Robert R. Paine

Dietary Health Does Affect Histological Age Assessment: An Evaluation of the Stout and Paine (1992) Age Estimation Equation Using Secondary Osteons from the Rib*

ABSTRACT: An age at death estimation equation that uses rib histological variables presented by Stout and Paine was used to evaluate a skeletal population of individuals with a known age at death and cause of death from either malnutrition or the niacin deficiency disease pellagra. The sample was comprised of 26 autopsied black South Africans. Histological analysis of mounted thin sections involved the microscopic measurement of cortical area and a count of the number of intact and fragmentary secondary osteons for the entire cross‐section of the rib. Rib osteon population density values were then calculated for each case. It was found that this equation under‐aged individuals on average by 29.2 years. Overall, secondary osteon size and Haversian canals tended to be larger than expected, while cortical bone area was less when compared with a control population. The implications of these findings are critical given that many of the skeletal remains examined by forensic anthropologists come from marginalized backgrounds, including malnutrition. This research suggests that measurements based on healthy cases may not be useful in an analysis of individuals with poor diet and health. It is argued that new standards for histological age assessment methods need to be created that account for variation in the health status of individuals examined by forensic anthropologists.

Forensic Anthropology in Europe: an assessment of current status and application

Forensic anthropology is the discipline that traditionally deals with the examination of human remains for legal purposes and it derives from the fields of anatomy, physical anthropology and forensic medicine. For more than a century, forensic anthropologists in the United States have been offering their services in the court of law complementing the medico-legal investigation of other forensic professionals. The current status in European countries is presented here. The development of forensic anthropology varies significantly among the countries of Europe. Whereas some countries show a long history of research activity in the forensic sciences, including forensic anthropology (i.e. France, Germany and Spain), others are exhibiting a recent, rapid development (i.e. United Kingdom). In some cases, forensic anthropologists are employed within the academic realm (i.e. U.K., Denmark, Portugal, Turkey), forensic institutions (Netherlands) or government organizations (Spain, Hungary), although the vast majority of them remain limited to freelance activities on a sporadic basis. Often, European scientists that deal with skeletal remains come from nonphysical anthropology disciplines such as archaeology, forensic medicine and biology. In many cases they do not have adequate training equivalent to the forensic anthropologists in the USA. Naturally, without common training and a common legal system, an accreditation system for Europe will be difficult to implement.

Reevaluating the Health and Nutritional Status of Maize-Dependent Populations: Evidence for the Impact of Pellagra on Human Skeletons from South Africa

Pellagra, a niacin/tryptophan deficiency disease, is prevalent in populations that have high maize/low protein diets. Historically it has been essentially a disease of undernutrition and social inequality. We offer a unique analysis of both macro- and microstructural skeletal indicators from 31 individuals known to have died from pellagra (n = 14) and non-specific general malnutrition (n = 17). These cases are part of the Raymond Dart Skeletal Collection, housed at the University of Witwatersrand Medical School, Johannesburg, South Africa. This sample was drawn from a mid-to-late 20th century Black South African population. These individuals were found to exhibit a high incidence of alveolar bone loss, dental caries, enamel hypoplasias, periostitic lesions, osteomyelitis, cribra orbitalia, and cranial pitting. The frequency of specific pathological indicators separated the pellagrins from those with non-specific general malnutrition; however, the indicators were not pellagra-specific. We strongly argue that pellagra does affect bone in a noticeable way at both the macro- and micro-level, and therefore as a diet-related disease cannot be excluded as a possible cause for lesions seen in maize-dependent populations. We have also reported on the histological findings for rib samples taken from a subset of pellagra (n = 10) and general malnutrition (n = 14) cases. The critical difference between pellagrins and non-specific malnutrition cases was a decreased cortical area for pellagrins. Given its implications for interpreting the paleonutrition and paleopathology of prehistoric and historical transitions to maize intensive diets we present a checklist of macro- and micro-level indicators for investigating a signature pattern for the skeletal biology of pellagra. The overall synthesis of our findings provides new insights into skeletal-based interpretations of nutrition and micronutrient-related health problems for populations undergoing dietary transitions both past and present.