Craig-Atkins, E.

Crossref

Children and childhood in bioarchaeology

White Rose Research Online

This is a repository copy of Children and childhood in bioarchaeology.White Rose Research Online URL for this paper:http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/145515/Version: Accepted VersionArticle:Craig-Atkins, E. orcid.org/0000-0003-2560-548X (2019) Children and childhood in bioarchaeology. Childhood in the Past, 12 (1). pp. 50-51. ISSN 1758-5716 https://doi.org/10.1080/17585716.2019.1587919This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Childhood in the Past on 25/03/2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17585716.2019.1587919eprints@whiterose.ac.ukhttps://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. Children and Childhood in Bioarchaeology. Edited by Patrick Beauchense and Sabrina C. Agarwal. Gainesville, FL. University Press of Florida. 2018. 392pp., $110 (hardback). ISBN 978-0-8130-5680-7.  Children and Childhood in Bioarchaeology is an edited volume of ten papers collated into two parts: The Biocultural Study of Childhood in the Past and Approaches to Life History and the Life Course in Teeth and Bone. In their curation of contributions for this volume, the editors have created an original and accessible collection of high-quality papers which offer the reader a window into the insightful theories and innovative methods that characterise the modern study of childhood in the past from human remains.  Throughout this volume the reader is provided with a series of thoughtful reflections on current theoretical and methodological paradigms: Inglis and Halcrow on theoretical approaches to the bioarchaeology of childhood; Moffat and Prowse on approaches to infant and young child feeding practices; Gosman et al. on the study of growth and skeletal development; and Miller et al. on stable isotope approaches to food consumption practices. While the balance in these papers between restatement of the status quo and substantially novel ways of thinking or working is variable, all offer the reader something new in an accessible and well-informed manner.  There is also a group of papers offering broad-ranging explorations of regional or period-specific data sets: Klaus on the north coast of Peru over the past c. 2000 years; Toyne on Peruvian mass death assemblages; Temple on childhood stress among the late/final Jomon-period foragers of Japan; Gowland and Newman on childhood health inequalities in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England; and Wheeler et al. on childhood in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. These thematic papers, especially those in the second part of the book, are particularly significant. Indeed, the focus of part two of this volume on the specific subject of life course studies is a truly exciting element. The concepts underpinning this theme に  handily summarised in the first paper of the volume by Inglis and Halcrow under デ┘ﾗ ｴW;Sｷﾐｪゲ けﾉｷaW Iﾗ┌ヴゲW ;ヮヮヴﾗ;IｴWゲげ ;ﾐS けﾉｷaW-ｴｷゲデﾗヴ┞ デｴWﾗヴ┞げ に are beginning to be discussed more widely, and are of universal significance for childhood studies in bioarchaeology, so it is important to see here the concentration of papers which offer practical application of these theoretical concepts to familiar bioarchaeological data and common questions concerning past culture and society. The two papers which concern traditional markers of biological stress are a case in point. Gosman et al. examine dental enamel hypoplasia (defects of the teeth corresponding to periods of childhood physiological stress), and Gowland ;ﾐS NW┘ﾏ;ﾐげゲ data concern a suite of stress markers including tibial length, cribra orbitalia, dental enamel hypoplasia and rickets. While both these papers might at first seem to follow a well-trodden path, both offer originality obtained through their appreciation of inter-generational and epigenetic factors. Although this book contains several papers that present no new raw data, or at least are not the first time a particular data set ｴ;ゲ ;ヮヮW;ヴWS ｷﾐ ヮヴｷﾐデが デｴｷゲ ┗ﾗﾉ┌ﾏWげゲ ┗;ﾉ┌W ;ﾐS significance lies elsewhere, in part by demonstrating that quality research does not have to rely on this one sort of novelty alone. I was particularly impressed by the ambition of PW;ヴゲﾗﾐげゲ Hｷｪ-data approach to stable isotope evidence for infant feeding that spanned the last 10,000 years and reassures us that the data gathered from destructive sampling can have an enduring and worthwhile legacy. I also found Toyneげゲ IﾗﾐゲｷSWヴ;デｷﾗﾐ ﾗa IｴｷﾉSヴWﾐ ;s agents of violence, not just as passive victims, illuminating. The creative combination of strands of data that might otherwise be the domain of different specialists is another success of this volume に historical, clinical, ethnographic and statistical approaches are interwoven effortlessly with the bioarchaeological data.  It is the confidence with which such a breadth of innovative ways of thinking about extant and traditional bioarchaeological data are presented that makes this book worth reading に not just skimming デｴW ﾗSS ヮ;ヮWヴ ┘ｴｷIｴ aｷデゲ ﾗﾐWゲげ own research interests に  but in its entirety. There is a clear sense of strong editorial direction here in the selection and ordering of the contributions, and they work together as a whole on multiple levels. This publication marks a step change in the maturation of the field of the bioarchaeology of childhood and instils excitement about what we might collectively achieve in the future.   Elizabeth Craig-Atkins, University of Sheffield  .  

https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/145515/3/Book%20review%20-%20Children%20and%20Childhood%20in%20Bioarchaeology%20SSCIP.pdf

Children and childhood in bioarchaeology

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Crossref

White Rose Research Online