skeletal health changes and increasing sedentism at early bronze age bab edh-dhra', jordan

524 Pages·2010·4.2 MB·English

Skeletal Health Changes and Increasing Sedentism at Early Bronze Age
Bab edh-Dhra’, Jordan

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy
in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Jaime Marie Ullinger, B.A., M.A.

Graduate Program in Anthropology

The Ohio State University

2010

Dissertation Committee:

Professor Clark Spencer Larsen, Advisor

Professor Debra Guatelli-Steinberg

Professor Paul Sciulli

Professor Susan G. Sheridan

Professor Samuel Stout
Copyright by

Jaime Marie Ullinger

2010
Abstract

The Early Bronze Age in the southern Levant was characterized by a profound
shift in lifeways, and is often identified as a period of “urbanization.” This research
identifies human skeletal changes as the result of cultural innovation and developments in
this time period. This project is unique in its inclusion of skeletal material from one of
only two sites with burials from the height of the Early Bronze Age. Three hypotheses
are tested relating to increasing sedentism and agricultural intensification during this
period at the site of Bab edh-Dhra’ in Jordan . First, I test the hypothesis that these
changes resulted in increased dental pathology. Second, a change in daily activity
patterns is predicted. I also test the hypothesis that the later Early Bronze II-III
inhabitants were not new immigrants to the area. The Early Bronze Age in this study is
represented by Early Bronze IA (3150-2950 BC) shaft tombs and by the people buried in
Charnel House A22 from the Early Bronze II-III (2800-2300 BC) town site of Bab edh-
Dhra’.
Dental health indicators, including caries, calculus, antemortem tooth loss, and
dental wear, suggested a decrease in abrasive foods and increase in carbohydrate
consumption from EBIA to EBII-III. This was most likely related to greater reliance on
agricultural foodstuffs and intensified fruit production and consumption. There was no
change in the prevalence of dental caries, and it is most likely that the EBIA peoples were
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engaging in at least small-scale agriculture. In general, both groups were probably
cultivating plants, herding animals, making secondary products, and collecting wild
foodstuffs.
Overall, degenerative joint disease either stayed the same or declined from EBIA
to EBII-III. There was no real difference in the knee, but some decline in osteoarthritis in
the elbow. This may indicate that although there was no archaeological evidence of a
settlement in EBIA, that people were practicing agriculture and engaging in similar
activities to those in EBII-III. Articular modifications in the hip did not change from one
time period to the next. Joint alterations in the ankle and toes, however, suggest some
kind of additional stress in the lower right limb in EBIA that is not seen in EBII-III.
Finally, there was no evidence that the EBII-III inhabitants were not the
descendents of the earlier EBIA people. Cranial non-metric trait frequencies suggested
that the EBIA group may have been more heterogeneous, but they also represented
numerous family tombs, as opposed to the one large charnel house from EBII-III.
In conclusion, there was evidence of diet change between EBIA and EBII-III at
Bab edh-Dhra’, indicative of increased reliance on grains and fruit. There was also
evidence of a change in daily activity patterns in the lower limb. There was not enough
evidence to suggest that the people in EBII-III were new migrants into the region.
Therefore, the changes seen reflect changes in lifestyle and behavior, most likely as the
result of intensified agriculture and increasing “urbanization” from EBIA to EBII-III in
the southern Levant.
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For my Family –

My Parents, Rick & Gail

My Grandparents, Ed & Clara and Ed & Lois

My Sisters, Elizabeth & Stephanie,

& My Husband, Issa.
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Acknowledgements

