The Health Status of (Medieval) Dilkaya People

The remains composing the material of this study are obtained from Van/Dilkaya excavations. Dilkaya Mound is located at the west of Dilkaya village of Van’s Edremit province, near the coast of Lake Van. The aim of this study is to investigate pathological structure of medieval population of Dilkaya and to use this data in identification of health structure as well making a comparison with other Anatolian populations. A total of 319 individuals in Dilkaya medieval people were examined in terms of paleopathology and estimations about the life style of the population were made. The ratio of the adults which have osteoarthritis at least in one vertebral bone is 82,05%. Similarly, the ratio of adults which have schmorl nodules at least in one vertebral bone is 89,74%. Moreover, 52,56 % of the adults show osteoarthritis in their joints. In Medieval Population of Dilkaya, the ratio of adult individuals who had lifestyle related pathology in at least one vertebral bone or joint is 97,44% while most of the lifestyle related pathologies in the vertebral bones and joints are observed in males and it was observed that the pathology increases with age. Due to the fact that pathological lesions affect all age/gender groups; small amount of the population have infectious diseases and the presence of osteoarthritis is observed since younger ages; the Medieval Population of Dilkaya is concluded to be a village population of agricultural economy. Moreover, the nutrition and the hygienic conditions were shown to be relatively better than other Anatolian Populations