Paleopatología en la "Ilici" tardoantigua (La Alcudia, Elche, Sector 11)

Abstract

These findings in Sector 11 of La Alcudia de Elche which took place in 2017 are famed within the famework of the multidisciplinary project “Ladies and heroes”. Afer Iberian Ilici” (University of Alicante - Foundation L’Alcúdia–Elche Town Council). The first set (UE 15) is a diachronic burial pit (ca. 170 cm L) of three individuals. Both the ritual characteristics and its location inside the city link it with the final phase of occupation of the site, during Late Antiquity. As for the second set (UE 56), it is made up of two individuals recovered in anatomical connection and thrown or fallen onto which, judging fom the associated ceramics recovered at its their same level, seems to belong to the same period (Late Antiquity/Early Middle Age) as the previous set. Although no signs of violent death are visible, the absence of ritual and primary covering materials denotes a moment of crisis at the site. The fve individuals studied correspond to two adult men, a woman, a juvenile and a child —possibly male. The first burial (EU 15) evidences several types of pathology, namely: dental; osteoarticular (osteoarthritis, ankylosing spondylitis); traumatic (facture of ulna and sternum); and possibly infectious. The second set reveals criba orbitaria in the youngest individual, as opposed to a light criba orbitaria A, dental pathology, dysraphism in the posterior arch of the atlas, spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis in the young female adult.