Osteoarthritis in the elbow and knee from a modern documented cemetery collection in Cyprus: Using "new" bones to understand "old" ones

Summary

Osteoarthritis is one of the more ubiquitous and abundant forms of pathology seen on ancient material. Osteoarthritis (OA) has a complex etiology with variable clinical characteristics. Documenting it is important because it may shed light on aspects of lifestyle (e.g. occupational), and social and cultural habits. Osteopathology studies conducted on modern, documented skeletal collections can add an important dimension. The aim of this paper is to present patterns of OA in the elbow and knee associated with both primary and secondary causal factors related to the development of the condition in a modern skeletal collection. Additionally, this paper discusses how different factors may contribute in the development of OA, and how these should be considered by the bioarchaeologists when interpreting OA in ancient populations. The objective of this paper is to showcase that advanced age is not necessarily the only causal factor, nor is it the only reason for the presence of OA.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords