Paleonutrition

RIASSUNTO — l'analisi paleonutrizionale degli elementi in traccia in alcuni campioni ossei umani pro-venienti dal camposanto dell'Isola del Lazzaretto Nuovo (Venezia) e riferibili all'epidemia di peste che colpì la Serenissima nel 1576 permette di ricostruire uno spaccato della dieta delle popolazioni che vissero nell'area durante il XVI secolo. Le differenze riscontrate nei campioni consentono inoltre di inquadrare i soggetti in differenti classi sociali, dimostrando la democraticità del flagello portato dalla yersinia pestis.

This investigation represents the first extensive application of Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry to ancient dental analysis and paleodietary reconstruction.  Enamel strontium composition is examined because it is a reliable hard tissue indicator of diet during enamel formation in childhood. 

Here, infant diet and weaning behavior of pre-contact and colonial period Maya from Lamanai, Belize are reconstructed.  Weaning is a critical dietary transition that has adaptive significance for later life.  Since the strontium-calcium (Sr/Ca) ratio of solid food is high compared to that of breast milk, strontium composition of hard tissues developing before, and after, food supplementation can infer the timing of food introduction and weaning.  Known timing of permanent enamel development allows correlation of canine enamel Sr/Ca values with age in childhood, which is facilitated by continuous laser microsampling. 

The results indicate that enamel Sr/Ca faithfully records a biogenic signal associated with childhood dietary intake.  The total Sr/Ca pattern generally follows the projected model of strontium change, with food supplementation starting at around nine months of age, which increases gradually until there is a substantial surge in food intake at approximately two years of age.  Lamanai children continue to nurse afterward, possibly up to five years of age, but it comprises a minor nutritional component. 

Significantly, the disadvantaged colonial Maya cohort has a reduced Sr/Ca pattern compared to elite Postclassic Maya, suggesting that colonial children may have exclusively breastfed for longer, delaying the age of food supplementation and weaning.  Colonial Maya also exhibit greater Sr/Ca variation, reflecting dietary shifts that can be attributed to poorer nutrition and health.  Female economic responsibilities partially account for the differences in colonial childcare practices.  Additionally, enamel variation may reflect the different childhood origins (and weaning patterns) of possible migrants at Lamanai.  Ultimately, the nature of infant diet and enamel Sr/Ca can be linked to interrelated ecological, political and economic factors.

LA-ICP-MS analysis reveals enamel Sr/Ca to be a sensitive gauge of the prolonged and complex process of weaning and it proves to be an ideal method of capturing the richness of early life history documented in sequentially-formed enamel.

Se è vero che il profilo di mortalità di una popolazione è la migliore misura
del suo successo adattativo, la sua ricostruzione nelle popolazioni del passato
attraverso i resti odontoscheletrici è quanto mai complessa, articolata e spesso
impraticabile.
La comunità dei morti infatti non rispecchia nella sua composizione quella
dei vivi poiché gli accumuli di mortalità che vi osserviamo sono frutto di fenomeni
che non riusciamo il più delle volte a quantificare: fenomeni quali la
mortalità selettiva, la non stazionarietà demografica, la diversa suscettibilità
individuale, parametri che non sono facilmente stimabili in una popolazione
scheletrica (e per altro, spesso, neanche in una vivente).
Il quadro interpretativo in cui cerchiamo di ricostruire modi e tempi della vita
e della morte di comunità del passato è sempre quindi fortemente influenzato
e distorto: una damnatio disciplinare della paleoantropologia che già venti
anni fa fu chiaramente identificata da Wood e collaboratori nel loro citatissimo
(ma non sempre considerato) articolo The Osteological Paradox: problems of
inferring prehistoric health from skeletal sample1.
Anche se questo dato di fatto è stato spesso ignorato nelle ricerche paleoantropologiche
o più sottilmente il lavoro di Wood è stato citato come a dire “lo so,
ma che posso farci?”, altri ricercatori hanno cercato di mantenere alta la validità
delle proprie inferenze sulla popolazioni del passato con nuovi approcci disciplinari
e metodologici.
La morte nella sua natura binaria non racconta bene la complessa articolazione
degli adattamenti bioculturali e tende, come abbiamo visto, a oscurarli. Inoltre
se i tessuti mineralizzati sono utili al paleoantropologo in quanto si preservano,
l’osso è un pessimo registratore di eventi e patologie, in quanto sottoposto a
un costante e lento processo di rimodellamento. Differente lo smalto dei denti
che invece mostra una sensibilità di registrazione quanto mai alta anche se del
tutto non lineare.
Però, se queste sono le caratteristiche ineluttabili dei nostri reperti, è pur vero
che in essi è comunque registrata una porzione della vita biologica individuale
che, con fatica, tecnologia e pazienza può essere letta.
La ricostruzione della storia biologica individuale a partire dai resti odontoscheletrici
rappresenta dunque un approccio tra i più promettenti in paleoantropologia.
L’uomo, al pari di tutti gli organismi viventi, attraversa diversi
stadi della vita e le differenze nella scansione temporale e nella covariazione
di questi stadi, sono utili a spiegare difformità tra le specie e entro e tra le popolazioni.

