Mechanical stress in the city of Thebes, Boeotia, during Classical to Hellenistic times

Abstract

During Classical Antiquity, central mainland Greece was characterized by important historical events that shaped the Greco-Roman world. Positioned in this key region, Thebes had a tumultuous history and played an important part in these events. The concomitant socio-political shifts significantly affected the lives of the city’s population, making it an ideal setting for studying changes in health and lifestyle over time. This paper focuses on human skeletal remains excavated from the north-eastern cemetery of Thebes. Skeletal indicators related to mechanical stress were examined, namely osteoarthritis, intervertebral disc disease, apophyseal joint arthritis, Schmorl’s nodes, entheseal changes and long bone cross-sectional geometric properties. The frequency of mechanical stress markers was rather low for both periods, as expected given the urban setting of this population. Although we would expect more hardship during the Hellenistic period, as attested in adjacent contemporary populations, most markers exhibited comparable frequencies for the two periods, while detailed comparisons showed a complex pattern. Similarly, with regard to sex differences, a complex pattern was revealed, suggesting that males and females engaged in different activities diachronically, however, involving overall comparable physical demands for both sexes.