[HN Gopher] Medieval Cambridge skeletons reveal injuries to manu...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Medieval Cambridge skeletons reveal injuries to manual labourers
        
       Author : pepys
       Score  : 68 points
       Date   : 2021-01-31 07:08 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
        
       | gherkinnn wrote:
       | Took me a while to find the referenced paper [0]. Way more detail
       | (of course) but also accessible.
       | 
       | 0 - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.24225
        
       | tkahnoski wrote:
       | In reading about this, my first thought was... in 300 years will
       | they be digging up our current cemeteries?
       | 
       | The answer is a resounding 'very possible'. Although there are
       | federal laws on the books
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeological_ethics#Preserva...
       | 
       | There was a modern attempt at relocating a cemetery in 1988 that
       | ultimately failed for political reasons:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eloise_Cemetery#Present_situat...
       | 
       | And there are things like this in the Texas State Code that give
       | clearance for eminent domain actions:
       | https://casetext.com/statute/texas-codes/water-code/title-4-...
       | 
       | So don't buy a plot in a prospective dam/reservoir area in Texas
       | if you want to be undisturbed for centuries.
        
         | laurent92 wrote:
         | In France, burial << concessions >> are 10 years renewable to
         | 30 years. I'm not sure what options are in case your family
         | wants to keep your grave longer.
         | 
         | Is it indefinite duration in USA?
        
           | retrac wrote:
           | At least here in Ontario, Canada, cemetery plots are infinite
           | duration, and the land is classified for that purpose
           | forever. There are plenty of little cemetery plots attached
           | to old 19th century churches in downtown Toronto, now
           | surrounded by skyscrapers.
           | 
           | I think it's the same in the USA.
        
           | tkahnoski wrote:
           | I personally have no idea. US culture is rather averse to
           | discussing matters of death so this is all new. My brief
           | searching around looks like this is tied to however you
           | purchase the plot and the terms set with the cemetery itself
           | and if they expire, they just bury someone a foot or two
           | above the previous plot owner after removing the
           | headstone....
        
       | polycaster wrote:
       | The article boils down to: "We can see that ordinary working folk
       | had a higher risk of injury compared to the friars and their
       | benefactors or the more sheltered hospital inmates" (ie. 44%
       | compared to 32%/27% having bone fractures).
       | 
       | Somehow I fail to see how this is surprising.
        
         | Vervious wrote:
         | I guess most research shouldn't be surprising, otherwise
         | there'd be an eureka every day
        
           | polycaster wrote:
           | There's certainly value in their finding. My comment was more
           | targeted at the usual HN audience perhaps expecting an
           | intellectually stimulating story.
        
         | beckman466 wrote:
         | > Somehow I fail to see how this is surprising.
         | 
         | Yes! who cares about the lives of such lowly peasants.
         | 
         | /s
        
           | dang wrote:
           | " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
           | of what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
           | criticize. Assume good faith._"
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
         | ejolto wrote:
         | It's important to have data to back our unsurprising
         | assumptions. Lots of unsurprising assumptions have turned out
         | to be false.
        
           | kibwen wrote:
           | Indeed. Relatedly, here's Popular Science's list of articles
           | in the category "Science Confirms The Obvious":
           | https://www.popsci.com/tags/science-confirms-obvious/
        
             | Cederfjard wrote:
             | I'd be more interested in a list called "Science Disproves
             | the Obvious". Anyone got one laying around?
        
               | taeric wrote:
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconcept
               | ion... is about the best I know of.
        
               | libraryatnight wrote:
               | This some fantastic reading. Some insightful, some
               | hilarious: "Steak tartare was not invented by Mongol
               | warriors who tenderized meat under their saddles."
        
         | bb123 wrote:
         | Just because it isn't surprising doesn't mean it isn't
         | interesting.
        