ABSTRACT: Analysis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes from soft or mineralized tissues is a direct and widely used
technique for modeling diets. In addition to its continued role in paleodiet analysis, stable isotope analysis is now
contributing to studies of physiology, disease, and nutrition in archaeological and living human populations. In humans
and other animals, dietary uptake and distribution of carbon and nitrogen among mineralized and soft tissue is carried
out with varying efficiency due to factors of internal biology. Human pathophysiologies may lead to pathology-influenced
isotopic fractionation that can be exploited to understand not just skeletal health and diet, but physiological
health and nutrition. This study reviews examples from human biology, non-human animal ecology, biomedicine, and
bioarchaeology demonstrating how stable isotope analyses are usefully applied to the study of physiological adaptation
and adaptability. Suggestions are made for future directions in applying stable isotope analysis to the study of nutritional
stress, disease, and growth and development in living and past human populations.

This paper draws on comparative data to explore the evolutionary origins of human nutritional needs and the
diverse strategies used by human populations tomeet those needs. Humans have evolved distinctive nutritional
characteristics associatedwith the high metabolic costs of our large brains. The evolution of larger hominid brain
size necessitated the development of foraging strategies that both provided high quality foods, and required
larger ranges and higher levels of energy expenditure. Over time, human subsistence strategies have become
ever more efficient in obtaining energy with minimal time and effort. Compared to data from traditional,
subsistence-level societies, the US diet differs markedly in its fat and carbohydrate composition, but not in its
absolute energy content. Energy expenditure levels of subsistence populations are significantly higher than
those of the US and other industrialized societies. These data suggest that rising rates of obesity associated
with lifestyle ‘modernization’ is not simply the product of greater energy intakes, but rather shifts energy balance
and diet composition.

The application of an integrated methodology - connecting the archaeological record with morphological analysis,
reconstruction of the operational-functional sequence, wear traces and analysis of the residues, ethnographical comparison and archaeological experimentation - to the study of latent technologies (i.e. related to the treatment of highly perishable raw materials) has allowed us to obtain different data which led to a coherent interpretative framework for the understanding of a Gravettian camp site. At Bilancino site different technological processes could be reported, all related to vegetal fibre (Typha) exploitation: while
manufacture and use of specialized tools is documented for the treatment of vegetable fibres (Noailles burins), the further phases of fibres processing in order to obtain other products are to be inferred only as a working hypothesis (possible dyeing of these products with hematite dust). Nevertheless independently from the worked raw material the Bilancino grindstones, which still has no analytical and archaeometric comparisons in coeval European sites, testifies the adoption of an innovative technique -the grinding activity - in the Italian Gravettian, stressing both the importance of vegetal resources exploitation in Palaeolithic economies and the importance of the technological innovation within the development and the diffusion of the Gravettian culture in Europe.

"As Donald Ortner and other scholars have noted, the prevalence of subadult scurvy ranges widely among skeletal assemblages. Prevalence variation across the Americas has been attributed to seasonality and environmental instability, although no cohesive model has been proposed. Integrating new evidence from an analysis of 31 burials found in an ancestral Tepehaun cave site (A.D. 571–1168), this paper proposes a model of biosocial change and nutritional stress for the Prehispanic American Southwest. The role of warfare and social control are emphasized to complement prior studies that have focused on the role of droughts and aggregation.

Bioarchaeological evidence demonstrates that scurvy prevalence increases among subadults in association with violence and exploitation by regional political centers. Hinterland communities exhibit higher prevalence rates of scurvy than found within nearby political centers. This is consistent with hypotheses that social control involved complex inequalities in resource redistribution in the Southwest that negatively impacted the communities from which food resources were extracted. Evidence of scurvy also appears to be found most often in assemblages associated with violent conflict. Further exploration of the role structural inequalities play in shaping nutrition will enable a better understanding of how to improve health in contexts of resource instability."

Isotope variations were studied in necro-polises of the early (6th to 7th century CE) and central (10th to 11th century CE) medieval period located in Fruili-Venezia Giulia (Northeastern Italy). The two periods each shortly followed two great barbarian invasions that changed the politics and economy of Italy: the arrivals of Langobards in 578 CE and the Hungarian incursions from the end of the 9th to the first half of the 10th century. These events had a tragic effect on the economy of Friuli-Venezia Giulia: severe depopulation and the partial abandonment of the countryside with fall of agricultural production. Am J Phys Anthropol 154:561–574, 2014. V C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

This 'Letter to the Editor' or PLOS ONE comment is written in response to Dominguez-Rodrigo and colleagues who recently presented the earliest evidence of porotic hyperostosis in the hominin fossil record. They discovered two fragments of non-adult parietal bone which exhibit porotic hyperostosis. From this find, the authors draw a number of conclusions about the subsistence regime of the family from which this subadult originates as well as suggest a cause-of-death from the two fragments and use these conclusions to infer that meat played a major role in hominin diet. They suggest, in concluding their work, that the unavailability of meat was a cause of malnourishment for the infant under analysis and also note that the physiology of the subadult would have been adapted towards the consumption of meat.

In our letter, we argue that the authors in this study make a number of conclusions which cannot be supported by the data presented. In the piece, we review what is known about porotic hyperostosis and, as paleopathologists, critique the process by which they arrive at their conclusions from a consideration of this common pathological lesion.

We use the recent find by Dominguez-Rodrigo and colleagues to discuss interpretive challenges in paleopathology and paleoanthropology, particularly in diagnosing the cause of a lesion like porotic hyperostosis which is non-specific in aetiology.
We reject the assertion that evidence of ancient anemia attests to hominin's meat-adapted physiology or the centrality of meat (hunters?) to human evolution. Instead, we urge caution in interpreting lesions without contextual information, rigorous diagnosis by exclusion and the use of biocultural modeling, as well as comparative analysis. Integrating these kinds of data as well as theory from across the social and behavioral sciences is essential in furthering judicious reconstructions of hominin evolution that find their basis in empirical data.

In this contribution, we investigated the role of plants in the prehistoric community of Casale del Dolce (Anagni, FR, central Italy), through microparticles recovered from dental calculus. The finding of a great amount of pollen types, even in form of compact lumps, could indicate use of natural substances, such as honeybee products and/or conifer resins. This plant-microremain record also suggested environmental implications relative to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic period. Additionally, the stability of the tartar microenvironment had preserved starches and other microparticles, such as one epidermal trichome, a sporangium, and fragments of plant tissue, rarely detected in ancient dental calculus. The detection of secondary metabolites in the ancient matrix confirmed the familiarity of this community with plant resources. All these data supply various interesting food for thought and expand the knowledge about the potential of dental calculus in archaeological and archaeobotanic...

