Schmorl nodules and their relationship to body biomechanical demand. Comparative study of human remains from the mountains and plains of north-central Mendoza during the late holocene period

One of the injuries that most affect the spine in human remains of ar-chaeological origin is Schmorl's Nodes (SN), whose origin is usually at-tributed to multiple causes, such as joint degenerative processes, trauma, or functional stress due to physical activity. The objective of this work is to analyze the presence of NS in adult individuals from Central-Northern Mendoza (CNM) during 2400-300 years BP , to relate its frequency to the possible cultural changes that occurred during this period. There was a 26% of individuals with NS recorded in the sample analyzed (7/27), most of them with multiple lesions and greater involvement in the lumbar segment (9%). Young adults showed higher prevalence (33%) than older adults (17%), which would suggest that degenerative processes would not be the main cause of NS but rather would be related to physical activity patterns resulting from economic and cultural practices. Moreover, it was more frequent in individuals from the mountain region (33%) compared to those from the plains (22%) during the period considered. This sug-gests that the lifestyles of the groups that inhabited the mountain region would have had a greater demand for biomechanical stress, with a greater impact on the spinal column which was not a constant during the period analyzed.