Blue Bridge Lane
&
Fishergate House
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Cancerous tumours often affect the soft tissue, which may explain why they are infrequently observed in archaeological populations. Additionally, cancer is usually a disease of the elderly and as it is assumed that as past populations had a shorter longevity than their modern counterparts, they may not have lived for long enough to suffer from neoplastic disease as much as modern populations.
The most common tumours observed in palaeopathology are benign tumours, especially ivory or button osteomas, recently also termed mamartoma (Eshed et al2002, 229). They are common in both modern (27.6%) and archaeological populations (41.1%) (Eshed et al 2002). Osteomas are small, dense and round, protrude from the bone and form in the bone surface (periosteum) (Capasso 1997). They produce no pain and are most frequently noted on the skull, especially on the frontal or parietals, and can occur in single or multiple form. They have also been observed on the clavicle, humerus, femur, tibia (Aufderheide and Rodríguez-Martín 1998, 375) metatarsal and mandible (Holst et al forthcoming). In archaeological populations, the frequency of osteomas has been found to rise with increasing age, while there was no significant statistical difference between the distributions of lesions by sex (Eshed et al2002, 225).
Osteomas were noted in five individuals (2%), all of whom were old middle adults or mature adults. One mature adult female (C1484) had three osteomas on the frontal and right parietal. However, the osteomas of the remaining four individuals were found in more unusual locations: one osteoma was noted on the right part of the occipital of a mature adult female (C1525), while a mature adult male (C1313) had a possible osteoma on the right squamous, although an alternative diagnosis must be suggested because the lesion was oval, rather than of the typically circular shape. This lesion may have been an ossified haematoma, with a traumatic rather than neoplastic origin (discussed above). Further osteomas were noted at the centre of the left clavicular shaft of a mature adult male (C1075) and the distal shaft of the left ulna of an old middle adult female (C1312).
The prevalence of osteomas was identical at Blackfriars, with 2%, but was slightly higher at Hull Magistrates Court (5%) and St Andrew's (4%) and lower at St Nicholas Shambles (1%). This suggests that the prevalence of osteomas at Fishergate House corresponds approximately with the average prevalence rate for medieval populations in England.
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