PALEOPHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF BONE REMODELING IN THE MEROITIC, X-GROUP AND CHRISTIAN POPULATIONS FROM SUDANESE NUBIA

• Main Author: MARTIN, DEBRA L
• Language: ENG
• Published: ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst 1983
• Subjects: Physical anthropology
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8401083

Bone remodeling activity was assessed on a large and homogeneous skeletal population. The association of remodeling and bone maintenance with age, sex, and gross pathologies was examined. Microstructural analysis of the femur was used to evaluate health for 234 skeletal individuals spanning three cultural horizons from Sudanese Nubia (350 B.C.-A.D. 1300). Frost's Triple Surface System was used to systematically collect data from the endosteal, middle, and periosteal envelope of the cortical cross sections. Measurements of bone quantity (rate of skeletal turnover) and bone quality (frequency of growth arresting and recovery, size of osteons) were used. Females have a more rapid rate of skeletal turnover than males for all age categories by decades. Younger females (18-29) remodel bone at a greater rate than elderly females (50+). Both young and old females have a low percent cortical area (less than 69%), and exhibit more porosity. Two different mechanisms are operating which contribute to the bone loss in two subgroups at risk. Young adult females have a decrease in formation and mineralization, but do not show an increase in resorption. Elderly females lose bone primarily at the endosteal envelope due to an increase in resorption, and are able to maintain the integrity of the cortex. Both males and females have the least variability in microstructural features (intact osteons, forming osteons, resorption spaces, fragments) at the periosteal envelope. Sites of active mineral regulation and homeostasis (double zone osteons, high density inner lamellae osteons, and Type II osteons) are found most frequently at the middle and endosteal envelopes. Individuals with well maintained bone (percent cortical areas above 70%) have higher frequencies of hypermineralized double zone osteons and osteons with high density inner lamellae. Individuals with decreased cortical area do not have the ability to regulate mineral exchange, and are at risk for poorly mineralized bone and bone loss. In the Nubian population, young adult females are at risk due to nutritional stress and reproductive stress, and evidence for this has come from the microstructural analysis combined with the archaeological reconstruction of diet and modern epidemiological studies.