           | polycaster wrote:
           | No, it doesn't. But it is very likely that one thing comes
           | from the other.
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest_(emotion)
        
             | datameta wrote:
             | Perhaps for some here (including myself) this data helps
             | imagine a more detailed approximation of what life was like
             | there in that time period.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
         | people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
         | shadowprofile77 wrote:
         | Can't say much for hospital inmates but, bear in mind that
         | friars in medieval Europe often had their days filled with
         | plenty of hard physical labour as well, and often tended to
         | farm plots for the benefit of their monasteries and church
         | lands with lots of their own sweaty work. It was not what we
         | would today consider a sedentary job at all. Though yes, a
         | labourer would have been much more likely to suffer injuries
         | regardless... One good fictional account of medieval life among
         | all classes: Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follet. Wonderful
         | reading and realistically depicted in most ways.
        
         | chrisseaton wrote:
         | > Somehow I fail to see how this is surprising.
         | 
         | Validating assumptions is useful science.
        
           | pasquinelli wrote:
           | yeah, but it's also been published on the bbc and posted
           | here.
        
         | mytailorisrich wrote:
         | I don't think that this quote is what the article boils down
         | to. IMHO the key information is rather: " _" However, severe
         | trauma was prevalent across the social spectrum._"
         | 
         | At all levels they found a significant number of skeletons with
         | bone fractures.
        
           | sandworm101 wrote:
           | Yes, the injury rate may be similar, but the sources of these
           | injuries are likely not. Amongst the ruling classes, horses
           | were the danger. Ride a horse and you will break more bones
           | than the guy who walks to work. Be a friar working in a
           | hospital, not toiling in the fields nor riding horses, and
           | your fracture rate would be much lower.
        
             | wpasc wrote:
             | But your risk of bacterial infection probably skyrockets
        
             | ashtonkem wrote:
             | Also violence, but in different forms.
             | 
             | For lower classes, regular street brawls will produce a lot
             | of injuries. Upper class people will get into some street
             | violence, but the presence of retinues will drastically
             | reduce their incidence. On the other hand, for upper
             | classes (but not monks) war and training for war will
             | produce a ton of injuries, many fatal. Learning to fence
             | and joust are very dangerous activities even in modern
             | times.
        
               | sandworm101 wrote:
               | >> Learning to fence and joust are very dangerous
               | activities even in modern times.
               | 
               | Horses. Even today, horses are profoundly dangerous. Go
               | to any hospital warn dealing with neck injuries. Young
               | men fall off motorcycles, and so are generally a little
               | older (16+). Young girls break their necks falling off
               | horses. That particular fall (head first off a horse) is
               | horrible. The neck takes all the load. Helmets protect
               | the skull, not the neck. Obama once said that if he had
               | sons there would be a conversation about them playing
               | football. If I had daughters, they would not ride horses.
        
               | ashtonkem wrote:
               | I'll also mention that fencing used to be wildly
               | dangerous to train in. When I learned to fence (Italian
               | school longsword) we practiced with plastic swords and
               | lacrosse gloves. Compared to wood swords with leather
               | gloves this is an incredible safety improvement, and
               | still we broke fingers from time to time. Even modern
               | longsword fencing helms[0] (sport fencing helms can't
               | handle the abuse) are much tougher thanks to the presence
               | of pre-drilled plate which provides better visibility
               | without reduced protection[1].
               | 
               | 0 - https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/15/22/4a1522079ba29
               | 51466fb... This type is necessary if you wish to practice
               | with steel swords, among other protective equipment.
               | Steel can cave in regular fencing masks.
               | 
               | 1 - Against cutting blows, which is the main issue in
               | practice. Such a plate would be disastrous in actual war,
               | since it would guarantee that any arrow making contact
               | would "bite" rather than deflecting.
        
