Degenerative joint diseases and enthesopathies in a Joseon Dynasty population from Korea

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine whether degenerative joint diseases (DJD) and enthesopathies can be used in conjunction in research that aims to understand the activity levels of past populations. To examine this, the relationship between DJD and enthesopathies needs to be explored while taking different peripheral joints and types of entheses into account. In addition, the present research aims to examine the frequency of DJD and enthesopathies in the Joseon Dynasty population of Korea with comparisons with data in other skeletal series of similar dates. In this research, 173 individuals who had been interred in Eunpyeong Cemetery (Seoul, Korea, mid-15th-early 20th centuries) were analyzed. The occurrence of DJD and enthesopathies at six peripheral joints - the shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee, and ankle - were compared. The results presented in this study suggest that DJD and enthesopathies are positively correlated in specific joints. The overall pattern of DJD and enthesopathies by sex was not found to be aligned with each other. While both markers were strongly associated with age in similar joints and bone elements, differences by sex showed a significant association in only some enthesopathies. This result suggests that DJD and enthesopathies react in different ways to variable etiological factors because they have different levels of vulnerability to various causes. Therefore, the distribution and pattern of DJD and enthesopathies should be discussed with caution when they are used together as activity markers. In addition, the population from Eunpyeong Cemetery seems not to have experienced a great deal of habitual stress.