Cultural Factors of Metabolic Disease in Infants and Young Children from Late Ottoman-Era Jordan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The site of Tell Hisban in Jordan was seasonally occupied by nomadic agropastoral tribes for over a thousand years. In the latter half of the 1800s, the Ottoman Empire instituted the Tanzimat, a series of reforms intended to solidify control over the region, including a new system of private land ownership. This new land law conflicted with traditional tribal-based land rights and resulted in intensification of agricultural production and diminished pastoralism in the regional economy. During this period of economic change, at least 62 individuals were interred in ruins on Tell Hisban, of which 55% were non-adults. Many long bones and cranial elements of non-adults within these commingled remains display evidence of vitamin C (scurvy) and D (rickets) deficiencies at a greater frequency than pre-Tanzimat or earlier regional cemeteries. Increased sedentism at Hisban resulting in a shift in child-care practices could have resulted in the surprising presence of rickets in this high-ambient UV radiation environment. Additionally, increased agricultural production may have impacted seasonal availability of traditional foods high in ascorbic acid that prevented scurvy in past groups. Together, these biocultural changes contributed to increased frailty in the form of metabolic disease for infants and young children within this population.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25710