Nonadult vertebral maturation in Late Holocene hunter‐gatherers from Patagonia (Salitroso Lake, Argentina)

MORLESIN, MILENA C.; GUICHÓN FERNÁNDEZ, ROCÍO; GARCÍA GURAIEB, SOLANA

International Journal of Osteoarchaeology

Wiley

Año: 2023 p. 1 - 15

1047-482X

Bioarchaeological research of bone growth patterns provides information on thehealth status and disease of past populations. Recent studies have pointed out thepotential of metric analysis of nonadult vertebrae as indicators of stress during differentstages of ontogeny, highlighting that most vertebral measurements present lowsexual dimorphism, a stable and known pattern of growth and give useful informationeven in incomplete spines. The aims of this paper are first, to construct a vertebralgrowth profile for nonadults of a skeletal series of Patagonian Late Holocene huntergatherersfrom Salitroso Lake (SAC); second, to compare it to the ones obtained inother archaeological and modern populations with different stress experiences; andthird, building on this, to assess whether individuals with evidence of stress experiencedin early development demonstrate different patterns in vertebral growth thanthose without. Two spinal dimensions are used: vertebral body height (VBH) andtransverse diameter of the neural canal (TDNC) in a sample of 23 nonadult skeletonswith ages previously estimated from dental and bone indicators. The vertebral dimensionsof 20 adults between 18 and 35 years of age were also measured as referenceinformation. Results show that the growth of the VBH is steady over the years andreaches adulthood size by approximately 16 years of age whereas TDNC dimensionsdo not experience marked fluctuations in size throughout life and adult dimensionsare reached at approximately 4 years of age as expected. The vertebral growth patternobserved in SAC is similar to that obtained in other archaeological samples fromvery different settings but experiencing relatively high nutritional or pathologicalstress in early stages of life. However, it is markedly different, and systematicallysmaller, to the 20th century sample pattern, probably responding to a secular trendin the modern population with a more stable access to resources and medical treatment.Finally, SAC individuals with systemic stress markers do not tend to exhibitsmaller vertebral dimensions than those without them.