osteoarchaeology

Childhood and the development of urbanisation

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The collection of papers in this special issue of Childhood in the Past edited by Francesca Fulminante showcase research on infancy and childhood with sophisticated theoretical and methodological approaches to this topic. This issue represents a significant contribution to understanding the role of children and childhood during the transition to urbanization in Europe through the lens of multiple approaches, including bioarchaeological, archaeological, cognitive developmental (palaeoanthropological), sociological and historical research on infants and children, using a variety of new analytical techniques. This issue moves chronologically from the consideration of cognitive development during prehistory to the nineteenth-century urban environment. Check it out!

Moulded terracotta, beige clay with inclusions, H 9,3 cm, W 6 cm, Veii, sanctuary of Campetti 1, Rome, Museo Nazionale etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv. n. C/168. 3rd–2nd c. BCE. See Pedrucci 2021, 236, Veii 60. Courtesy of the Museum. © Mauro Benedetti.

Online resources on infant and child bioarchaeology for teachers and students

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There is an increasing number of online imaging resources and software useful for the bioarchaeology of infant and children. These resources are of particular use for teaching.

Online Imaging Resources and Software

Gwen Robbins Schug from Appalachian State University (US) has developed Osteological Teaching Resources, which features a growing collection of 3D scans of human fetal and perinatal remains. Digitised Diseases, developed by the University of Bradford (UK), is a significant paleopathological resource with an impressive array of 3D models of bone pathology useful for comparative purposes. Infants and children are featured in many of their disease category types, particularly in the metabolic disease section. eSkeletons, an interactive resource for students in biological anthropology, contains limited child osteology resources. The AAOF Craniofacial Growth Legacy Collection, a database on
craniofacial development in modern children developed by the American Association of Orthodontists for clinical use, may be of use in teaching and research by bioarchaeologists. El Atlas de Osteología Infantil FACSO is being developed for teaching and learning purposes and includes infant reference material. Three-dimensional data sharing is starting to be used among paleoanthropologists for recording and sharing new fossil hominin finds, particularly because of their rare and unique nature.
However, it is our understanding that there are no open access 3D scan data of infant and child remains. There is also little software available featuring infant and child osteology. The interactive 3D skeleton viewer Dactyl (by Anthronomics), designed by Tim Thompson from the University of Teesside (UK), has some examples of child bones. Most bioarchaeologists construct their own databases for data collection in both lab and fieldwork situations. There is an increasing number of human fetal, infant, and child casts available for purchase from Bone Clones, Inc. and France Castings for teaching and research purposes.

• AAOF Craniofacial Growth Legacy Collection.

Extensive open-access database produced by the American Association of Orthodontists
Foundation (AAOF), which includes nine collections of longitudinal craniofacial growth and development records in the United States and Canada. Developed for clinicians, but also represents a useful resource for craniofacial development for teachers and researchers in the field of childhood bioarchaeology. Material includes skull, dental, and hand-wrist radiographs.

• Dactyl (by Anthronomics). Tim Thompson, University of Teesside, UK.

An interactive 3D viewer loaded with photo-realistic models of bones, allowing you to rotate and zoom in on each model. The viewer comes with three preloaded adult bone elements, and there are additional packs that you can purchase, which include a “non-adult pack” with 2 bones (femur and ilium). This app is available for purchase on iTunes and can be downloaded onto an iPad.

• Digitised Diseases. University of Bradford, UK.

An open-access resource featuring human bones that have been digitized, with a wide range of pathological-type specimens from archaeological and historical medical collections. Infant and child pathology cases including trauma, metabolic, and infectious disease. Includes photorealistic digital representations of 3D bones that can be viewed, downloaded, and manipulated on a computer, tablet, or smartphone.

• El Atlas de Osteología Infantil FACSO.

An open-access atlas project developed by students of physical anthropology at the University of Chile. This atlas is part of a larger project of developing human osteology resources for teaching and learning. The infant material is from the site of Pica 8, northern Chile, from the Late Intermediate Period.

• eSkeletons. University of Texas at Austin.

