New York African Burial Ground Skeletal Biology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 11. Skeletal Indicators of Work: Musculoskeletal, Arthritic and Traumatic Effects

The types of bony changes studied in association with mechanical stress
include: osteoarthritis, pressure facets, cortical thickness, fracture, and hypertrophy of tendinous and ligamentous attachment sites. While age is one component in the development of many of these markers, we believe that they mainly reflect the cumulative effects of mechanical stress rather than senile degeneration alone. This influence is supported by extensive experimental evidence of bone remodeling with increased osteogenesis and decreased bone resorption in response to mechanical loading (see reviews in Boyde 2003, Knüsel 2000, Wilczak and Kennedy 1998). The empirical evidence of Wolff’s 1892 theory of bone transformation provides the research rationale for studies of activity-induced bone hypertrophy (Derevenski 2000; Hawkey and Merbs 1995, Weiss 2003, Wilczak 1998). In the case of osteoarthritis, which involves both cartilage and bone, current studies of repetitive loading on isolated cartilage tissue and individual chondrocytes indicate that biomechanical factors do contribute to degenerate joint disease onset, although the precise nature of the relationship has yet to be defined (Shieh and Athanasiou 2002).