Abstract
The fetal remains from the Ostuni 1 burial (Italy, ca 27 ka) represent a unique opportunity to explore the prenatal biological parameters, and to reconstruct the possible patho-biography, of a fetus (and its mother) in an Upper Paleolithic context. Phase-contrast synchrotron X-ray microtomography imaging of two deciduous tooth crowns and microfocus CT measurements of the right hemimandible of the Ostuni 1b fetus were performed at the SYRMEP beamline and at the TomoLab station of the Elettra - Sincrotrone laboratory (Trieste, Italy) in order to refine age at death and to report the enamel developmental history and dental tissue volumes for this fetal individual. The virtual histology allowed to estimate the age at death of the fetus at 31–33 gestational weeks. Three severe physiological stress episodes were also identified in the prenatal enamel. These stress episodes occurred during the last two months and half of pregnancy and may relate to the death of both individuals. Compared with modern prenatal standards, Os1b’s skeletal development was advanced. This cautions against the use of modern skeletal and dental references for archaeological finds and emphasizes the need for more studies on prenatal archaeological skeletal samples.
Highlights
Hominin dental development can offer important insights into hominin evolutionary trajectories[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
The relative chronology of AL 2 differs by only 1 day between the two teeth
The Enamel Extension Rate (EER, i.e. the rate of differentiation of secretory ameloblasts, or the speed at which ameloblasts on the secretory front are recruited along the EDJ32) has been calculated by dividing the lengths of the four segments along the Enamel Dentine Junction (EDJ) by the corresponding number of days
Summary
Hominin dental development can offer important insights into hominin evolutionary trajectories[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. She was 20 years of age or younger and in the advanced stages of pregnancy at time of death[22, 23] Her skeleton was discovered in an excellent state of preservation, and was richly adorned with hundreds of perforated shells around her wrists and covering her head. Access to high resolution synchrotron light microtomography allows for non-destructive histological analysis of the mineralized tissues (virtual histology)[8, 10, 25,26,27] This approach provides direct estimate of the enamel chronologies, allowing for accurate assessment of age at death in individual still growing at the moment of death[1, 4, 28]. This technique of incremental ageing, which relies on individual physiological rhythmicity, has the advantage to overcome the use of skeletal indirect methods, that are necessarily based on reference populations’ growth standards
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