Useful interactive resource to learn about human skeletal anatomy and comparative primate skeletal anatomy. Limited child osteology, including a life-size print of juvenile human bones in their teaching resources. Useful for students of all stages.
eSkeletons. University of Texas at Austin.

• Robbins Schug, Gwen. Osteological Teaching Resources. Appalachian State University.

Provides 3D scans of human fetal bones to be used for teaching purposes. The database is added to over time, with the ultimate goal to provide scans of all the skeletal elements from fetuses of different ages and perinates, cases of pathology, and traumatic injury. For access email: Robbinsgm@gmail.com

A comprehensive online resource on childhood bioarchaeology published with Oxford Bibliographies is available here free to download.

This will be useful to all bioarchaeology and human osteoarchaeology students, and academics for research and teaching.

Halcrow, Siân E.; Ward, Stacey M. “Bioarchaeology of Childhood.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Childhood Studies. Ed. Heather Montgomery. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Blogs

There are a very limited number of blogs on childhood from a bioarchaeological perspective, with this blog, obviously, dedicated to the topic. The Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past has a news blog as part of their WordPress website featuring member profiles, research and conference information, and other society-related news. Other popular bioarchaeological blogs, including Powered By Osteons and, regularly include material on childhood bioarchaeology. Katharina Rebay-Salisbury has also recently started a blog called Motherhood in Prehistory, focusing on her bioarchaeological work in western Europe, which includes information on fetuses and infants in the past.

• Halcrow, Siân, and Sally Crawford. Childhood in the Past News and Blog.

This blog, established in 2015, functions to keep the members of the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past (cited under Associations) up-to-date with news on conferences,
meetings, new research, and other opportunities in the multidisciplinary field of childhood in the past.

• Killgrove, Kristina. Powered by Osteons.

Established in 2007, this popular blog showcases Kristina Killgrove’s own research and
teaching as well as stories on recent bioarchaeological research. These blog stories often
involve child bioarchaeology. Killgrove is also a contributor for Forbes and mental_floss.

• Rebay-Salisbury, Katharina. Motherhood in Prehistory.

Established in 2015, this blog shares stories related to the author’s work investigating
motherhood in prehistoric western Europe. Often her posts include information about infants and fetuses.

Video resource on age estimation of infants and children

https://childhoodbioarchaeology.org/2019/10/16/video-on-infant-and-child-age-estimation-in-bioarchaeology/Screen Shot 2019-10-16 at 8.40.47 PM

There are numerous other educational stories on childhood bioarchaeology that will be useful for students, e.g.

Why do we have baby teeth

 

 

 

Raising girls and boys in early China

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Analysing 2500-year-old teeth has thrown open a window onto life and gender inequality during Bronze Age China.

The University of Otago-led research has cast light on breastfeeding, weaning, evolving diets and the difference between what girls and boys were eating, lead researcher Dr. Melanie Miller, a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Otago’s Department of Anatomy, says.

The teeth come from the Central Plains of China and date from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, between 771 and 221 BC. Despite their extreme antiquity (they are as old as Athens’ Parthenon and the Old Testament sacking of Jerusalem’s First Temple) the teeth’s dentin—the bony tissue forming the bulk of our teeth’s structure—was full of information.

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Using , researchers were able to show the types and amounts of various elements in the dentin, including carbon and nitrogen, unlocking information about the individuals’ life and diet. That enabled a picture to be drawn of a changing society, Dr. Miller says.

“We already knew this [Eastern Zhou Dynasty] showed increasing inequality between men and women. What we were able to find is that these differences were even evident in what people ate and how they cared for their children, such as gender differences in how long babies were weaned and then the foods they were fed as children.”

The analysis of 23 individuals from two different archaeological sites shows children were breastfed until they were between 2.5 and four years old, with weaning onto solids—consisting mostly of wheat and soybean—occurring slightly earlier in females than in males.

“For the two communities we studied, was an integral aspect of identity, and it was a medium of differentiation between females and males. We found dietary differences between the sexes began in and continued over the lifetime.

“That means the foods people ate on a regular basis were slightly different if they were a boy or girl, and then a man or a woman.”

Males continued to eat more of the traditional crop, millet, while females consumed more of the “new” foods such as wheat and soy, Dr. Miller says. That wheat and soy foods were important components of childhood diets suggests they were incorporated into local culinary practices as weaning foods.

