An anthropologoical study of the human remains from yasileh

Abstract EN

Yasileh is a classical site containing information that date back to the Hellenistic, Roman Byzantine, and early Islamic periods.

Yasileh has an important geographic location as it occupied a crossroad area between Jordan, Syria and Palestine.

The land in and around the site is very fertile and very w'ell suited for agricultural purposes.

The people of Yasileh cultivated various types of grains, vegetables and in particular grapes which was used for wine processing as evidenced by the many wine presses discovered at the site.

The people of Yasileh were agriculture-dependent and raised domesticated animals as shown by the remains of animal bones such as sheep, and goats.

One hundred and forty three skeletons recovered from eight tombs with varied number of skeletons.

The Yasileh tombs were badly disturbed in antiquity as well as in recent times which resulted in the fragmentation of almost all remains with very few exceptions.

However, we were able to derive some information from several skulls as well as their teeth.

First, the Yasileh people were definitely of the Caucasian racial stock as evidenced by the skull morphology.

Second, attrition or the wearing away of the teeth is present in high incidence which was the result of introducing abrasive elements during food preparation since the most common way of food processing was by grinding grains on metates made from sand stone.

Third, there was also a high incidence of antemortem tooth loss which is being attributed to periodontal disease which were not properly treated and the lack of hygiene in daily life.

Work is being continued at the site and we hope to derive more information in the near furture.