               | TRcontrarian wrote:
               | Interesting. When I took modern foil fencing classes, it
               | wasn't dangerous in the slightest. The training foils
               | (the long thin bendy swords that people usually think of
               | when they think of fencing) are extremely flexible and
               | have a button on the tip. You score a point by pushing
               | that button against your opponent in a score zone of
               | their body. You wear an electrified vest over your torso
               | with a long wire leading back to the score machine, and
               | when the opponent's sword tip touches your vest it
               | completes an electric circuit. If that circuit is
               | completed at the same time the opponent's foil tip button
               | is depressed, they score a point. Both people have full
               | cage facemasks, and there's almost zero chance of injury
               | short of tripping.
               | 
               | Epee fencing, on the other hand, uses a heavier, stiffer
               | sword, so when you poke somebody it can bruise.
               | 
               | Sabre fencing is the third modern fencing style, and
               | allows you to score points with the blade (slashing)
               | instead of just the point as with foil and epee. I've
               | never done it but have heard it is the most physical
               | style of the three.
               | 
               | This photo is of an epee match, but displays the still
               | considerable flexibility of the weapon and the
               | electrification wires that trail behind each combatant. h
               | ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89p%C3%A9e#/media/File:F
               | in...
        
               | ashtonkem wrote:
               | It's worth mentioning how much heavier and more energetic
               | a longsword is compared to modern sport fencing weapons.
               | A fencing saber weighs 500g (~1.1lbs) by regulation.
               | Longswords on the other hand tend to weigh in the 3-4lb
               | range based on the size of the fencer. Longswords are
               | also relatively inflexible in the cutting direction to
               | avoid a "whipping" effect, although they'll flex on the
               | thrust for safety.
               | 
               | For comparison's sake here[0] is a very high quality
               | practice fencing blade in a historically correct style.
               | The weird shape is to help maintain the correct balance
               | after the edge and point have been thickened to avoid
               | injury.
               | 
               | We didn't really go for point based scoring, since we
               | were attempting to replicate a historical fencing school.
               | In actual fights it is incredibly common for both
               | combatants to fatally injure each other in an exchange,
               | so we recognized the idea of dual hits where both
               | combatants were struck. With both steel and plastic
               | weapons the impacts are loud enough to not require any
               | special detection equipment.
               | 
               | [0] - http://www.albion-
               | swords.com/swords/albion/maestro/sword-pra...
        
               | sandworm101 wrote:
               | Every time I see an evil comic book-style villain with a
               | scared face I am reminded that that look is based in
               | realty. Pre-war, many well-to-do Germans took part in a
               | style of fencing that resulted in regular injuries to the
               | face. A scared face was a badge of status. There were
               | several prominent WWII leaders with facial scars not from
               | battle but from fraternal fencing organizations. A few
               | years later and the comic book supervillains had scared
               | faces too.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_fencing
        
               | KineticLensman wrote:
               | Melanie Reid [0] is a journalist and experienced horse
               | rider who broke her neck and back in 2010 aged 53 [0].
               | She now writes a weekly article ('Spinal Column') that
               | describes her continuing experiences of being
               | tetraplegic. Very insightful concerning the resultant
               | life-shattering injuries.
               | 
               | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Reid
        
       | gherkinnn wrote:
       | Interested in how common broken bones are today, I stumbled
       | across this study:
       | 
       | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12111017/
       | 
       | > There were 6451 men and 6936 women followed for a median of 3.0
       | years. During this time there were 140 incident limb fractures in
       | men and 391 in women.
       | 
       | Whereas OP's archaeological study had:
       | 
       | > Fractures were more prevalent in males (40%, n = 57/143) than
       | females (26%, n = 25/95).
        
         | radu_floricica wrote:
         | Age, maybe? Primary cause for fractures nowadays is
         | osteoporosis, which AFAIK is more serious to women after
         | menopause. Primary cause historically was accidents, with the
         | opposite distribution.
        
           | greatpatton wrote:
           | Sport? I mean almost all the people I know had a broken bone
           | or joint issue because of sport and then you have domestic
           | accident.
           | 
           | For instance in Switzerland each year you have 550k non-
           | professional accident (declared one to your employer) for
           | 8.5M inhabitants. (Ref: SUVA annual report but only available
           | in GE and FR)
        
           | hammock wrote:
           | Why is osteoporosis so prevalent in modern age? Diet?
        
