Milella Marco, Cardoso Francisca Alves, Assis Sandra, Lopreno Geneviève Perréard, Speith Nivien
Anthropological Institute and Museum, University Zürich-Irchel, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2015 Feb;156(2):215-23. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22640. Epub 2014 Oct 20.
Analyses of entheseal changes (EC) in identified skeletal samples employ a common research strategy based on the comparison between occupations grouped on the basis of shared biomechanical and/or social characteristics. Results from this approach are often ambiguous, with some studies that point to differences in EC between occupational samples and others failing to provide evidence of behavioral effects on EC. Here we investigate patterns of EC among documented occupations by means of a multivariate analysis of robusticity scores in nine postcranial entheses from a large (N = 372) contemporary skeletal sample including specimens from one Italian and two Portuguese identified collections. Data on entheseal robusticity, analyzed by pooled sides as well by separated sides and levels of asymmetry, are converted in binary scores and then analyzed through nonlinear principal component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis. Results of these analyses are then used for the classification of occupations. Differences between occupational classes are tested by MANOVA and pairwise Hotelling's test. Results evidence three classes which separate occupations related to farming, physically demanding but generalized occupation, and physically undemanding occupations, with the more consistent differences between the first and the last classes. Our results are consistent with differences in biomechanical behavior between the occupations included in each class, and point to the physical and social specificity of farming activities. On the other hand, our study exemplifies the usefulness of alternative analytical protocols for the investigation of EC, and the value of research designs devoid of a priori assumptions for the test of biocultural hypotheses.
对已鉴定骨骼样本中附着点变化（EC）的分析采用了一种常见的研究策略，该策略基于对根据共同生物力学和/或社会特征分组的职业进行比较。这种方法的结果往往不明确，一些研究指出职业样本之间的EC存在差异，而另一些研究则未能提供行为对EC有影响的证据。在这里，我们通过对来自一个大型（N = 372）当代骨骼样本（包括来自一个意大利和两个葡萄牙已鉴定收藏的标本）的九个颅后附着点的强壮性得分进行多变量分析，来研究已记录职业中的EC模式。通过合并两侧以及分别分析两侧和不对称水平来分析附着点强壮性的数据，将其转换为二元得分，然后通过非线性主成分分析和层次聚类分析进行分析。然后将这些分析结果用于职业分类。通过多变量方差分析（MANOVA）和成对霍特林检验来检验职业类别之间的差异。结果表明有三类职业，分别是与农业相关的职业、体力要求高但较为普遍的职业以及体力要求低的职业，其中第一类和最后一类之间的差异最为一致。我们的结果与每类职业中生物力学行为的差异相一致，并指出了农业活动的身体和社会特殊性。另一方面，我们的研究例证了用于研究EC的替代分析方案的有用性，以及缺乏先验假设的研究设计对生物文化假设检验的价值。