I am truly grateful for those people and institutions that have helped me to be
successful in this endeavor. First, I would like to thank the Smithsonian Institution,
Sigma Xi, and Ohio State University for supporting this project financially. The
Smithsonian Institution offered me an eight-month Graduate Fellowship to complete my
work on the EBIA material. Sigma Xi provided a Grants-in-Aid of Research early on in
the project. And finally, OSU supported me with a Distinguished University Fellowship
for two years.
I have an extreme fondness and sense of gratitude for my time at the National
Museum of Natural History, mostly due to the opportunity to learn from Dr. Don Ortner.
He showed amazing patience and grace for my onslaught of inquiries written upon post-it
notes and saved for lengthy question-and-answer sessions. I would also like to thank
Evan Garofalo for showing me the Bab edh-Dhra’ “ropes,” Dave Hunt for tracking down
collections-related answers to numerous questions, and Bruno Frohlich for discussions
about excavating at Bab edh-Dhra’, and very importantly, for making coffee.
At the University of Notre Dame Laboratory of Biocultural Anthropology,
numerous “Tomb Team” undergraduates deserve my gratitude and awe for labeling tens
(if not hundreds) of thousands of bone fragments. Sue Sheridan, a member of my
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committee, deserves many extra thanks for about a million reasons. She introduced me to
working on ancient skeletons, and to making the most of being an anthropologist. She
has always offered amazing advice, and I wish that every graduate student had a “Sue”
that they could turn to for the big questions, and the little ones, too. Her guidance has
been invaluable. This project would have been impossible (literally) without the support
she offered, and without the amazing undergraduates in her lab working tirelessly on
curating the EBII-III Bab edh-Dhra’ skeletons. Finally, she offered the final
breakthrough that helped me finish this document, and provided many hours of table
formatting.
I would like to thank my committee, whose patience and guidance (and some
more patience) has been with me from my first day at OSU. My advisor, Dr. Clark
Larsen has given me amazing support and guidance. I feel that I am truly being prepared
to enter the field of anthropology, as a researcher, a teacher, a colleague, and a
professional. His support and encouragement has been unwavering, and I appreciate that
more than he can know. Dr. Joy McCorriston taught my favorite classes at Ohio State,
and has challenged me in wonderful ways. Drs. Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg, Paul Sciulli,
and Sam Stout have all patiently answered my questions and have urged me to think
about things in new ways. Dr. Sciulli deserves a special thank you for silly jokes and
SAS codes.
I thank Drs. Megan Perry and Jerry Rose for offering assistance in locating Near
Eastern bioarchaeology references. Drs. Brenda Baker and Chris Schmidt have offered
time, knowledge, and conversation that has enhanced this project. My fellow graduate
students at Ohio State also offered discussion and life-saving moral support, particularly
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Robin Feeney, Tracy Betsinger, Lesley Gregoricka, Amy Hubbard, Haagen Klaus, and
Jules Angel. Finally, my family has supported me from the very beginning, and no one
wants to see this completed more than they do. My husband deserves a special thank you
for taking care of our lives during what he called the “hard times” of dissertation writing.
His patience and easy-going attitude are amazing qualities. My parents and grandparents
are wonderful people who instilled within me a love of learning and curiosity about the
world. They truly made all of this possible.
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Vita

1999...........................................................B.A., cum laude, University of Notre Dame

2002...........................................................M.A., Arizona State University

1999-2002 .................................................Teaching Assistant, Arizona State University

2000-2003 .................................................Student Assistant Research Specialist in
Physical Anthropology, Arizona State
University

2003-present..............................................Graduate Teaching Associate/Lecturer, Ohio
State University

2002-2005 .................................................Teaching Assistant, NSF-REU in Biocultural
Anthropology, University of Notre Dame

2006-present..............................................Co-director, NSF-REU in Biocultural
Anthropology, University of Notre Dame

Publications

1. Sheridan SG, Ullinger J. 2006. A reconsideration of the French Qumran collection. In:
Galor K, Zangengberg J, editors. Qumran - the site of the Dead Sea Scrolls:
archaeological interpretations and debate. Leiden: Brill. p.135-148.

2. Ullinger J, Sheridan SG, Hawkey DE, Turner CG, Cooley RE. 2005. A
bioarchaeological analysis of cultural transition in the southern Levant using dental
non-metric traits. Am J Phys Anthropol 128:466-476.

3. Ullinger J. 2002. Early Christian pilgrimage to a Byzantine monastery in Jerusalem: a
dental perspective. Dent Anthropol 16:22-25.

4. Sheridan SG, Ullinger J, Ramp J. 2002. Anthropological analysis of human remains
from Khirbet Qumran. In: Humbert J-B, Gunneweg J, editors. The archaeology of
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Qumran, vol. II. Fribourg: Presses Universitaires de Fribourg, Suisse and the École
Biblique et Archéologique Française. p. 133-173.

Fields of Study

Major Field: Anthropology
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