Skeletons deliver message from the grave

by Hermann Helmuth

In October 1998, construction in front of the Peterborough Armoury led to the discovery of the remains of some 20 skeletons which were subsequently excavated and analyzed. All we know is that they were early European settlers who were interred between 1827 and 1854 when a cemetery existed at that location. Because no one was retained to look after the cemetery, a city bylaw of 1854 closed it. The dead were removed and reburied at Little Lake Cemetery. Some individuals, however, were missed and more skeletons could be buried underneath the paved court.

Since at the middle of the last century, Peterborough is reported to have had 2,191 inhabitants, the remains represent some one per cent of the population. Regrettably, most skeletons are in poor states of preservation and only nine could be called "individuals".

Initially, remains of four individual were revealed: one male age 45-50, one female age over 40, a second male over 50 years and one fragment of a child aged between 8 and 12 years. My colleague Hugh Daechsel (Kingston) was entrusted with further work resulting in nine better preserved individuals and many commingled remains, among them parts of the second male. The proximity of the Brock Street burial of a Native Indian raised the question of populational affinities, but tests based on several combined measures and anatomical traits showed convincingly that only humans of European origin were present.

One of the women, aged around 35 years, showed somewhat typical results of the remains. At a height of 161 cm, she was nearly average. She had suffered two rib fractures and some osteoarthritis in her neck, vertebrae and her elbow. Inside the eye sockets, porotic erosions point to possible anemia caused by malnutrition earlier in her life. Dentally, 18 out of 32 possible teeth are present, with five lost after death. Strong calculus formation particularly in her lower teeth, but also the upper, and periodontal disease are evident. Eleven teeth show lesser or very severe decay (caries), in some cases to the point of near complete destruction and breakage of the crown.

The second dead was the man older than 50. At roughly 172 cm height, he was average compared to modern standards. Skeletally, he shows two fractured ribs and a crookedly healed, broken nose. Very heavy "lipping" or osteophytosis occurred in different degrees all along his vertebral column. Complete fusion of his sacrum and right hip and beginning fusion on his left side strongly affected his mobility.

A strong bone formation is evident in his breast bone and his clavicles and he must have suffered very painfully from wide-spread arthritis. In addition to this unhealthy state, all his upper teeth had fallen out before his death. His lower jaw showed 12 teeth, with his front teeth severely crowded. Four teeth were lost before death and four had caries. His chewing habits must have suffered badly, since the early loss of his upper teeth meant a strong underbite and incomplete closure of the mouth.

Together with the commingled remains, 10 dental individuals were counted. They had 145 teeth left (54 or 37.2% upper and 91 or 62.7% lower). Only one mandible showed no caries or decay, thus 9 out 10 individuals were affected by tooth decay. Sixty-eight teeth or 47% of all observable teeth showed caries; overlapping with this count, 60 teeth (24%) were lost during life, adding up to 100 teeth (69%) which suffered caries and/or destruction.This compares well with London (England) teeth dating from 1646 to 1852 where, at the Spitalfields cemetery, 87 % of all skeletons had experienced decay, but the number of carious defects was lower at 18% and only 16% were lost during life.

Did the Peterborough immigrants belong to an underprivileged group? The science of dentistry and a general availability of dentists were, at the time, rather poorly developed. Our average person had 10 carious or missing teeth. Considering that two individuals were still rather young, this is an astonishingly high rate.

Most surprising is the amount of dental decay which was allowed to proceed till a tooth crown broke off or a tooth was destroyed. This fact clearly points to a very bad dental health. This conclusion is supported by the high frequency and the degree of periodontal disease and calculus formation; the dental disease state may have well affected general health as well as their appearance (especially the young women!).

In other respects, their average body height of 178 cm (males) and 159 cm (females) compares very favorably with the modern data from the national survey of 1970-72, indicating that the settlers were not an under- or malnourished group in more general terms. However, the overall number of individuals is too small to permit a demographic analysis.

Hermann Helmuth is an anthropology professor at Trent University. His interests are evolution, human evolution, osteology, Growth and Development and the conflict between western religion (Christianity) and science. He can be reached at 748-1452; e-mail:HHelmuth@TrentU.ca.


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