This paper was composed as part of a graduate level Evolutionary Theory course at the University of West Florida during the Spring of 2012. In it I examine evidence from  four case studies that identify possible "thrifty" candidate genes that have been associated with diabetic or obese phenotypes in Pacific Islanders, Arizona Pima Indians, the Oji-Cree of Northern Ontario, and Southern Italians.  Human health, nutrition, and ancestral conditions are equally important to the "thrifty" hypothesis. With this paper, I attempt to explain the "thrifty" gene concept within explicit historical contexts to further elucidate it's applicability.

In this contribution, we investigated the role of plants in the prehistoric community of Casale del Dolce (Anagni, FR, central Italy), through microparticles recovered from dental calculus. The finding of a great amount of pollen types, even in form of compact lumps, could indicate use of natural substances, such as honeybee products and/or conifer resins. This plant-microremain record also suggested environmental implications relative to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic period. Additionally, the stability of the tartar microenvironment had preserved starches and other microparticles, such as one epidermal trichome, a sporangium, and fragments of plant tissue, rarely detected in ancient dental calculus. The detection of secondary metabolites in the ancient matrix confirmed the familiarity of this community with plant resources. All these data supply various interesting food for thought and expand the knowledge about the potential of dental calculus in archaeological and archaeobotanical fields with a special focus on palaeoecology. Abbreviations GC-MS Gas chromatography mass spectrometry OM Optic microscopy

This paper discusses the specialized processing of sheep leg bones for marrow retrieval, a food custom with a very restricted geographical and temporal distribution in the medieval Norse Shetland Islands, and medieval and later Iceland and Faroe.

Coprolites have been a source of study for archeologists due to several reasons: they not only provide information on the life and nutritional habits of ancient individuals but also on their health. In this paper, we processed 10 coprolites collected at La Cueva de Los Muertos Chiquitos (600-800 CE), Rio Zape, Mexico, with acetolysis solution for pollen analysis. The number of pollen grains/gram of each coprolite sample was quantified along with the macroscopic remains of these samples. The main food item ingested by the population was maize, followed by Agave. Squash blossoms were also part of their food source determined by the presence of pollen grains. In macroremains, we identified rodent bones, plant seeds, and Agave fibers. The macroscopic analysis of the samples fits with the analysis of smaller remains, giving an idea of the meal represented by each coprolite analyzed. We relate these results to previous microbiome studies of coprolite samples from the same archeological site and provide a discussion on the relevancy of studying macro-and microremains that can be applied to microbiome interpretation analysis.

Pathoecology is the study of the biotic, abiotic, and cultural environments of dis-ease (Martinson et al. 2003). A parasitic infection is the result of the pathoecolog-ical interaction of host behavior, parasite life cycle, the environment in which both life forms live, the nutritional status of the host, and host physiological responses
to all of these factors. Parasites contribute to anemia in many ways. Some, such as
hookworm, actually consume blood and cause iron loss through their activities.
For other parasites, symptoms such as profuse diarrhea reduce intestinal absorption
of nutrients. Others, such as certain fish tapeworms, actually compete for absorption
of nutrients necessary for blood cell production. Often these causes of
anemia are interdependent. Human behavior is one of the keys to understanding
pathoecology (Martinson et al. 2003; Reinhard 1988, 1992a; Reinhard and Buikstra
2003; Reinhard et al. 2003). Thus, for the pathoecologist studying human health,
one goal is to identify the human behaviors related to environmental conditions
that promote or reduce disease. Relevant aspects of behavior include population
density, seasonal movement, excreta disposal patterns, diet, and personal hygiene
(Reinhard 1992b). To examine the complexity of pathoecology among the Ancestral
Pueblo culture of the Colorado Plateau, I compared two Ancestral Pueblo villages:
Salmon Pueblo, New Mexico, (formerly known as Salmon Ruin) and Antelope
House, Arizona (Figure 1). Parasitism and nutritional deficiency are both
causes of anemia. Previous work (Reinhard 1992b) showed that these sites represented
the extremes in anemia. Through this comparison, one begins to understand
the pathoecology of ancient anemia.

