Palaeoanthropological analysis of the Euromos community


DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70736/ijoess.1690Keywords:
Euromos, Karia, paleodemography, paleopathologyAbstract
The Caria region, located in south-western Anatolia, has had a rich history and cultural texture from ancient times until the Roman Empire. Ionia and Lydia are located to the north and Lycia to the east. Euromos, located in the Carian region, is located on the road connecting coastal Caria to inland Caria. The ancient city of Euromos, located in the Selimiye neighbourhood of the Milas district of Muğla, was inhabited from the Late Geometric Period until the Byzantine Period. In 2013, excavations in the South Necropolis revealed a monumental grave complex and graves around it. Forty-five individuals were recovered from the graves dating from the Late Geometric Period to the Roman Period. The skeletons are in poor state of preservation. Of the 45 individuals, 9 were infants, 10 were children, 11 were females and 14 were males. The sex of one adult individual could not be determined. The community consists of 42.2 percent infants and children and 57.8 percent adults. Trepanation, lesions and fractures due to cultural deformation, infectious diseases such as periostitis and osteomyelitis, porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia, which are indicators of blood diseases, were observed in the Euromos community. The average height of the community was calculated as 154.78 for females and 166.36 for males. In general, Euromos has a high infant and child mortality rate among the Caria communities. The average life expectancy is also lower than the other communities. In addition, the high rates of infection and anemia in the group indicate that Euromosans live a stressful life.
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