             | stan_rogers wrote:
             | That, and like many cancers, just a larger number of people
             | living long enough to fall victim to it. Women developing
             | what are usually postmenopausal issues more or less
             | requires living to and through menopause. (Yes, old people
             | got to be nearly as old as they do now, but getting to be
             | old was much less of a sure thing.)
        
             | nickff wrote:
             | Osteoporosis is (largely) an old person's disease, and
             | people are now living long enough to get it.
        
             | jandrese wrote:
             | People just live longer.
        
             | lazide wrote:
             | Theory time - it could be due to reduced natural Vitamin D
             | from lower sun exposure, a mostly sedentary life, combined
             | with less life long physical labor (especially for women,
             | who are severely under-represented in construction and
             | heavy industry, which is about the only places you'd get
             | that kind of exercise in modern society).
             | 
             | Lifting weight helps bones get stronger, and Vitamin D is
             | an essential nutrient in proper bone building.
             | 
             | 100 years ago even, most people lived and worked on farms
             | in the US (and many other places), now it's single digit
             | percentages - and many of them spend it driving vehicles
             | and similar less physical labor.
        
               | beckman466 wrote:
               | > especially for women, who are severely under-
               | represented in construction and heavy industry
               | 
               | Seems an odd thing to mention/focus on. Any specific
               | reason for including this?
        
               | lazide wrote:
               | Because women have dramatically higher fracture rates due
               | to osteoporosis (and lower bone mineral density in
               | general) [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11063899/], the
               | only known way (outside of some, last I heard, unproven
               | clinical vibration treatments) to get stronger bones is
               | to lift heavy things while having proper nutrition, and
               | about the only occupational exposure you're going to get
               | to lifting heavy things on a regular basis is those
               | industries?
               | 
               | At least as of 2007 those industries (and related
               | industries) were 78% male
               | [https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2007/06/art2full.pdf]
               | 
               | There is also a similar visible skew in the power
               | lifting, olympic lifting, or weight lifting communities
               | for those into it recreationally.
               | 
               | It used to be we all spent more time lifting heavy
               | things. However, post WW2 that has rapidly declined.
               | 
               | So one way to reduce or reverse this is if we ALL lifted
               | heavy things more often. From a risk reduction
               | perspective, that seems to be especially valuable for
               | women?
        
         | mytailorisrich wrote:
         | Key info missing from your comment:
         | 
         | > _Men and women aged 50-79 years were recruited from
         | population registers in 31 European centers._
         | 
         | They followed _older_ people for 3 years. It is well-known that
         | menopause causes osteoporosis, which makes women more at risk
         | of bone fractures in older age. And in fact this is a study on
         | osteoporosis...
        
         | ndiscussion wrote:
         | Men have had much more dangerous lives throughout history
         | protecting women. I don't find this to surprising, although it
         | is interesting to note.
        
           | zeku wrote:
           | While this is true, I think you're forgetting about all of
           | the ways men could be injured that don't involve actively
           | protecting women.
           | 
           | Need to muscle some livestock? Probably mans job.
           | 
           | Need to cut trees? Probably mans job.
           | 
           | Need to stalk wild game through the forest? Probably mans
           | job.
           | 
           | Need to lift heavy things that could injure you? Probably
           | mans job.
           | 
           | A teenager being too aggressive and overdoing some activity?
           | Probably a man.
           | 
           | It's not hard to see all the ways men could be injured by
           | being men, that doesn't involve protecting women from
           | predators.
        
             | ndiscussion wrote:
             | I believe those are considered the man's job so the woman
             | remains intact.
        
               | zeku wrote:
               | I'm going to be honest, your comments seem like they have
               | an air of... condescension? Towards either other
               | commenters and/or women.
        
