Lower limb bone remodeling in a Neolithic sample from Liguria (Italy)

The aim of this research is to improve our understanding of mobility and the role of the terrain in lower limb bone remodeling studying the cross-sectional geometric properties of tibia from a Ligurian Neolithic sample (Italy, 4th millennium BC). The sample includes eight males and seven females found in a restricted area (Finale Ligure, Savona) and dated to the fourth millennium BC. Results are compared to Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic samples from the same site and from other sites around Europe. Many paleoanthropological studies on skeletal robusticity have suggested decreased mobility with the advent of a food producing economy. Previous studies conducted on the femur of the same Ligurian Neolithic sample noted unexpected levels of mechanical stress for this population. Such robusticity could result from the combined effect of lifestyle and terrain conformation (Liguria is a mountainous region). As previously found for the femur, while all female indicators of tibial bending strength decrease steadily through time, Neolithic male values approach those of the Late Upper Paleolithic. Moreover, tibial sexual dimorphism characterizing the Neolithic sample is constantly greater than femoral sexual dimorphism, further pointing to quite different male-female mobility patterns, probably reflecting the importance of pastoral activity, well-documented in the Ligurian archeological record. The greater relative tibial strength compared to that of the femur, associated with the archeologically documented pastoral activity, further points out the stronger correlation between habitual activity patterns and relative strength of distal limb bones (tibia) than with proximal limb bones (femur), which shows a stronger correlation with climate.