The Culture and Biology of Breastfeeding: An Historical Review of Western Europe

Fildes, Valerie

doi:10.4324/9781315081984-4

Cited by 20 publications

(31 citation statements)

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“…This sets Fishergate House apart from contemporary sites such as Wharram Percy where weaned children have much lower d 15 N ratios than the adults Richards et al, 2002;Fuller et al, 2003). The Wharram Percy data supports the medieval literature, which describes children as the lowest status member of a household with only limited access to meat, dairy, or fish (Fildes, 1986(Fildes, , 1995MacLehose, 1996;Shahar, 1990). The Fishergate House results show that the relationship between socioeconomic status, age, and diet in medieval Britain may be more complex than is often assumed.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

“…This is supported by previous work using rib samples from the site (Burt, 2013). Despite indications that the Fishergate House children would be the lowest status individuals in their home and fed primarily grain gruel (Fildes, 1986(Fildes, , 1995MacLehose, 1996;Shahar, 1990); they appear to have access to prized resources (marine fish and pig). Whether these resources were specifically prepared for the children or if these findings indicate that the children were eating a combination of what their mothers and fathers ate cannot be determined from this study.…”

Section: Total Population Reconstruction Using Deciduous Teethsupporting

confidence: 54%

“…A pregnancy specific diet incorporating higher trophic level foods is unlikely (Fildes, 1986(Fildes, , 1995MacLehose, 1996;Shahar, 1990) indicating a possible metabolic effect that can be seen in the d 15 N and d 13 C values. This relationship continues to be explored by the author and other fetal researchers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The childhood enrichment does not seem to be the result of mixed or prolonged breast feeding in the population. This is supported by historic writing from the period (Fildes, 1986(Fildes, , 1995MacLehose, 1996;Shahar, 1990). There is evidence in the individual patterns that the d 15 N values decrease very little or stay the same as the child gets older (Figs.…”

Section: Unusual Individual Isotopic Trendsmentioning

confidence: 93%

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Individual dietary patterns during childhood: an archaeological application of a stable isotope microsampling method for tooth dentin

Burt

2015

Journal of Archaeological Science

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Section: Total Population Reconstruction Using Deciduous Teethsupporting

confidence: 54%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Unusual Individual Isotopic Trendsmentioning

confidence: 93%

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Individual dietary patterns during childhood: an archaeological application of a stable isotope microsampling method for tooth dentin

Burt

2015

Journal of Archaeological Science

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“…Breastfeeding, weaning, and childhood dietary practices are essential milestones in an individual's life history. They are to some extent conditioned by basic human physiological needs, but are also strongly influenced by cultural understandings of nutrition and health (Howie, Forsyth, Ogston, Clark, & Du, 1990), by child and parental social and economic identities and relationships (Fildes, 1995), and by religious beliefs and lifeways (Fouts, 2004;Ineichen, Pierce, & Lawrenson, 1997). In addition, subsistence regimes, mobility, and availability of suitable infant foods all play key roles (Schurr & Powell, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infant and childhood diet at the passage tomb of Alto de la Huesera (north‐central Iberia) from bone collagen and sequential dentine isotope composition

