Acts of life: Assessing entheseal change as an indicator of social differentiation in postmedieval <scp>Aalst</scp> (<scp>Belgium</scp>)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Lower levels of physical activity are often linked to higher socio‐economic status (SES) in past societies. As an activity marker, changes at muscle attachment sites known as entheseal changes (ECs) have been used with varying efficacy. This study investigates this proposed link between EC as a physical activity marker and SES within one well‐defined temporo‐geographic context. EC data from 16 entheses in three skeletal collections from the postmedieval town of Aalst, Belgium, were evaluated using the Coimbra method. The skeletal assemblages represent distinct socio‐economic groups, evidenced by historical and dietary isotope data. The Louis D'Haeseleerstraat sample represents lower class individuals (n = 46), the Hopmarkt sample middle‐class individuals (n = 110), and the Saint Martin's church (n = 13) higher class individuals. EC data are tested for correlation to status, age, and sex. EC patterns did not differ significantly between the SES groups at any entheses except the musculus (M.) iliopsoas and common extensor, where the higher class showed more EC. Within the populations, at the Hopmarkt, sexual differences were only observed in the Achilles tendon attachment, whereas at the Louis D'Haeseleerstraat, sexual differences were present in the M. triceps brachii, M. brachioradialis, and quadriceps entheses. Only some entheses showed a significant correlation with age, and these were inconsistent between populations. ECs are not a reliable indicator of SES in postmedieval Aalst. This could suggest that the hypothesis that the wealthy were less physically active oversimplifies the lives of people in the past. It could also suggest that EC is not a suitable proxy for physical activity, or that it cannot be used without in‐depth knowledge of the types of activities performed by various socio‐economic groups in addition to consideration of all other aetiological factors. This study illustrates the caution necessary when using EC as a proxy for social status in past societies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".