Abstract

SALEGA, Soledad; HENDERSON, Charlotte  and  SILVA, Ana Maria. Entheseal changes in Portugal: a diachronic study applying the new Coimbra Method . Rev. Mus. Antropol. [online]. 2017, vol.10, n.2, pp.137-144. ISSN 1852-060X.

Abstract The aim of this work is to study the changes in entheseal change frequency through time in Portugal in order to evaluate the effect of increased urbanisation and the specificity of labour tasks, by applying a biologically appropriate recording method, the new Coimbra method (Henderson et al. 2016a). The analyzed sample included 138 adult individuals from eight archaeological sites from Portugal, dating from medieval and modern times. Prevalences and odds ratios were calculated, and a Fisher exact test was performed for the entheseal changes that were recorded in eleven entheses from upper and lower limbs. Results suggest that activity is one explanatory factor for the entheseal changes, but others should we considered, since different age and sex profiles also contribute to the different trends. Moreover, different sample sizes in each subgroup also contribute to high frequencies of some changes. However, this approach is vital to understand temporal trends in entheseal changes.

Keywords : Entheses; Activity; New Coimbra method; Temporal trends; Portugal.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )