Doctoral Dissertation Research: A bioarchaeological examination of early institutional services and juvenile care and health

Juveniles are an especially vulnerable group whose health is strongly influenced by the care they receive. Such care is a major health determinant, as early life stress can influence lifetime and even intergenerational health outcomes. Numerous institutions arose historically to provide this care, including religious institutions like monasteries that offered social and health services. This doctoral dissertation research project investigates the impact that such services had on juvenile health by comparing skeletal evidence of stress in juveniles from monastic and non-monastic sites. The research provides historical context for understanding how and why these institutions survived and how they operate today, including how access and effectiveness vary with factors such as age, status, or location. The project contributes to undergraduate and graduate training in transferable laboratory skills, as well as to open data projects and science outreach efforts. This study has three primary objectives: (i) to propose an expanded bioarchaeological model of juvenile care which fully considers sociocultural context and is applicable to juveniles of a range of biological and social age categories, (ii) to subsequently demonstrate the model’s efficacy by applying it to a complex care network, and (iii) to determine how early social and health services functioned in the network of care to impact juvenile health. Bioarchaeology of care models use a step-by-step approach which includes the diagnosis and analysis of pathological and stress indicators, biological and social care needs of the individual/group and the nature of that care, and the agency of both the caregivers and receivers. Within this framework, the researchers compare skeletal stress indicators, mortality data, and cultural data between three skeletal collections (urban monastic, rural monastic, and non-monastic). Results from this project can demonstrate the applicability of an expanded bioarchaeology of childcare framework as well as contribute to the understanding of social and health services by more thoroughly characterizing their early history and impact on juveniles across time. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.