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Life and death on a Barbadian sugar plantation: historic and bioarchaeological views of infection and mortality at Newton Plantation
Author(s) -
Shuler K. A.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
international journal of osteoarchaeology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1099-1212
pISSN - 1047-482X
DOI - 10.1002/oa.1108
Subject(s) - bioarchaeology , diaspora , paleopathology , life expectancy , demography , malnutrition , population , gerontology , poison control , injury prevention , history , medicine , geography , archaeology , environmental health , sociology , pathology , gender studies
Despite the rise in African Diaspora bioarchaeology, poor preservation and sampling bias has impeded Caribbean research. Paleodemography and infectious diseases are assessed here for 46 skeletons exhumed in 1997–98 from a slave cemetery at Newton Plantation (ca. 1660–1820). Life expectancy is closer to historic predictions than in earlier craniodental studies. High rates of periosteal infection were encountered but no evidence of specific skeletal diseases. Absence of sequelae does not support Newton as a healthy population relative to others. Rather, extreme stress, particularly for Newton females, is evidenced by the lowest relative mean age at death of any diaspora skeletal sample, and many mild to moderate lower limb infections in men, women and adolescents attest to injuries on the sugar gangs. Activity stress and abuse, coupled with disease and malnutrition, culminated in high mortality and replacement. This first comprehensive study of health on a Caribbean sugar plantation contributes to a growing biology of the African Diaspora and over three decades of Newton Plantation research. Specifically, it demonstrates the importance of systemic, multidisciplinary and comparative approaches to reconstructing the complex life stresses of slavery. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.