OBJECTIVE: Skeletal populations from Byblos, Beirut, and Tyre were studied to assess mechanical stress along the Roman Phoenician coast.
METHODS: The sample included 153 adult skeletons.
METHODS: Skeletal remains were macroscopically assessed for osteoarthritis, intervertebral disc disease (IDD), and Schmorl\'s nodes.
RESULTS: The Byblos population experienced higher levels of mechanical stress than the Beirut and Tyre ones. Sex-based differences were also found in all skeletal assemblages with males likely engaging in physically more demanding tasks.
CONCLUSIONS: The variation in mechanical stress, and associated physically demanding tasks, between these populations can be attributed to their differing political and economic status during the Roman period; textual sources highlight the economic and political dominance of Beirut and Tyre, emanating from their status as coloniae.
CONCLUSIONS: This study represents one of the first attempts to investigate mechanical stress in coastal Phoenicia during the Roman period. It provides valuable insights into the biocultural structure of understudied communities at the periphery of the Roman world, and can serve as a basis for further future research into the occupational patterns of Phoenician communities.
CONCLUSIONS: The contextual information for these skeletal populations is very limited and does not allow secure conclusions regarding their representativeness. The sample sizes are also rather small, especially when divided per sex and age.
UNASSIGNED: Further investigation employing complementary methods such as cross-sectional geometric properties and entheseal changes is needed to reconstruct the occupational patterns of these communities, taking into account cultural, environmental, and temporal factors.

OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that a bioarchaeological focus on health-related care provision can contribute to the currently limited understanding of social practice in Early Anglo-Saxon England (mid5th-early7th centuries AD).
METHODS: Published descriptions of pathology in 69 adult remains from the Early Anglo-Saxon cemetery of Worthy Park, southern England.
METHODS: Three case studies (one examining likely need for care at an individual level and two at a population level) were undertaken using the bioarchaeology of care approach.
RESULTS: Analyses indicate likely care provision (\'direct support\' and/or \'accommodation of difference\') to Worthy Park individuals experiencing temporary or permanent disability. Interpretation suggests community interdependence, cooperation, flexibility and tolerance of difference, as well as cultural and socioeconomic mechanisms for managing physical and social challenges of ageing.
CONCLUSIONS: This study provides proof of concept that bioarchaeology of care analysis can offer new insights into social practice in this period.
CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that a bioarchaeological focus on caregiving behaviours in an Early Anglo-Saxon community extends modern thinking about social relations in post-Roman Britain, offering a model for future investigations into social practice in this, and potentially other, periods. More generally, it illustrates the richness of results achievable when combining bioarchaeological and historical research.
CONCLUSIONS: Reliance on secondary sources limited detail (and potentially accuracy) of interpretation possible.
UNASSIGNED: This study\'s approach should be further tested and refined, either through application to different Anglo-Saxon (or other historic) populations or in a more thorough analysis of the Worthy Park sample itself.