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SUMMARY:Tibial rigidity through prolonged culture change: Adaptation acros
 s ~6150 years of agriculture in Central Europe - Alison Macintosh\, Divisi
 on of Biological Anthropology\, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology
 \, University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20140306T131000Z
DTEND:20140306T140000Z
UID:TALK49328@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Aleksandr Sahakyan
DESCRIPTION:As humans transitioned from hunting/gathering to farming\, the
  associated changes in mobility altered the bending and twisting forces ex
 erted on the lower limb bones. The tibia\, or shinbone\, adapts to these b
 ending and twisting (torsional) forces during life by adding bone tissue w
 here loads are highest and removing it where not necessary. Loading in the
  past can thus be reconstructed by quantifying these cross-sectional chang
 es in bone distribution\; across the shift to agriculture\, mobility typic
 ally declines\, particularly in men. After the shift to agriculture\, inte
 nsive farming\, the expansion of metallurgy and trade/exchange should cont
 inue to drive adaptation in tibial biomechanics. However\, the effects of 
 prolonged culture change on lower limb biomechanics in a single region hav
 e not been well characterized from a long-term temporal perspective\, part
 icularly in Central Europe\, despite its rich agricultural history and arc
 haeological assemblage. This study examines change in lower limb loading i
 n Central Europe across ~6150 years from the initial spread of agriculture
  in the region (5300 BC to 850 AD). Bending/torsional rigidity along the l
 ength of the bone shaft was quantified from three-dimensional laser scans 
 of 170 adult tibiae across four main time periods (Neolithic\, Bronze Age\
 , Iron Age\, and Medieval). Results document high sexual division of labor
  in the earliest farming populations\, with men performing the majority of
  tasks requiring long-distance terrestrial mobility and women doing a grea
 ter variety of tasks or fewer that required long-distance walking/running.
  Progressive temporal declines in male mobility despite the expansion of t
 rade networks demonstrate the profound impact of mechanization and task sp
 ecialization on lower limb bone biomechanics following the shift to agricu
 lture. 
LOCATION:1 Newnham Terrace\, Darwin College
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