Archivio per l’Antropologia e la Etnologia

Abstract

This paper describes the study of human fibrocartilaginous entheses in a multiple indigenous sicanian Sicilian burial dated between VI and V century BC. The tomb, a cave burial, was altered by grave robbers. From the collected osteologic material it was possible to perform the sorting method and to extrapolate the NMI. The research was focused on the scoring and on the analysis of the Entheseal Changes (EC) of the long bones of upper limb and calcaneus; to extrapolate likely patterns of muscle activity according to the approach of the MSM applied in literature we have utilized the Coimbra Method. This method is a new record method who intends to replace Hawkey and Merbs already-established method, and it applies only to this kind of entheses. The data interpretation led to the conclusion of a typical rural-agropastoral occupational activity, and to confirm the hystoricalarchaeological data. *