The examination of scurvy by paleopathologists has provided increasingly innovative diagnostic methods for identifying and assessing the impact of this metabolic disorder in past populations (e.g. Schultz 2001; Brickley & Ives 2008). Recent work on the macroscopic analysis of scurvy in non-adult skeletal remains suggests that diagnostic criteria for identifying scurvy in immature individuals may be different from those applied to adult remains (Brown & Ortner 2011). Additionally, this same study argued that lesions on the pelvis suggest severe manifestations of the disease. Data are reported for the mummified and/or skeletonized remains of 11 infants from Zape, Mexico. Given the unique context of these interments (burial complete with shrouds, pillows, grave goods and clay architecture), it is likely that these infants were buried in a ritual manner and therefore the sample of infants may not reflect typical patterns of infant health. Although the sample size is small, 5 (45%) of the infants show lesions suggestive of scurvy. The patterning of periosteal lesions is described in detail, with an emphasis on examples from two of the infants who exhibit widespread lesions, both consistent with severe manifestations of the condition. Comparisons to clinical data demonstrate that lesions present on the mandibles, crania, scapulae and pelvic bones of these two individuals are consistent with micro-hemorrhaging near muscle attachment sites (e.g. Larralde et al. 2007). Overall, these data support an emerging interpretation of lesion patterns indicative of infantile scurvy and suggest that disease severity may in fact be reflected in lesion distribution and intensity.

Individuals buried in two 17th-18th Century private chapels, each attached to a Franciscan Friary-one in Italy the other in Denmark-have been studied and sampled for trace element analysis. This selection of individuals allows a comparison of the trace element inventory of members of noble families against friars and townspeople, as well as a comparison between two very similar situations in Denmark and Italy. The relevance of this study is to see if and how differences in social status, and therefore likely differences in dietary habits, are reflected in the trace element chemistry of the bones. Samples of cortical and trabecular tissues have been procured from a long bone, preferentially the femur. The samples have been thoroughly decontaminated. 87 samples from 69 individuals have been analysed for Ca, Mn, Fe, Cu, Sr, Ba, and Pb by ICP-MS and Hg by CV-AAS. Sex and age at death have been established by anthropological analysis for all members of the two noble families. We find sys...

This special issue of the International Journal of Paleopathology honors the legacy of Donald Ortner. Building on Ortner's longtime interest in the identification of specific nutritional deficiencies in archaeologically-derived human remains, the 13 papers in this issue advanced Ortner's goals of fostering biocultural analyses of nutritional quality among a population; across a region and; finally, the development of novel methodologies to more accurately diagnose diseases from overlapping, non-specific patterns of skeletal lesions. These papers summarize the state of scurvy research and forward Ortner's work and aims in promising new directions.

The presentation will deal with changes in coffins shapes and coffin attributes during the post-reformation period in Sweden. A chronological pattern in the development of coffin shapes and coffin attributes was discovered during stratigraphical analysis from an excavation in the North transept of Uppsala Cathedral in 2007. This resulted in an outline for a typology, based on the 18 coffins that were encountered. To widen the somewhat narrow basis of the Domkyrkan typology and to validate its future use on other sites it was necessary to encompass similar material from other churches and churchyards in central Sweden. The typology has since then been tested and modified by using other well-dated and documented archaeological and art historical surveys from churches around central Sweden. Today the typology is based on more than 90 documented coffins and more are continually added. With increasing numbers of coherently registered and well-dated coffins it will be made possible to narrow some of the gaps in dating from the complex settings often encountered in and around churches. Also the study of coffins, alongside other funerary objects and burial practises, gives a fuller understanding of the identity, social aspirations and mind-sets of the time.

This investigation represents the first extensive application of Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry to ancient dental analysis and paleodietary reconstruction. Enamel strontium composition is examined because it is a reliable hard tissue indicator of diet ...