Osseous Frame Index calculations of the early medieval South-West Germany.

ABSTRACT: The proper description of former populations is one of the most difficult tasks in anthropology. Archaeological material is often limited due to fragmented and sometimes poorly preserved bone material resulting in incomplete data. Published skeletal raw data are available from the past, but much of this data is either unavailable or not used for scientific studies. The authors seek to elicit more information about prehistoric times by using this dataset to introduce a new method. The purpose is to provide an approach to reconstruct a former population in respect to robusticity and health status. For this in the pilot study the Body Mass Index (BMI) and Frame Index (FI) of early medieval South-West Germany have been analysed. The FI, in contrast to the BMI, has not yet been used for robusticity analysis utilizing only skeletal remains. As far as we know, this is the first time that the FI has been calculated using archaeological material. Due to unknown soft-tissue thickness we introduce the Osseous Frame Index (OFI). The measured OFI reveals new insights in (pre-)historic populations and allows comparisons with modern reference samples. Our OFI calculations are relatively similar to modern calculations. Males have a higher robusticity than females, slightly increasing during life-time compared to females. These calculations provide a better historical understanding of human body composition.

Secondary hypertrophic osteoarthropathy in a male from the Early Medieval settlement of Lauchheim, Germany.

Hypertrophic osteoarthropathy (HOA) is rarely diagnosed in archaeological human skeletons. Here, we report on the well-preserved skeleton of a middle-adult man from the early Medieval settlement site of Lauchheim (Germany) that exhibits pronounced multi-layered shell-like periosteal new bone formation in a bilaterally symmetric fashion on the long bones, the skeletal elements of the pelvis and those of the pectoral girdle. In addition, the two distal phalanges recovered show signs of osteoclastic resorption on their distal tuberosities. The distribution and morphology of the observed lesions are consistent with a diagnosis of HOA. The adult age at death of the individual and the co-occurrence of "healed" and "active" lesions suggest a secondary form of HOA. Given that only skeletal remains were available for study, the underlying (pulmonary or non-pulmonary) primary disease cannot be definitively ascertained in the present case. No osseous changes were found on the ribs, but signs of osteoclastic resorption were observed on the dorsal surface of the sternal body, which might indicate a retrosternal or mediastinal location of the primary disease. Thus far, only a few archaeological case studies of secondary HOA reported signs of the presumed underlying primary disease, which was of a pulmonary nature in each of the individuals.