A Recording Method for Sixteen Nonadult Muscle Entheses

Bioarchaeology lacks a system for recording the morphology of muscle and ligament attachment sites, called entheses, in growing individuals. Such information is useful in investigating factors that affect bone growth and development, including sex, age, puberty, pathology, and activity. This paper presents a standardized recording method for nonadult entheses based on 29 archaeological individuals of archivally known sex and age-at-death, ranging from two to 17 years. This paper (a) assesses the range of osseous changes of 16 entheses in the upper and lower limbs of growing individuals, and (b) presents a scoring method for each enthesis, which is evaluated through inter-and intra-observer comparisons. Nonadult entheses show a wide range of morphological variation. Method reproducibility is established. This method will allow researchers to further investigate factors affecting bone development in nonadult skeletal remains.

生物考古学领域目前尚未建立针对成长个体肌腱与韧带附着点（entheses）形态特征的标准化记录系统。此类信息可为探究影响骨骼生长发育的诸多因素提供支撑，相关影响因素涵盖性别、年龄、青春期状态、病理状况及活动模式等。本文以29例档案记录明确性别与死亡年龄（年龄跨度为2至17岁）的考古未成熟个体为样本，提出一套适用于未成熟个体附着点的标准化记录方法。本文（a）评估了成长个体上下肢共16处肌腱韧带附着点的骨组织变化范围；（b）构建了针对每一处附着点的评分体系，并通过观察者间与观察者内一致性检验对该体系进行了验证。未成熟个体的附着点呈现出广泛的形态学变异。本方法的重现性已得到证实。该方法将助力研究人员进一步探究未成熟骨骼遗骸中影响骨骼发育的各类因素。