Garofalo, Evan Michele

Preliminary abstract: Human variation is partially the result of a complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors at play during the growth process. Illness and malnutrition depress the rate of the growth process, especially during the infancy and early childhood periods when growth is most sensitive to environmental factors. Growth during later childhood and adolescence is thought to be responsive to compounded environmental and genetic factors. Because of this sensitivity to stimuli, growth is often studied as an indication of population health, usually assessed through long bone length or stature. However, a number of other skeletal variables have the potential to enhance the identification of the manner and timing of environmental disturbances to the growth process. For example, endosteal cortical bone dimensions are modified in response to diet and disease where as articular growth is thought to be more canalized.
This study focuses on the interpretation of growth patterns related to genetic and environmental influences at multiple regions of the human skeleton. Variations in growth resulting from socioeconomic differences in a genetically related archaeological population are hypothesized be most marked in cortical dimensions during infancy and early childhood. Additionally, it is hypothesized that growth dispersion of four genetically distinct archaeological populations will be most evident in bone lengths and articular dimensions in later childhood and adolescence. Results of this study will enhance the interpretation of past environmental disturbances and genetic factors in the process of growth.