               | ndiscussion wrote:
               | Not trying to be condescending to women, but we are a
               | sexually dimorphic species due to the heavy costs that
               | women bear in reproduction (ie they are unable to fight
               | for 9 months, and they can only reproduce ~annually,
               | whereas a man can reproduce ~daily)
        
           | lostlogin wrote:
           | I don't think it's to do with protecting women. Males die
           | more and from all sorts of things, even before birth and as
           | infants. In terms of violent death, there is plenty that is
           | unrelated to protecting women.
           | 
           | "Men's higher unintentional injury, suicide, and homicide
           | mortality rates are observed in all age groups in low-,
           | middle-, and high-income countries. The sole exception is for
           | homicide of children under the age of 15 years in low- and
           | high-income countries, where the rates for girls are similar
           | to or higher than those for boys."
           | 
           | I'm not sure how you would record whether a death was related
           | to protecting a woman?
           | 
           | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222499/
        
             | ndiscussion wrote:
             | In my mind, things like fighting in war, working high-risk
             | jobs, etc, all fall under protecting reproductive resources
             | through history.
             | 
             | Things like suffocation, drowning, and fire are a bit
             | harder to understand... but I believe they are derived from
             | a high-risk mentality that men have gained as a result of
             | this protector status.
             | 
             | Ignoring the radical changes that we've seen in the last 50
             | years, if we sent women to war, we wouldn't have any
             | children. Any nation that did that was wiped off the face
             | of the earth rather quickly.
        
               | lostlogin wrote:
               | > if we sent women to war, we wouldn't have any children.
               | Any nation that did that was wiped off the face of the
               | earth rather quickly.
               | 
               | If gender rolls were reversed wouldn't be many examples
               | where the death toll was high enough for this to occur.
               | 
               | In Britain in the 1921 census there were 1,209 single
               | women aged 25 to 29 for every 1,000 men. In 1931 50% were
               | still single, and 35% of them did not marry while still
               | able to bear children.
               | 
               | After the war there were about 40% fewer single French
               | men for every unmarried woman, compared to before.
               | 
               | Devastating loses but nowhere near enough to threaten the
               | existence of a country. Post WW2 Germany and Russia would
               | also be grim examples. It is of note that the 20th
               | century was the first time that deaths from actual enemy
               | action exceeded deaths from disease during war.
               | 
               | https://qz.com/389781/think-a-good-man-is-hard-to-find-
               | now-t...
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_women
        
               | ndiscussion wrote:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harem
               | 
               | Perhaps we can increase my "50" years to "200" years. For
               | the vast majority of history, having less men was
               | considered eugenic and a good thing.
        
               | sudosysgen wrote:
               | In Islamic societies, men having multiple wives was quite
               | rare, with the vast majority of marriages being
               | monogamous.
               | 
               | It wasn't driven by having less men. It was driven by the
               | upper class wanting more sex.
               | 
               | It also turned out to be disastrous for society, and most
               | of the Islamic world has outlawed or severly restricted
               | the practice as it leads to huge social problems.
               | 
               | The fact is that war has never been a large driver of
               | casualties in these societies, outside of WW1 and WW2
               | which are the two exceptions and really don't prove your
               | point. Wars were never fought to protect women, and most
               | men died of disease and accidents, not war.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | > Devastating loses but nowhere near enough to threaten
               | the existence of a country
               | 
               | After WW1 the average height of a french soldier dropped
               | by an inch or two (don't remember the exact value). This
               | was attributed to the slaughter of the fit men. It also
               | became fashionable to marry old men and foreigners.
               | 
               | I know in Germany after both wars there was the same
               | effect on marriages, but I don't know about the height.
        
               | sudosysgen wrote:
               | People do not fight for the protection of reproductive
               | resources. The peaceful way birth rates fell around the
               | world these days is proof of that.
               | 
               | People fought protecting material resources. Reproductive
               | resources were only useful insofar as they help you
               | produce more subordinates to generate more material
               | resources. In feudalism this meant that reproductive
               | resources were very important, but in slavery and
               | capitalism it isn't really the case.
               | 
               | Given the realities of military engagements in Feudal
               | Europe - and the rather small army sizes - its not true
               | that sending women to war would cause a fatal decrease in
               | the birth rate, at all.
        
