Editorial
Stressed Out: Reconsidering stress in the study of archaeological human remains

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2020.105197Get rights and content

Abstract

The term “stress” remains poorly defined, often misused, and has clearly lost its meaning in the study of archaeological human remains. In this special issue we reconsider the use of this term in human remains research, to untangle what we actually mean when we say “stress” in archaeology. To this aim, we looked at this topic from two broad perspectives: dental anthropology and paleopathology. Based on revision of the previous work on this topic, the new contributions of this issue, and in the light of the rapid advancement in other medical disciplines, we conclude that the term “stress” is not suitable for the study of archaeological skeletal remains unless it is precisely defined (e.g. mechanical stress).

Introduction

The study of archaeological skeletal human remains has co-opted the term “stress”, but it has remained poorly defined. The term is often misused, and, as noted by Hillson (2014, 204) “the word has ceased to have any clear meaning in bioarchaeology”. The purpose of this special issue is to reconsider the use of this term in human remains research, and to define what we actually mean when we say “stress” in archaeology. To this aim, we looked at this topic from two broad perspectives: a) study of tooth malformations, defects, and pathology in dental anthropology; and b) non-specific indicators of disease in paleopathology.

Structure and function of teeth have been widely used in the inquiry of either ancient or modern human populations to address numerous research questions. As long as the complexity of tooth formation processes are accounted for, the study of developmental defects of teeth can provide a general snapshot of life history parameters in a population or an individual observed. When it comes to study of (micro)structures of teeth with special emphasis on specific life-history parameters reconstruction (cf. Edinborough et al., 2020) and the interpretation of developmental defects such as enamel hypoplasia (cf. Antoine et al., 1999; Antoine et al., 2009), “stress” cannot be routinely assigned as their ultimate cause. In this special issue there are several studies tackling the problematic aetiology of enamel hypoplastic defects. These studies suggest more appropriate strategies in recording and interpreting results in studies on primates, including old world monkeys, extant great ape species, fossil hominin species and humans (O'Hara and Guatelli-Steinberg, 2020; Towle and Irish, 2020). One of the contributions in this special issue is opening a new direction for conceptualizing and identifying mental well-being of people in the past, using bruxism as a clinically related response to physiological stress (Foley, 2020).

The examination of disease (and disease-load) in past populations is important, as it can provide answers to large scale questions about human activity and behaviour. One way in which palaeopathologists in the past have tried to explore this is by looking at so-called “indicators of stress” – especially in the remains of children. These indicators could include nutritional deficiencies, “non-specific infection”, and retarded bone development. This umbrella usage of “stress” means that no effort has been made to unpick the true causative agents for these observed bony changes. We are now confronting this problem, focusing on diagnostic issues within the sub-field of palaeopathology. This special issue's contribution to this area of research is the re-evaluation of traditional markers of stress (periosteal reactions, porotic hyperostosis, and cribra orbitalia) when interpreting health through “non-specific stress indicators” in skeletal remains (Pilloud and Pilloud, 2020).

Section snippets

Defining the concept of stress

The word “stress” is now quite a common part of modern vernacular, but the true or correct meaning of the concept can be difficult to tease out. Despite nearly a century of research on various aspects of stress, investigators still find it difficult to achieve consensus on a satisfactory definition of this concept. Even less of a consensus has been reached on precisely defining the concept of stress in the study of human bones – the term stress has arguably been abused as it has been used to

Contribution of this issue

One of the topics tackled in this special issue is the use of dental defects as indicators of “non-specific stress” during dental development in studies of paleoanthropological and archaeological samples. The defect that is most commonly associated with “stress” in childhood is enamel hypoplasia for various reasons. One of the reasons is certainly the fact that enamel hypoplasia is a defect which can be easily observed macroscopically. As there exist standardized and straightforward ways for

Conclusion

In sum, we suggest avoiding the use of the term “stress” in the study of archaeological human remains, unless it is precisely qualified, e.g., “mechanical stress”. As there are limits on the interpretations of causal relations between various disruptors and their traces in skeletal material, more cautious clinical studies involving humans with documented life histories are needed. In our opinion, instead of trying to reconstruct health and well-being of the people in the past, we need to focus

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the UCL Institute of Archaeology for hosting the important “Stressed Out” conference in 2017, where these papers were first presented and our advisory group: Simon Hillson, Tony Waldron, Daniel Antoine, Albert Zink, and Kevan Edinborough.

References (64)

  • I. Towle et al.

    Recording and interpreting enamel hypoplasia in samples from archaeological and palaeoanthropological contexts

    J. Archaeol. Sci.

    (2020)
  • R. Yirmiya et al.

    Major depression is a risk factor for low bone mineral density: a meta-analysis

    Biol. Psychiatr.

