Abstracts

MEDICINE Skeletal Biology / MEDICINA Biologijaskeleta Background: The term enthesis is usually used tomark the sites of muscle attachments, as well as attachments ofligaments and joint capsules to bones. In the last three decades,studies concerning entheses in human skeletal remains haveattempted to reconstruct the habitual physical activities of pastpopulations. The evaluation of entheseal morphological appearancewas suggested for the identification of gross workload patterns,which could be used in the interpretation of labour division on agender, age or social basis in ancient populations. There have beenfour major research streams in literature with regard to enthesesand entheseal changes (EC). The first group of studies mainlyfocused on the analysis of the histological structure of theattachment site. The second group of studies focused of visualscoring methods based on the macromorphological features of theattachment surface with the aim of evaluating the degree of muscleuse. The third group included studies dealing with the relationshipbetween EC and the biomechanical properties of long bones, while afourth group of studies was aimed at reconstructing the habitualphysical activities of past populations, using visual scoringmethods. Regardless of the fact that habitual physical activitiesor stress patterns of past populations are frequently reconstructedbased on EC, there is no direct experimental evidence for therelationship between muscular activity and particular macroscopicentheseal scores. Although entheses were investigated frommacroscopic, histological and biomechanical aspects, it issurprising that microarchitectural studies of the underlying boneare still lacking, despite the well-known potential of bonemicroarchitecture to reflect mechanical loading. It is widelyaccepted that the bone adapts its structure to changes in itsmechanical environment, and a number of studies have reported therelationship between bone microarchitecture and loading patterns indifferent skeletal sites. However, despite numerous studiesreporting that bone morphology is affected by mechanical loads andthat bone has a self-optimising capability, there is nocomprehensive study dealing with this issue in the region of theentheses...Advisors/Committee Members: uri, Marija, 1958-.