               | ndiscussion wrote:
               | I'm speaking of evolutionary biases, not conscious
               | motives... in all species, the men go to war. Female
               | lions do hunt, but they don't fight.
        
               | sudosysgen wrote:
               | What you are saying is simply wrong. Females participate
               | in war in many species, including humans and lions.
               | Female lions will often defend their pride to prevent the
               | attacking lions from killing their cubs, and similarly in
               | humans women often fight in defensive wars.
               | 
               | Evolutionary biases are also essentially irrelevant in
               | how societies are structured. The structures of societies
               | are very intentional and based on material reality, not
               | mere biases.
               | 
               | Generally, men have mostly done the fighting, especially
               | in wars of aggression. The reasons for these are
               | material, as men are often better at fighting. It's not
               | to protect women. When it's useful and makes sense for
               | women to fight, then women fight.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | The miniseries Spartacus (recommended!) decided to pit
               | women gladiators against male ones. Both the men and
               | women were obviously highly fit and ripped. Try as they
               | might, the filmmakers simply couldn't make it look like a
               | fair fight.
        
               | sudosysgen wrote:
               | This is indeed true. That's why women in combat roles
               | historically did not engage in such roles. Instead, women
               | often manned defences, were light archers, and so on.
        
               | ndiscussion wrote:
               | Interesting, do you have any examples of female warrior
               | societies? The wikipedia article seems to start with WW1:
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_military
               | 
               | And even then, they were support, not infantry.
        
               | sudosysgen wrote:
               | Women have been in support and combat positions in war
               | since antiquity. Women buried with weapons were found in
               | Kazakhstan in antiquity, otherwise quite a few Chinese
               | armies had women in infantry positions (most often
               | manning defences). See :
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_warfare
               | 
               | This generally doesn't happen unless either the society
               | is quite rich but lacks strong men, or cases of
               | emergency, or if there is surplus of land and food,
               | because raising armies is very costly, and as a result it
               | doesn't make sense not to send the strongest fighters
               | possible as it is expensive to outfit them and to
               | maintain production at home.
               | 
               | Nowadays, women are proving extremely competent as
               | fighter pilots as their bodies are better at withstanding
               | G-Forces, but in classical infantry where there is a
               | large strength requirement again it doesn't make much
               | sense.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | > as their bodies are better at withstanding G-Forces
               | 
               | Likely coming from being shorter. The heart doesn't have
               | to push the blood as far uphill.
               | 
               | Women do indeed fight, but not until it gets desperate.
        
               | sudosysgen wrote:
               | That is indeed part of why women are better at
               | withstanding g-forces. The other is lower bodymass.
               | 
               | It's true that women generally don't fight until it's
               | desperate historically. I explained why in the comment
               | you replied to.
        
           | skyfaller wrote:
           | What about the men who were living dangerously by assaulting
           | women? What do you think men were protecting women from? If
           | you're going to talk about war, you have to talk about
           | offense as well as defense, and some significant percentage
           | of warriors were injured/killed while attacking, not
           | defending, and then the survivors went on to rape and
           | pillage. Some of these men were taking resources, not
           | protecting them. For some men to be "protectors" means others
           | are aggressors. If men lead more dangerous lives due to war
           | and violence, you've got to consider how much of that danger
           | they created themselves.
           | 
           | "Protection" that involves attacking others first is pretty
           | questionable from a moral and practical standpoint. "No first
           | strike" policies for nuclear weapons, for instance, would go
           | a long way to making the world safer.
        
             | ndiscussion wrote:
             | You can pick and choose words, but ultimately I'm talking
             | about genetic expansion. This has nothing to do with
             | morals, it's the will to power.
        
