Masters Theses
Date of Award
8-1994
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Major
Anthropology
Major Professor
Richard L. Jantz
Committee Members
William M. Bass, Susan R. Frankenberg
Abstract
In 1989 human skeletal remains were excavated from three basement rooms of the Cluskey Building, the main medical building of the Medical College of Georgia from 1835-1912. These remains evidently had been discarded there following dissection. The only way a medical student could learn anatomy was to dissect cadavers; unfortunately, dissection was illegal in Georgia until 1887. Therefore, the cadavers had to be obtained by robbing local cemeteries or obtained by request for cadavers robbed from cemeteries in cities such as Savannah, New York, and Baltimore.
A trace-element analysis was undertaken in an attempt to reconstruct the diet of these individuals, and a comparison by estimated race and sex was made to determine possible differences in diet. An attempt was also made to see if the element concentrations varied in the three basement rooms. Possible reasons for this variation were mentioned.
Assessment of race, sex, and age were made based on the following methods. Race was determined by Iscan and Cotton's (1986) post-cranial discriminate functions; gender was determined by Iscan and Miller-Shaivatz's (in Krogman 1986) post-cranial discriminate functions; and age was determined by pubic symphysis morphology (Meindl et al. 1985) and by epiphyseal fusion (Bass 1987). The racial discriminant function scores calculated from the tibia were compared to racial discriminant function scores calculated from other bones in the MCG sample to determine if the race ratios were similar. This resulted in race ratios of 3 blacks to 1 white.
A suite of nine elements was chosen for analysis. These included Sr, Mg, Mn, Ba, Pb, Fe, Cu, Ca and Zn. Sr, Mg, Mn and Ba were chosen because they occur in relatively high levels in vegetable foods, and because Sr and Ba are also high in aquatic resources. Ca was chosen as a baseline of bone mineral content and general nutritional health. Cu and Zn were chosen because they are found in relatively high levels in meats. Finally, Pb was included because it often occurred in glazes of earthenware, cook ware, and alcoholic beverages of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries.
The bone samples were removed using a bone biopsy drill bit fitted on an electric hand drill and then analyzed using AES-ICP. Statistical analysis of element levels was performed utilizing principal component analysis and ANOVA's after the sample had been tested for normality and transformed using common logs. The principal component analysis was used to aid in the assessment of diet, and the ANOVA's were utilized to test for possible racial and sex differences in diet.
The results of the principal component analysis suggested that the diet of the individuals in the MCG sample was mixed rather than being of particular vegetable or meat foods. These foods may have been cooked in lead cooking utinsils, eaten off of lead-glazed earthenware, and washed down with lead-containing alcoholic beverages. Cu and Fe had been excluded from the analysis because of the suggested possibility that these elements are susceptible to post-mortem alteration. The ANOVA's for race and gender showed no significant differences in diet; however, the ANOVA's used on lead revealed that it differed significantly between blacks and whites. The ANOVA's used to examine the variation in the three basement rooms showed that the concentrations of Sr, Ba, and Zn between rooms one and three were statistically significant, The levels of Ca and Ba were statistically significant between rooms one and two and rooms two and three, and the levels of Mg and Mn were statistically significant between rooms one and two. Pb levels were found to be statistically significant between rooms one and three. Reasons for the variation between rooms were briefly discussed.
The above results should be considered tentative because the methods used to assess race, sex and age are indirect. In addition, the dating of the remains has not been fully sorted out, and any inferences based on time other than the period the Cluskey Building was occupied would be premature. The following additional analyses should be performed: trace element analysis of Na and Po and stable isotope analysis.
Recommended Citation
Dillingham, Paul Christopher, "Diet in the Urban Environment: A Trace Element Analysis of a Nineteenth-Century Cadaver Sample from the Cluskey Building, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 1994.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/4130