The Eastern Zhou Dynasty is a very important period of Chinese history and Chinese cultural change; it is the time of Confucius and other notable intellectuals, Dr. Miller says.

“And we are seeing some of the earliest forms of social inequality between men and women emerge during this time, and these dietary results underscore how the daily lives of women and men were increasingly differentiated, even in daily practices such as what foods a person ate.”

Dr. Miller says the chemical techniques used in this type of bioarchaeology are making it possible to study ancient human dietary practices over those peoples’ lifetimes.

“With this approach we’re getting personalised glimpses into the lives of ancient people. That can reveal significant aspects of their life experiences, including things like gender divisions and social inequality.”

More information: Melanie J. Miller et al. Raising girls and boys in early China: Stable isotope data reveal sex differences in weaning and childhood diets during the eastern Zhou era, American Journal of Physical Anthropology (2020). DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24033

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10968644

 

Growing up different in Neolithic China – a case of dwarfism – Forbes article by Kristina Killgrove

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“What we can say is that this individual would have likely had extra care needs where support from other community members was needed,” they write, “possibly both as the result of physical and/or mental disability, and that these would have presented early in life or were apparent at birth.”

Forbes piece by Kristina Killgrove

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879981719301342

Guangia Figure 4 updated

 

Mother and baby die during complicated birth in Neolithic China

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A new study has found the first evidence in ancient China of a mother and newborn baby who died as the result of birth complications. Writing in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology Zhao and colleagues describe a young woman buried with a newborn baby placed between her lower legs from Huigou, a Yangshao 仰韶文化(Neolithic) site dated from around 3900-2900BC in Henan, China.

Examining the bones of the young woman the authors found that there is a bony lesion that they speculate may be related to a scar from a previous difficult childbirth. The dimensions of the woman’s pelvis were compared with data from modern Chinese women and it was suggested that the length of the front of her pelvis would have caused problems during birth.

Although when I first looked at this photo of the baby between the legs of this young woman I was reminded of coffin birth the authors point out that this baby is buried similarly as the other individuals in the cemetery placed supine with their head towards the north and with its arms extended at the side of their body. The authors state that there is no evidence for a coffin for this burial so there would have been no open space as it would have been infilled with dirt. However, I would argue that the constriction of the body as shown by the elevated clavicles (collar bones) and aligned arm bones show that the body was constricted somehow, indicating that there may have been some kind of burial container or wrapping and consequently some empty space.

Nevertheless, this case gives us the first real glimpse into the nature of childbirth and mortality in ancient China. Interestingly, infants were normally buried in urns in places set apart for this age group during this time period in this region. Although this double burial of the mother and baby may have simply been practical, the authors speculate that the baby may not have been deemed a separate person at this life stage.

 

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Babies found with human skull helmets in ancient Ecuador

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See Kristina Killgrove’s Forbes story on this new paper.

Two infants have been interred with bone helmets (the skull cap) of other juveniles at the ritual complex of Salango in Ecuador dated to 100BC. This is the first evidence globally for the manipulation of infant and child skulls in this way. The bones used for the helmets have evidence for being cut and shaped around the time of death and the positioning in the grave suggests that they were buried at the same time as the infants.

This research highlights the importance of the study of burial treatment and manipulation of infant and child bodies in past societies. The authors state that the human head (and skull) is important socially and culturally. In some societies human skulls are manipulated and used as symbols of relationships, status, power, and control. In South America infants and children have been found to be given complex mortuary ritual, which the authors argue contributes to protecting their “presocial and wild souls”. Interestingly, the infant heads were surrounded with stone ancestor figurines that they speculate indicates a “concern with protecting and empowering the heads”.

There is evidence for pathology on the bones of the two infants indicating they suffered from nutritional and/or infectious disease. The authors state that this finding is unusual for the area and time period. However, I think this is likely due to the previous lack of interest in the study of pathology in infants in the region and development of new methods for identifying disease in this age group. A case in point is the reanalyses of the infants and children from the Arica region in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile (Snoddy et al. 2018), which has shown a very high prevalence of nutritional disease in infant and children overlooked by previous specialists.