         | bt1a wrote:
         | I find it difficult to compare these two sets of figures
         | considering you're looking for fractures at any point in life
         | on the skeletons, and for the study, the people were only
         | followed for a median of 3 years (no need to say 3.0 for
         | median).
        
           | ghaff wrote:
           | And while they were apparently counting fractures that had
           | healed, I assume that's an imperfect exercise for relatively
           | minor, clean fractures from many years prior.
           | 
           | I assume a pretty good portion of today's population gets a
           | fracture on a limb at some point in their lives.
        
           | awhitby wrote:
           | It's off topic but there may indeed be a need to say 3.0
           | rather than 3 for median - the use of a median is orthogonal
           | to the choice of precision.
           | 
           | Consider the median of: 2.9, 3.0, 3.1 years.
        
         | ummonk wrote:
         | Seems like a similar ballpark given historical life expectancy
        
       | bb123 wrote:
       | I for found the gender difference quite surprising. I would not
       | have imagined at the bottom levels of an agrarian society that
       | there was much difference in the risks men and women faced.
        
         | detritus wrote:
         | But why? I'd expect across most societies historically for
         | males to engage in more physically stressful work.
         | 
         | Not to undermine the value of women's work across that span, of
         | course - but I'm genuinely surprised at your surprise.
        
           | laurent92 wrote:
           | A fun part about this is, forced labour for men remained
           | legal until 1957's UN treaty. Forced labour was abolished by
           | the ILO treaty of 1930 but had a specific exclusion at
           | Article 11, to exclude men 17-to-49 who didn't have official
           | or familial responsibilities.
           | 
           | ILO 1930 PDF:
           | https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-
           | bangk...
        
         | dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
         | > I for found the gender difference quite surprising.
         | 
         | I'm not sure what you're referring to. Could you provide the
         | relevant quote?
        
           | rtkwe wrote:
           | ^F "male"
           | 
           | > Across all sites the team found fractures were more common
           | in male remains (40%) than female (26%)
        
             | InitialLastName wrote:
             | I wonder how that ratio compares to now. I would assume
             | that men (especially teenage/young adult men) are still
             | more likely to suffer injuries (due to higher risk
             | tolerance/attraction, in addition to continued workplace
             | differences).
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | laurent92 wrote:
               | Men are ~93% of workplace fatality in XXIst century, both
               | in USA and France for which I've seen the figures,
               | although it's only 450 deaths in France. It is on upwards
               | trend for women (very recent trend, probably equalization
               | of work) and downwards trend for men (has been on the
               | decrease since WWII).
        
               | InitialLastName wrote:
               | Specifically, I'm interested in what proportion of people
               | have (at the point of death) had a bone fracture at some
               | point.
               | 
               | I would assume that workplace fatality has been dropping
               | (in line with ~all other forms of non-age-related
               | fatality), but a look back through my mind-palace of
               | anecdotal evidence suggests that a) more of the young men
               | I knew than young women have broken bones and b) not far
               | off 30% of the people I know, in (roughly speaking) the
               | most economically privileged class in world history have
               | broken bones at some point. What I'm curious about is the
               | data to back up the anecdote.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | mytailorisrich wrote:
         | This is not really surprising. Daily tasks were usually quite
         | distinct between men and women.
        
           | dimitrios1 wrote:
           | And this is still the case to this day. The 10 most dangerous
           | jobs in the US are male dominated.
        
       | beckman466 wrote:
       | You hear that Uber eats riders? you peasants, you! You too can
       | make the news in just under 1,000 years, _after_ you 've fallen
       | into a swamp (with your body staying preserved), _after_
       | splitting your head on a rock, _after_ going 30mph around a
       | corner with an about-to-blow tire and a huge 8-person  'late'
       | order in your painfully overburdened backpack, and lastly,
       | _after_ having been exhausted and worn out from the consecutive
       | 60-hour weeks you 've been making as a 'freelancer'...
       | 
       | /s
        
         | libraryatnight wrote:
         | Or just disappear while trying to find a place to pee _.
         | 
         | _https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25983785
        
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