Fernández-Crespo

Czermak

Lee‐Thorp

2018

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

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During the Late Neolithic (ca. 3500–2900 cal BC), the Rioja Alavesa region of north‐central Spain witnessed great demographic pressure and social unrest, manifested as widespread violent conflict. Drawing upon the ethnographic literature, it is possible that this situation impacted upon child‐rearing practices, both through food shortages and differential parental investment, favouring male infants. Here, carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope measurements from bone collagen of 17 juveniles and from 163 serial microsamples of dentine from first and second molars of seven adults from the site of Alto de la Huesera are used to examine breastfeeding, weaning, and childhood diets. Bone and dentine collagen δ13C and δ15N isotope values both decrease from infancy to early childhood and increase slightly towards adolescence, but dentine provides a more time‐sensitive means of monitoring dietary changes. High δ13C and δ15N values compatible with exclusive breastfeeding are detected up to ca. 1 year, with a significantly shorter duration among males, suggesting differential sex‐related parental strategies from infancy. This is tentative given the small number of individuals being compared, but does suggest that further work would be worthwhile. A gradual decline in both δ13C and δ15N, compatible with the weaning process, is then observed up to ca. 4 years in both sexes. This delayed cessation of nursing is interpreted as a possible response to food shortage. With regard to postweaning patterns, shifts to lower δ13C and δ15N values in females at around age 9–11, and a general progressive increase in both isotope values from childhood to adolescence, are detected. These could be linked either with differential protein intake due to social age‐related nutritional practices or to physiological demand. The comparison between bone and dentine values shows differences between survivors and nonsurvivors in both isotopes, so that assessments based on deceased children may be biased by their potentially compromised health status.

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Infant mortality and isotopic complexity: New approaches to stress, maternal health, and weaning

Beaumont

Montgomery

Buckberry

et al. 2015

American J Phys Anthropol

212

162

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M (2015) Infant mortality and isotopic complexity: new approaches to stress, maternal health and weaning. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 157(3): 441-457, which will be published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ ajpa.22736. Materials and MethodsChildhood dentine collagen  13C and  15N profiles were produced from horizontal sections of permanent and deciduous teeth following the direction of development. These were from two 19 th -century sites (n = 24) and a small number (n = 5) of prehistoric samples from Great Britain and Ireland. ResultsThese high-resolution data exhibit marked differences between those who survived childhood and those who did not, the former varying little and the latter fluctuating widely. DiscussionBreastfeeding and weaning behavior have a significant impact on the morbidity and mortality of infants and the adults they become. In the absence of documentary evidence, archaeological studies of bone collagen of adults and juveniles have been used to infer the prevalence and duration of breastfeeding. These interpretations rely on certain assumptions about the relationship between isotope ratios in the bone collagen of the adult females and the infants who have died. The data from this study suggest a more complex situation than previously proposed and the potential for a new approach to the study of maternal and infant health in past populations. 3Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios from archaeological bone and dental tissues have been used for more than 20 years to investigate breastfeeding and weaning practices. Early studies, which revolutionized the use of bone collagen stable isotopes, identified patterns within the tissues of fetuses (less than 28 weeks gestation), neonates (28-40 weeks gestation) and infants (28 days to 1 year post-birth)(Lewis and Gowland 2007) which revealed the potential to investigate the duration of breastfeeding and weaning in past populations (e.g. Fogel et al. 1989;Katzenberg et al. 1993;Schurr 1997;White and Schwarcz 1994). Katzenberg (1996) reviewed previous interpretations of the method and cautioned against the potential effect of using the tissues of dead infants without knowing the cause of death and the potential for stress, bone turnover and growth to alter the isotope ratios of both mother and infant. Subsequently, a simplified method, based on a mathematical model of the isotope ratio variations which should be associated with a dietary change from breastmilk to the prevailing diet of the adult population, was proposed and widely accepted (Schurr 1997;Millard, 2000;Jay, 2008). This method has since been applied to data from modern, historical and archaeological tissues to estimate the timing of weaning and whether breastfeeding occurred over prolonged periods.The mathematical model has been used pragmatically despite the often-acknowledged fact that it makes several assumptions about the relationships of mother and infant body tissues, their diets, and the comparability of individual members of a population with the o...

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The Culture and Biology of Breastfeeding: An Historical Review of Western Europe

Cited by 20 publications

References 0 publications

Individual dietary patterns during childhood: an archaeological application of a stable isotope microsampling method for tooth dentin

Individual dietary patterns during childhood: an archaeological application of a stable isotope microsampling method for tooth dentin

Infant and childhood diet at the passage tomb of Alto de la Huesera (north‐central Iberia) from bone collagen and sequential dentine isotope composition

Infant mortality and isotopic complexity: New approaches to stress, maternal health, and weaning

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