 

Snoddy AME, Halcrow SE, Buckley HR, Standen VG and Arriaza BT (2017), “Scurvy at the agricultural transition in the Atacama Desert (ca 3600–3200 BP): Nutritional stress at the maternal-foetal interface?”, International Journal of Paleopathology. Vol. 18, pp. 108 – 120.

Skull trauma in children indicates violent pre-Hispanic Canary Island societies

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There is a romanticised view that pre-Hispanic societies from the Canary Islands lived in a ‘paradise on earth’ without violence and conflict. However, recent work by anthropologists has shown that there is evidence for intentional trauma in adults from pre-Hispanic sites suggesting inter-personal violence. A recently published paper has found that the young were not spared this violence, with a high number of children from the island of Gran Canaria with skull trauma. This is significant as there is generally less evidence for violence in children compared with adults from archaeological contexts.

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Figure 1: A seven year old child from Guayadeque, Gran Canaria, with blunt force trauma occurring around the time of death (from Velasco-Vázquez et al. 2018).

 

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Figure 2. Areas of the skull that showed traumatic injury (from Velasco-Vázquez et al 2018).

The infants and children analysed in this research are from sites that cover an expansive part of the pre-Hispanic occupation of Gran Canaria from the 6th to 15th century CE. The authors studied a total of 65 infants and children looking to identify any sharp force trauma, puncture injuries, and blunt force trauma on the skull. Fourteen children suffered from craniofacial injuries, all of which were blunt force trauma, and two of these children have evidence that this trauma resulted in their death (e.g. Figure 1). Most of the skeletal trauma occurred on the face or forehead, a similar pattern observed in adult studies of trauma in these populations (Figure 2).

Children could have been engaged as actors in this violence as well as the victims. Although early scholars painted the Canary Islands as a peaceful and bountiful paradise, ignoring  evidence for social inequality and conflict, there is archaeological evidence for marked social hierarchy and resource depletion in this insular community, which likely led to significant social unrest.

Uncovering childhood in museums

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Personal Reflections By Amanda Hoogestraat, Twitter @AmehAnthro

On my recent tour of museums in the UK, I saw small reminders of children in the exhibits featuring past societies. Children were obviously a part of every community, but are underrepresented in museum collections. There is a museum devoted to childhood in both London and Edinburgh, but perhaps other museums should consider adding more children’s items to their collections for a more balanced representation of life in the communities it displays.

For many of the museums that had childhood material culture, shoes or cradles were the only items on view.

Four out of the 55 museums that I visited had children’s skeletal remains on display; usually infants and mostly with an adult skeletons nearby. Rarely did I see older children.

However, it was the toys that interested me the most; to see how the cherished play items were very similar to those of today.

I also observed how visiting children interacted with the exhibits, especially at museums not designed specifically for them. Some of these museums had created play areas pertaining to a display nearby.

Surprisingly, the British Motor Museum was a place that had children’s programs and school tours.

I think everyone enjoys seeing items from a childhood different from our own lives or from our own childhoods. It reminds us that across time and location, children were an integral part of the society.

Egyptian ‘hawk’ mummy is a human foetus with a fatal birth defect

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Recently researchers have made an unexpected discovery of a mummified foetus while CT scanning a 2300-year-old mummy known as Ta-Kush currently held at the Maidstone Museum in Kent. This coffin was labelled, “A mummified hawk with linen and cartonnage, Ptolemaic period (323 BC – 30 BC).”

Micro-CT scan shows the mummified stillborn human baby. Image: Maidstone Museum UK/Nikon Metrology UK

The high resolution CT scan results have recently been presented at the Extraordinary World Congress on Mummy Studies in the Canary Islands last month. The authors argue that the foetus was about 23-28 weeks gestation and had anencephaly as shown by underdeveloped skull bones.

To me, this begs the question as to whether the several other Egyptian ‘hawk’ mummies curated around the world are actually tiny babies. Further investigation of this baby and others will shed light on the social responses of grief and loss of those born too young to survive.

Watch here on YouTube Mummy ‘bird’ mystery

The coffin. Image: Western University