PATRONES DE ACTIVIDAD EN EL PASADO. COMENTARIO SOBRE ALGUNOS MÉTODOS DE ESTUDIO Y SUS POSIBILIDADES

Abstract

The study of the activities done by past populations is one of the favourites topics of anthropologists. Their analysis is based in the record and quantifying of certain skeletal variables that in clinical practice are caused by processes partially dependant on activity. The problem is that these processes are in fact multifactorial and, in many cases, their aetiology is far from clear. The methods commonly used are based in the analyses of osteoarthritis distribution, entheseal changes, traumas, certain pathologies of the spinal column, and the study of bone geometry changes. It is by no means possible to know what the activities of past populations were. However, the careful use of these analyses on comparable samples with the same genetic background shows differences between sex in a given group and between groups living in certain environments. In this sense, the study of activity patterns in one more contribution to the knowledge of the past but is far from being a concluding one.