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The Mother-Infant Nexus in Anthropology pp 103–123Cite as

What Doesn’t Kill You: Early Life Health and Nutrition in Early Anglo-Saxon East Anglia

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Part of the book series: Bioarchaeology and Social Theory ((BST))

Abstract

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 through 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 fifth- to seventh-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.

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Acknowledgements

Funding for this study was provided by the Society for the Study of Human Biology, the Durham University Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and by the Rosemary Cramp Fund, which is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would also like to thank Gaynor Western and Archaeological Project Services, Heckington for access to skeletal material and sampling permissions for Littleport, and the Cambridgeshire Historic Environment Team for access and sampling permissions for Edix Hill. Further thanks are due to Steven Robertson, Beth Upex, Amanda Hayton, Martin West, and Alison George for technical support. Finally, we would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments on improving this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Ellen J. Kendall, Andrew Millard & Rebecca Gowland

  2. School of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK

    Julia Beaumont, Marise Gorton & Andrew Gledhill

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  1. Ellen J. Kendall
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  2. Andrew Millard
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  3. Julia Beaumont
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  4. Rebecca Gowland
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  5. Marise Gorton
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  6. Andrew Gledhill
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Correspondence to Ellen J. Kendall .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Rebecca Gowland

  2. Department of Anatomy, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Siân Halcrow

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Kendall, E.J., Millard, A., Beaumont, J., Gowland, R., Gorton, M., Gledhill, A. (2020). What Doesn’t Kill You: Early Life Health and Nutrition in Early Anglo-Saxon East Anglia. In: Gowland, R., Halcrow, S. (eds) The Mother-Infant Nexus in Anthropology. Bioarchaeology and Social Theory. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27393-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27393-4_6

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-27393-4

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