIC ATLAS OF BIOARCHAEOLOGY FROM THE OSTEOLOGICAL COLLECTION OF THE
CROATIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS

Authors: Mario Šlaus, Mario Novak, Vlasta Vyroubal, Željka Bedić, Hrvoje Brkić, Marin Vodanović
Published by: School of Dental Medicine University of Zagreb and Croatian Academy of Sciences and
Arts

Copyright © 2013 by Mario Šlaus www.marioslaus.com
ISBN 978-953-7781-01-9

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Permissions may be sought directly from
Mario Šlaus, e-mail: [email protected], web: www.marioslaus.com

A catalogue record for this title is available from the National and University Library in Zagreb,
Croatia.

The authors and the publishers do not accept responsibility or legal liability for any errors in the text
or for the misuse or misapplication of material in this book.

Publication of this book is supported by International Association for Paleodontology. For more
information please visit www.paleodontology.com

Manualia Universitatis studiorum Zagrabiensis
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Archaeological research and excavation ................................................................................................. 9
Anthropological analysis and osteological collection............................................................................ 19
Taphonomy and preservation ............................................................................................................... 29
Associated materials recovered during the cleaning of the skeletons ................................................. 39
Dental disease ....................................................................................................................................... 53
Subadult stress ...................................................................................................................................... 63
Infectious diseases ................................................................................................................................ 73
Indicators of physical stress and habitual activities .............................................................................. 85
Osteoarthritis ........................................................................................................................................ 97
Antemortem trauma ........................................................................................................................... 105
Perimortem trauma ............................................................................................................................. 121
Miscellaneous ...................................................................................................................................... 143
Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................... 153
Index .................................................................................................................................................... 159

Foreword

This atlas evolved from a much simpler project. One of my students, a lovely young lady, was
helping me design a personal web page and to illustrate how these things look she showed me her
own personal web page. This was a very nice looking page that not only had all of the data relevant
to her ongoing education, but also a number of interesting personal details: her hobbies, books she
had read and, because the young lady in question is an avid amateur photographer, a large gallery of
pictures she had taken as well as those depicting her at various functions. I liked this personal touch
but, as luck would have it I am, by no stretch of the imagination, lovely. So, while I do posses a large
number of photographs featuring me engaged in diverse activities in various parts of the world, my
first thought was – nobody deserves to see these. However, I also posses a huge number of pictures
depicting various aspects of the investigations we carry out at the Anthropological Centre of the
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, as well as numerous pictures of different pathologies we
have identified in the remains of the past inhabitants of Croatia.
Now, one of the few regrets I have as a scientist is that, all of us are extremely limited in the number
of pictures we can use when illustrating specific features or arguments in our scientific publications.
This is of course totally understandable as these pictures take up a lot of space and are costly to
reproduce but, never the less still galling as, particularly in some sciences –such as bioarchaeology,
photographs of morphological (or radiological or microscopic) changes in bone and dental tissue are
crucial to our understanding of the ways in which diseases evolved over time, and the ways in which
they affected human health and quality of life. Additionally, through my own research and through
contact with colleagues and students from all over the world, I have noticed that some pathological
entities manifest themselves subtly different in different parts of the world. For instance, here in
Croatia cribra orbitalia is generally more severe in expression that what I have seen in the USA.
Similarly venereal syphilis in the USA is frequently accompanied by a pathological change called
‘‘sabre-shin’’ tibia – caused by periostitis along the anterior and middle portion of the shaft resulting
in anterior enlargement or ‘‘bowing’’ of the bone, while in Croatia, this change has (at least so far)
been completely absent. For these reasons my first impulse was to create a gallery of these pictures
and append them to my web page. Fortunately it was pointed out to me that a much better way to
make these pictures available to those who have an interest in such things is to publish them in an e-
book. Hence, this atlas. It is, as you will see, a modest and unassuming work that simply illustrates in
more detail some of the investigations we have carried out and published in the past. Despite these
limitations we have enjoyed making it, and also learned a little bit more about some of the
pathological changes depicted in it. We hope that the same sentiments are felt by the readers of this
book.

Mario Šlaus

Chapter 1

Archaeological
research and
excavation
9