Objectives: This study tests, for the first time, the applicability of a new method of sex estimation utilizing enamel peptides on a sample of deciduous and permanent teeth at different stages of mineralization, from nonadults of unknown sex, including perinates. Materials and methods: A total of 43 teeth from 29 nonadult individuals aged from 40 gestational weeks to 19 years old were analyzed. The sample included pairs of fully mineralized and just developing teeth from the same individual. The individuals were from four archaeological sites in England: Piddington (1st-2nd centuries AD), Coach Lane, Victoria Gate, and Fewston (all 18th-19th centuries). A method that identifies sex chromosome-linked isoforms of the peptide amelogenin from human tooth enamel was applied. The method utilizes a minimally destructive acid etching procedure and subsequent nano liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Results: It was possible to determine the sex of 28 of the nonadult individuals sampled (males = 20, females = 8, undetermined = 1). Only one sample failed (CL9), due to insufficient mineralization of the sampled tooth enamel. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD021683. Discussion: Sufficient peptide material to determine sex can be recovered even from the crowns of developing perinatal teeth that are not fully mineralized. The minimally destructive and inexpensive (compared to ancient DNA) nature of this procedure has significant implications for bioarchaeological studies of infancy and childhood.
Post-Medieval London (16 th -19 th centuries) was a stressful environment in which to be poor.Overcrowded and squalid housing, physically demanding and risky working conditions, air and water pollution, inadequate diet, and exposure to infectious diseases created high levels of morbidity and low life expectancy. All of these factors pressed with particular severity on the lowest members of the social strata, with burgeoning disparities in health between the richest and poorest. Fetal, perinatal and infant skeletal remains provide the most sensitive source of bioarchaeological information regarding past population health and in particular maternal wellbeing. This chapter examined evidence for chronic growth and health disruption in 136 fetal, perinatal and infant skeletons from four low status cemetery samples in post-Medieval London.The aim of this study was to consider the impact of poverty on the maternal/infant nexus, through an analysis of evidence of growth disruption and pathological lesions. The results highlight the dire consequences of poverty in London during this period from the very earliest moments of life.
Children have become firmly embedded within multidisciplinary investigations of young lives, yet within these studies, the youngest members of past populations persist in lingering on the margins of discussion. Fetal, perinatal and infant lives are tangential; unable to articulate their thoughts and feelings, with their position and role in society typically a product of parental or wider social vectors, these individuals, their experiences, and their roles are complex to decipher. Yet as keepers of both biological and social dataregarding themselves, their mothers and wider community dynamicsthese individuals are central in developing comprehensive narratives of infanthood in the past. However, a lack of methodologies for investigating these young lives has been a constant limitation. With recent advancements able to further our understanding of these early life courses, it is now pertinent to focus on fetal, perinatal and infant lives further.
The last two decades have seen an exponential rise in scholarly interest and research into childhood, and children, in the past (e.g. Scheuer & Black 2000; Baxter 2005; Lewis 2007; Finlay 2013; Halcrow et al. 2018). Multiple publications have explored the scholarly origins of the field, detailing its complex and multidisciplinary development (Prout 2005; Halcrow & Tayles 2008; Lillehammer 2015; Mays et al. 2017). Several authors (e.g. Lillehammer 2015; Mays et al. 2017) have also, very successfully, synthesised extant research themes and investigations, and proposed future research directions. Consequently, although this field is in its relative infancy, its voice is louder than ever as the importance of studies of childhood and children in the past is realised.
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