Presence and Absence: An Exploration of Scurvy in the Commingled Subadults in the Spring Street Presbyterian Church Collection, Lower Manhattan

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an examination of scurvy in the commingled subadult remains (minimum number of individuals = 70) of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church. This historic congregation in New York City had active burial vaults from 1820 to 1846. Scurvy is a vitamin C deficiency that results in haemorrhaging at the sites of muscle origin and insertion, particularly around the skull. These resulting lesions can occur in subadults undergoing growth, weaning and dietary stress. Applying diagnoses suggested by recent research, this article examines specific sites on the skull for lesions consistent with and suggestive of scurvy. Findings include 30 elements that display associated pathology. This population data are drawn from maxillae, sphenoids and orbits. Two osteobiographies are also presented. By connecting the biological data to the socio‐cultural environment of the church, this article raises questions of how to interpret the presence and absence of scurvy in a commingled collection. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Infantile scurvy as a consequence of agricultural intensification in the 1st millennium BCE Etruria Campana

“…Social control of food distribution was the main reason of infantile scurvy in Romano-British rural contexts 108 and in the ancient American Southwest 109 . Similarly, dietary restrictions due to a combination of economic constraints and religious prescriptions were crucial contributing factors to the development of scurvy among commingled non-adults from nineteenth century New York 110 . These examples demonstrate how social, economic, and ecological determinants, or a synergy of all three, influence the development of scurvy in the past.…”

The study of commingled non-adult human remains: Insights from the 16th–18th centuries community of Roccapelago (Italy)

“…In the last few years, several studies analyzed non-adult human remains, focusing on mortality profiles, pathologies, growth patterns, weaning traditions (Tocheri et al, 2005;Lewis, 2010;Lewis and Gowland, 2007;Sparks et al, 2013;Burt, 2013;Duren et al, 2013;Geber, 2014;). Few researches investigate commingled non-adult remains (Hoppa and Gruspier, 1996;L'Abbé et al, 2005;Tocheri et al, 2005;Baustian, 2010;Flensborg et al, 2015;Ellis, 2016;Mack et al, 2015;Haddow et al, 2016) highlighting the importance that they have in paleodemographic studies. In fact, adult skeleton is unable to reflect the biocultural changes as fast as juvenile skeleton does, since it encounters a more rapid bone growth and remodeling than the mature bones, leading to a swifter environmental reflection (Ellis, 2016).…”

“…Few researches investigate commingled non-adult remains (Hoppa and Gruspier, 1996;L'Abbé et al, 2005;Tocheri et al, 2005;Baustian, 2010;Flensborg et al, 2015;Ellis, 2016;Mack et al, 2015;Haddow et al, 2016) highlighting the importance that they have in paleodemographic studies. In fact, adult skeleton is unable to reflect the biocultural changes as fast as juvenile skeleton does, since it encounters a more rapid bone growth and remodeling than the mature bones, leading to a swifter environmental reflection (Ellis, 2016).…”

“…Despite the growing attention paid to juvenile remains during archaeological excavations, and the increasing number of in-depth studies (e.g. Bennike et al, 2005;Lewis and Gowland, 2007;Lewis, 2010;Burt, 2013;Duren et al, 2013;Geber, 2014), disarticulated non-adult skeletal remains recovered from mass graves are still rarely examined (Hoppa and Gruspier, 1996;L'Abbé, 2005;Tocheri et al, 2005;Baustian, 2010;Ellis, 2016;Mack et al, 2015;Haddow et al, 2016), ultimately limiting any coeval and non-coeval comparisons.…”

Paleopathology of Commingled Remains: A Case Study from the Prehispanic Highlands of Peru

“…As mentioned above, the majority of the articles found in this literature review were published between 2016 and 2022. These consist of paleopathological case studies of a single anomaly of interest (e.g., Halling and Seidemann 2018;Kieffer 2015;L'Engle Williams and Polet 2017;Palamenghi et al 2020;Schrenk et al 2016;Titelbaum, Ibarra, and McNeil 2019); explorations of a type of pathological condition or lesion within an assemblage or across populations, such as metabolic diseases (e.g., Ellis 2016;Paladin, Wahl, and Zink 2018;Perry and Edwards 2021;Thompson et al 2021) or degenerative joint diseases (e.g., Austin 2017;Yustos et al 2021), bioarchaeological and paleopathological population-level analyses and comparisons (e.g., Abegg et al 2021;Gregoricka 2016;Geber et al 2017;Figus et al 2017;Munoz 2017;Lowman Sharratt, and Turner 2019) or studies developing, testing, and refining methodologies including MNI calculations and taphonomy (e.g., Lambacher et al 2016;Palmiotto, Brown, and LeGarde 2019;Mack et al 2016;Moutafi and Voutsaki 2016;Schmitt and Bizot 2016;Vaduveskovic and Djuvic 2020), bone sorting and match-pairing (e.g., Bertsatos and Choralopoulou 2019;Santos and Villotte 2019), age-at-death or sex estimations (Anzellini and Toyne 2019;Beck and Smith 2019;Brickley, Dragomir, and Lockau 2016), and relational databases (Abegg et al 2021;Laforest 2016;Osterholtz 2019). This data, though far from exhaustive, demonstrates that there was a stark increase in interest in the study of commingled human remains in the last decade, particularly from 2015 and on.…”