Linear enamel hypoplasia in Schroeder Mounds (11HE177): A Late Woodland period site in Illinois

Abstract

Adults and subadults recovered from the Late Woodland period (∼A.D. 800–1100) Schroeder Mounds site (11HE177) from west-central Illinois who preserve permanent incisors and/or canines (N=46) were examined for the presence of macroscopically visible linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) by case, by tooth type, number of hypoplastic defects by tooth type, and estimated developmental age of occurrence. The raw case frequency of LEH (16/46) is 34.8 percent. The Schroeder Mounds subadults (N=15) have a higher case frequency (i.e., 60 percent versus 22.6 percent), number of stress episodes per tooth, and a longer developmental age range of hypoplastic defects than the adults. With no subsistence or settlement context, the Schroeder Mounds sample was compared to published (solely) adult LEH data from eight western Illinois sites segregable as either Middle (∼50 B.C.–A.D. 400) and Late Woodland period semi-sedentary forager-horticulturalists or Mississippian period (∼A.D. 1150–1250) sedentary (i.e., large aggregated village) maize-intensive agriculturalists. The adult Schroeder Mounds LEH patterns align with the Woodland samples with minor differences inclining the Schroeder sample toward a forager-farmer subsistence/settlement strategy. The Schroeder Mounds subadult patterns and prevalence may reflect factors that contributed toward their early death. Whether these factors can be framed by the subsistence/settlement system will require comparative data.