Investigating childhood health in the Central Zagros Mountains during the Chalcolithic: a visual assessment of subadult human remains from Seh Gabi

Abstract

This thesis explores the relationship between subsistence strategies in a marginal environment and how it can impact human health. It includes a comparison of all the types of metabolic bone disease (MBD) and their associated lesions and how this informs different possible diagnoses. The residents of the Chalcolithic site of Seh Gabi, Iran (about 6850 to 5100 cal BP) lived in a marginal environment which, when coupled with the intensification of agricultural practices and the use of animal husbandry, could have left the population susceptible to the type of stressors associated with both vitamin C (VCD) and D deficiencies (VDD). This thesis was designed to determine whether the subadult population at Seh Gabi, represented by 32 individuals, experienced VCD and VDD throughout its period of occupancy. The radiographs and excavated skeletal remains of these individuals were macroscopically assessed for any morphology beyond the range of normal. Probable and possible diagnoses of VCD and VDD were made based on the number of diagnostic and suggestive lesions that individuals demonstrated. Probable VCD was evident in 10.7% of the subadult population; all these probable scurvy cases occurred in individuals less than six months old. While there were no probable cases of VDD, two individuals had a possible comorbid case of rickets and scurvy but there was insufficient skeletal evidence to make a probable diagnosis. Extrapolations of maternal health were made based on these subadult health findings given that those under the age of six months were still likely being breastfed. The environmental context and subsistence strategy used by this population, along with these diagnoses, suggest that vitamin C deficiency was likely experienced by this population.