    (2009)
  • H. Abekura et al.

    Association between sleep bruxism and stress sensitivity in an experimental psychological stress task

    Biomed. Res.

    (2011)
  • D.M. Antoine et al.

    The periodicity of incremental structures in dental enamel based on the developing dentition of post-Medieval known-age children

  • D. Antoine et al.

    The developmental clock of dental enamel: a test for the periodicity of prism cross-striations in modern humans and an evaluation of the most likely sources of error in histological studies of this kind

    J. Anat.

    (2009)
  • M.R. Azevedo et al.

    Neuro-behavioral pattern of sleep bruxism in wakefulness

    Res. Biomed. Eng.

    (2018)
  • B.G. Berkovitz et al.

    Oral Anatomy, Histology and Embryology

    (2009)
  • A.D. Beynon et al.

    Distinct dental development patterns in early fossil hominids

    Nature

    (1988)
  • E. Bocaege et al.

    Technical note: a new three-dimensional technique for high resolution quantitative recording of perikymata

    Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

    (2010)
  • T.G. Bromage et al.

    Re-evaluation of the age at death of immature fossil hominids

    Nature

    (1985)
  • M.C. Dean et al.

    Perikymata spacing and distribution on hominid anterior teeth

    Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

    (2001)
  • C. Dean et al.

    Growth processes in teeth distinguish modern humans from Homo erectus and earlier hominins

    Nature

    (2001)
  • M. Edinborough et al.

    Mineralisation within human tooth cementum identified by secondary ion mass spectrometry

    J. Anal. At. Spectrom.

    (2020)
  • G.R. Elliott et al.

    Stress and Human Health

    (1982)
  • A.H. Goodman et al.

    Biocultural perspectives on stress in prehistoric, historical, and contemporary population research

    Yrbk. Phys. Anthropol.

    (1988)
  • A.H. Goodman et al.

    Assessment of systematic physiological perturbations from dental enamel hypoplasias and associated histological structures

    Yrbk. Phys. Anthropol.

    (1990)
  • A.H. Goodman et al.

    Dental enamel hypoplasias as indicators of nutritional stress

  • D. Guatelli-Steinberg

    Analysis and significance of linear enamel hypoplasia in Plio-Pleistocene hominins

    Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

    (2004)
  • D. Guatelli-Steinberg

    Using perikymata to estimate the duration of growth disruptions in fossil hominin teeth: issues of methodology and interpretation

  • D. Guatelli-Steinberg et al.

    Linear enamel hypoplasia and the shift from irregular to regular provisioning in Cayo Santiago rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

    Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

    (2006)
  • B.R. Hassett

    Missing defects? A comparison of microscopic and macroscopic approaches to identifying linear enamel hypoplasia

    Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

    (2014)
  • S. Hillson

    Tooth Development in Human Evolution and Bioarchaeology

    (2014)
  • Cited by (8)

    • Beyond dirty teeth: Integrating dental calculus studies with osteoarchaeological parameters

      2023, Quaternary International
      Citation Excerpt :

      This has been routinely conducted on starchy foods, such as legumes and cereals (Barton and Torrence, 2015), but has not been applied systematically to other lines of evidence and to parts of plants that are not starch or phytoliths. In addition, the above listed osteoarchaeological markers of potential social status (skeletal occupational markers, markers of physiological stress etc.) suffer from inherent limitations mostly linked to the fact that their expression is multifactorial (Domett et al., 2017; Edinborough and Rando, 2020; Michopoulou et al., 2015); hence, they should be used critically and in combination when assessing status. Ideally, such skeletal markers should also be used in conjunction with material cultural evidence of social status as a complementary line of evidence (though with its own inherent biases) (Robb et al., 2001).

    • Population pressure and prehistoric violence in the Yayoi period of Japan

      2021, Journal of Archaeological Science
      Citation Excerpt :

      We found only two of 159 cases. Although the precise nature of stress markers including enamel hypoplasia is debated (e.g., Edinborough and Rando 2020), both results are not consistent with the possibility that nutritional and environmental factors were major driving forces in the frequency of warfare and consistent with the claim that the cases of enamel hypoplasia are relatively few in the northern Kyushu area of the middle Yayoi period compared to other areas (Koga 2003). The frequency of violence might be influenced by the development of social hierarchy or political organization (e.g., Oka et al., 2018), presumed to be reflected in highly stratified burial systems in which certain members of the ruling elite, conventionally referred to as ‘kings’ in Japanese archaeology, have tombs with large quantities of prestige goods such as bronzes (weapons and mirrors), followed by a class of ‘warriors’ interred with lesser amounts of bronze or iron weapons, while ‘commoners’ were buried in communal cemeteries with few grave goods.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text