Premium
Investigating health at Kerma: Sacrificial versus nonsacrificial individuals
Author(s) -
Buzon Michele R.,
Judd Margaret A.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
american journal of physical anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1096-8644
pISSN - 0002-9483
DOI - 10.1002/ajpa.20781
Subject(s) - kerma , bioarchaeology , demography , paleopathology , geography , medicine , archaeology , nuclear medicine , sociology , dosimetry
This analysis examines heterogeneity in risks by assessing the health status of individuals in two distinct burial contexts from the Nubian site of Kerma: sacrificial ( n = 100) and nonsacrificial ( n = 190) burial areas dated to the classic Kerma period (∼1750–1500 BC). Indicators of physiological stress that were examined include cribra orbitalia, dental enamel hypoplasia, tibial osteoperiostitis, and femur length. The analysis presented here shows that the people interred in the sacrificial and nonsacrificial burial contexts at Kerma in Upper Nubia had similar health profiles that were comparable with other contemporaneous samples from the region. If sacrificial individuals did not experience the same risk of death as nonsacrificial individuals, it was not evident in the frequencies of nonspecific stress indicators. However, this differential risk of death may be blurred by our inability to examine nonadults for childhood disease. This research demonstrates the complexities involved in understanding the multiple factors that result in heterogeneity in skeletal samples. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.