Yes / Early life is associated with high vulnerability to morbidity and mortality - risks which can be reduced in infancy and early childhood through strategically high levels of parental or alloparental investment, particularly in the case of maternal breastfeeding. Recent evidence has supported links between early-life health and care patterns and long-term population health. This growing body of research regarding the broader impacts of infant-parent interactions transcends a traditional partitioning of research into discrete life stages. It also highlights implications of childhood data for our understanding of population health and behaviour. Skeletal and environmental data indicate that the 5-7th century cemeteries at Littleport and Edix Hill (Barrington A), Cambridgeshire represent populations of similar material culture but contrasting environments and health. The high prevalence of skeletal stress markers at Littleport indicates a community coping with unusual levels of biological stress, potentially a consequence of endemic malaria present in the marshy Fen environs. In contrast, Edix Hill was an inland site which exhibited lower skeletal stress marker prevalence comparable to wider British data for the early medieval period. Early life patterns relating to diet and physiological stress at Littleport (n=5) and Edix Hill (n=8) were investigated through analyses of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from incrementally-sampled deciduous dentine. Meaningful variation in isotopic values within and between populations was observed, and should be a focus of future interdisciplinary archaeological childhood studies. / The Society for the Study of Human Biology, the Durham University Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and by the Rosemary Cramp Fund.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/17528 |
| Date | 05 December 2019 |
| Creators | Kendall, E.J., Millard, A., Beaumont, Julia, Gowland, R., Gorton, Marise, Gledhill, Andrew R. |
| Publisher | Springer Nature |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book chapter, Accepted manuscript |
| Rights | © 2020 Springer. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27393-4. |
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