Christine Cooper

• Dr. phil., Dipl. anthropol.
• Physical Anthropologist at Archäologie Liechtenstein

Lesions consistent with skeletal tuberculosis were found in 13 individuals from an early medieval skeletal sample from Courroux (Switzerland). One case of Pott’s disease as well as lytic lesions in vertebrae and joints, rib lesions and endocranial new bone formation were identified. Three individuals with lesions and one without were tested for the...

As a reaction to widespread poverty, a system of coercive welfare developed in Switzerland during the 19th century. Poverty was often thought to result from an individual’s misconduct rather than from structural, economic or political circumstances. People whose lifestyle deviated from the desired norm or who were unable to make a living for themse...

The Iron Age in continental Europe is a period of profound cultural and biological importance with heterogeneous trends through space and time. Regional overviews are therefore useful for better understanding the main cultural and biological patterns characterizing this period across the European regions. For the area of modern Switzerland, a rich...

The paper states ethical guidelines of the Swiss Society for Anthropology (SGA/SSA) for working with and handling human remains and non human primates, as well as living populations (thereafter referred to as research subjects). The document presents the conclusions of the board regarding ethical concerns. Our purpose is to promote discussion and...

Im Mittelalter nutzte man den Bodensee und seine Zuflüsse als Wasserwege. Diese verbanden den Wirtschaftsraum von den Bündner Alpenpässen bis zum Rheinfall. Städte schlossen Bündnisse, man einigte sich auf einheitliche Währungssysteme und betrieb Handel mit Venedig, Mailand, Lyon, Barcelona oder Brügge. Exportschlager waren Leinengewebe, importiert...

We present a presumptive case of metastatic carcinoma in an individual from the 11th/12th century CE from Vaduz, Principality of Liechtenstein. The skeleton exhibits extensive new bone formation in the axial skeleton and the proximal humerus and femur. Radiological examinations revealed further sclerotic lesions in the clavicles, the manubrium, the...

Although dozens of ancient Yersinia pestis genomes and a vast corpus of documentary data are available, the origin and spread of consecutive outbreaks of the Second Plague Pandemic in Europe (14th-18th c.) are still poorly understood. For the majority of ancient genomes, only radiocarbon dates spanning several decades are available, hampering an as...

1980 und 1981 wurde in Balzers, Fürstentum Liechtenstein, auf dem Runda Böchel ein frühmittelalterliches Gräberfeld entdeckt und ausgegraben. Im Rahmen einer Neuuntersuchung der Skelette wurden die damaligen Erkenntnisse ergänzt und überprüft. Ziel war es, mittels einer vergleichenden Untersuchung der 90 Skelette sowie Streufunde Aussagen über die...

Overview of demographic and palaeopathological findings. (PDF)

Trauma per individual and bone. (PDF)

Rib fractures per individual. (PDF)

Periosteal reactions per individual and bone. (PDF)

To date, anthropological comparative studies are rare from Switzerland. Therefore, this research aims to make a comparison between the alpine individuals from Zweisimmen (14th–19th c.), and 17 other rural and urban populations from Switzerland all dating to the medieval and early modern period. An osteoarchaeological analysis was carried out on the...

Roman period around lake of Constance, 1st to 3rd century. history, military, Roman settlement, vici, villae, economy, Roman way of life, religion

Palaeopathological studies of tuberculosis in ancient populations mostly rely on the presence of spinal tuberculosis. Rib lesions, superficial vertebral changes and endocranial lesions are now thought to be suggestive of tuberculosis as well, even though they cannot be considered to be pathognomic. Lesions consistent with skeletal tuberculosis were...

Human bone is the most direct source for reconstructing health and living conditions of ancient populations. However, many diseases remain undetected in palaeopathology. Möller-Barlow disease (scurvy) is a historically well-documented metabolic disease and must have been common in clinical and sub-clinical severity. Due to long incubation periods a...

This paper presents problems arising from the lack of standardized methods for recording skeletal remains. Using practical examples it is shown how preservation and representation of bones can distort observations and how this can be reduced by systematic data acquisition.

Anthropological Report (Courroux, Place des Mouleurs)

Early Medieval Period around the Lake of Constance.

In the first part of this paper general aspects of fracture identification and fracture healing are presented. These findings are then applied in a case study. In the original publication a pathological fracture as a result of a bone tumor was diagnosed in a medieval skeleton from Schaffhausen. After a re-evaluation the pathological changes in this...

Frühbronzezeitliche Doppelbestattung

This work focused on the identification and interpretation of skeletal trauma. In addition to a comprehensive review of the current state of knowledge, human remains from the Battle of Dornach 1499 AD were examined using various criteria. A series of experiments were carried out on skin-skull-brain models with replicas of weapons commonly used at t...

By themselves, skeletal remains tell us little about the health history of humans and its determinants; although they can bear the signs of disease, its interpretation has its own methodological difficulties. Contextual information about the natural and sociocultural College at Oneonta, of Sheffield, 1728th Byzantine Antiquities, of Bradford, of Bi...

Analysis of the mortality profiles of people dying with and without cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis suggest that the conditions producing these lesions have a negative effect on survivorship (Figs. 1 and 2). The difference in mortality rate is especially clear for cribra orbitalia for older children and adolescents. The age distributions...

This article presents a feasibility study with the objective of investigating the potential of multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) to estimate the bone age and sex of deceased persons. To obtain virtual skeletons, the bodies of 22 deceased persons with known age at death were scanned by MDCT using a special protocol that consisted of high-res...