New York African Burial Ground Skeletal Biology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 10. Osteological Indicators of Infectious Disease and Nutritional Inadequacy

The present chapter investigates the prevalence of infectious diseases and nutritional inadequacies in the New York African Burial Ground (NYABG) sample, as represented in bone. A broad range of skeletal indicators of pathology was assessed in the Cobb Laboratory. Diagnoses of specific diseases represented by skeletal indicators were usually attempted, as per the long-standing standards of paleopathologists. Data were also gathered in accord with the more strictly descriptive criteria of the new Standards for Data Collection from Human Skeletal Remains (Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994). Indeed, the pathology coding section of the Standards is clearly the most novel and complex feature of the guide, and we think it constitutes a significant forward step in paleopathologic methodology. Yet, as one of the first projects to utilize and test the Standards in their entirety, we found the strict pathology coding approach to be somewhat cumbersome and time consuming. To mitigate this problem, we developed pathology codes for computerization that saved time and effort without the loss of useful information. Therefore, the skeletal pathology and non-metric trait computer database developed at the New York African Burial Ground Project (NYABGP) is a simplified version of the pathology portion of the Standards (Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994:107-158).本章针对纽约非洲人公墓（New York African Burial Ground, NYABG）样本中骨骼所反映的传染病与营养不足症流行情况展开研究。本研究在科布实验室（Cobb Laboratory）中对一系列骨骼病理指标进行了评估。按照古病理学界长期沿用的标准，通常会依托骨骼病理指标对特定疾病作出诊断。同时，本研究还严格遵循《人类骨骼遗骸数据采集新标准》（Buikstra与Ubelaker，1994）中更严谨的描述性标准收集数据。诚然，该标准中的病理编码模块无疑是指南中最具创新性与复杂性的内容，我们认为其为古病理研究方法带来了重要的进阶进展。然而，作为首批全面应用并测试该标准的研究项目之一，我们发现严格执行病理编码流程略显繁琐且耗时。为缓解这一问题，我们开发了可计算机化的病理编码体系，在不丢失有效信息的前提下大幅节省了时间与人力投入。因此，纽约非洲人公墓项目（New York African Burial Ground Project, NYABGP）所构建的骨骼病理与非测量性状计算机数据库，是对《人类骨骼遗骸数据采集新标准》（Buikstra与Ubelaker，1994：107-158）中病理部分的简化版本。