Abstract
The Ray site (1 2W6), in southern Indiana, contains several secondary burials, two of which havebeen dated to the Mississippian period (A.D. 1050-A.D. 1450). Three burial styles were noted: (1) burials linedwith stone slabs and containing Mississippian pottery, (2) burials lined with stone slabs without Mississippianpottery, and (3) burials not lined with stone slabs and without Mississippian pottery. The purpose of this studywas to determine the biological homogeneity of this poorly preserved skeletal assemblage via an analysis of dentalpathological conditions, the frequency and expression of which are known to associate with distinct dietary and/orsettlement patterns. Conditions studied include the frequency of hypoplastic defects and carious lesions, the typeof hypoplastic defects, the earliest age of onset of hypoplastic defects, and the location of carious lesions. A totalof 437 teeth were scored for hypoplastic defects and 433 were scored for carious lesions. No significant differencein dental pathologies was found between burial styles. Therefore, despite considerable burial heterogeneity,dental pathological conditions suggest that individuals from all burials consumed an equally cariogenic diet andunderwent similar childhood stresses. It is most likely that all burials are from the same temporal and social groupand that the different burial styles represent different stages in the processing of the remains of individuals from ahigh social status Mississippian mortuary.
Highlights
The Ray site (1 2W6), in southern Indiana, contains several secondary burials, two of which have been dated to the Mississippian period (A.D. 1050-A.D. 1450)
A goodness-of-fit test suggests that there are no significant difference in frequency of affected posterior teeth between the burial styles (Table 3)
Burial style 2 has a greater proportion of anterior teeth with at least one hypoplastic defect than the other burial styles
Summary
The Ray site (1 2W6), in southern Indiana, contains several secondary burials, two of which have been dated to the Mississippian period (A.D. 1050-A.D. 1450). Many researchers have determined that the expression of certain dental pathological conditions is not randomly distributed through time among prehistoric humans from the American Midwest (e.g., Goodman et al, 1984b; Sciulli and Schneider, 1986; Larsen et al, 1991; Schmidt, 1998; Schmidt and Williamson, 1998). Rather, these conditions tend to correlate with a population’s diet, density, and degree of sedentism. Alterations that accompanied agriculture may have been highly localized (Larsen, 1995)
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