Behavioral Reconstruction and the Effects of Habitual Activity on the Bone-Muscle Interface
Open AccessMusculoskeletal attachment sites, known as entheses, are uniquely important skeletal features used as a means to infer species-level locomotor patterns and individual occupation in the human archaeological and fossil record. This approach relies on the premise that the enthesis responds to mechanical loading through modeling, remodeling and the accumulation of new bone, though the precise relationship between soft tissue, bone and behavior remains unclear. This dissertation will combine experimental and comparative approaches to clarify the response of entheses to habitual activity and to better understand the mechanical environment of these complex structures. The ultimate goal of this work is to address whether enthesis morphology can be used to make reliable functional interpretations from skeletal material, which is relevant across disciplines from archaeology to clinical medicine and forensics.The first component of this research utilizes an experimental mouse model raised under control and two exercise (running and climbing) regimes to test whether increased activity results in corresponding increases to muscle force-generating capacity and bone cross-sectional geometric properties at the enthesis. The second study uses the same experimental paradigm to assess the effect of increased activity on the surface histological structure of attachment sites, specifically focusing on the extrinsic fibers that attach muscle to bone at the enthesis. The third study takes a comparative approach in primates to test whether different locomotor modes are associated with different enthesis morphologies. To this end, a selection of locomotor-relevant entheses in suspensory, quadrupedal and bipedal primates were examined for patterns of attachment site characteristics by activity. A combined analysis of the macroscopic bone surface and its underlying cross-sectional geometry will provide a comprehensive view of the enthesis region. This dissertation will contribute toward a much-needed empirical foundation for the interpretation of enthesis morphology with the long-term goal of enabling non-destructive behavioral reconstruction on fossil primates using these structures.
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Turcotte_gwu_0075A_14525.pdf | 2018-12-27 | Open Access |
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