부산대학교 도서관

Approximately one-third of the 15,000 skeletal elements found in the burial crypts of the Byzantine monastery of St. Stephen's in Jerusalem represent subadults. Who were these children and why were they buried within a monastic compound? Although much appears in the literature of the time about St. Stephen's, no mention is made of the presence of children. The current study examined five dental morphological traits of the deciduous and permanent teeth of these individuals. Frequencies of non-metric characters were compared to those found for the adult dentition to determine possible genetic relationships. The permanent dentitions were scored using the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System (ASU DAS). Plaques created by K. Hanihara and A. A. Dalhberg, along with the ASU DAS, were used for the deciduous remains. A total of 104 teeth were identified in the subadult collection and over 200 teeth were used from the adult collection. Chi-square comparisons were insignificant for within group tests of the subadults. The tests were also insignificant between the deciduous teeth and the adult permanent teeth, except for cusp 7 (p The virtual lack of significant difference provides us with no evidence to suggest that the adults and juveniles were from two distinct biological groups. When combined with demographic and disease patterns for the community, a circumstantial case can be made for the theory that these children were from the surrounding community, buried near the bones of venerated individuals.