Bone Adaptation and Labor Organization in Co-Located Medieval Anatolian Populations

Abstract

Skeletal evidence from geographically co-located populations offers a rare opportunity to disentangle subsistence-driven bone adaptation from socially organized labor. This study examines upper limb morphology in two Byzantine communities—the urban center of Tyana (10th–13th c. CE, church cemetery) and the rural settlement of Köşk Höyük (Byzantine Middle Ages)—located 4.5 km apart within the same agropastoral microgeographic context. Three complementary osteological methods were applied to 120 adult individuals: Entheseal changes scored using the Mariotti et al. Protocol, anthropometric indices of the humerus, and CT-based cross-sectional geometry (total area, medullary area, cortical area, and normalized cortical ratios).

Despite shared ecological conditions, intracommunity analyses reveal divergent mechanical loading profiles. Tyana exhibits pronounced bilateral asymmetry with large effect sizes in both anthropometric and cross-sectional parameters, but limited sex-based differentiation. Köşk Höyük, by contrast, shows marked cortical divergence along sex lines—particularly in normalized distal cortical ratios—while maintaining bilateral symmetry. Entheseal complexes revealed no significant interpopulation divergence, and their sensitivity to fine-scale activity differences appears limited relative to cross-sectional geometry.

These profiles suggest that variation in labor organization within a broadly shared agropastoral framework, rather than subsistence type alone, shaped upper limb morphology at the microgeographic scale. The differential sensitivity of the three datasets underscores the value of multiproxy approaches for activity reconstruction.