This study highlights the potential for recognizing physeal fractures in children of all ages, enhancing our understanding of nonadult trauma, and enabling us to assign a more precise age of the injury to build up a picture of their activities in the past.
Between 2014 and 2016 an early medieval cemetery dating to between the eighth and eleventh centuries AD was excavated at Whitesands Bay, Pembrokeshire, Wales. The excavation beneath St Patrick's Chapel revealed a cemetery population of adult males, females and a large proportion of non-adults below 18 years of age.Osteological analysis revealed a case of vitamin D deficiency rickets in a 2-3 year old child, which was further confirmed through the histological analysis of the first permanent molar tooth. This paper presents the results of the osteological, radiographic and histological analyses, which support the diagnosis of vitamin D deficiency.The research demonstrates the valuable contribution a multimethodological approach can make to the investigation of non-adult health,
2particularly when factors such as taphonomic damage hamper the macroscopic study of the skeleton. The evidence collated here allows further exploration of the possible circumstances which led to this condition, and makes a valuable contribution to an otherwise small number of cases of rickets from early medieval Britain.
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