The measurement of skeletal strontium/calcium (Sr/Ca) ratios can provide information on the proportion of meat and vegetable foods in the diets of prehistoric peoples. This information is based in the well-documented reduction of Sr/Ca ratios in terrestrial food chains. The reduction, and therefore the paleodietary technique, is complicated by (a) differences in Sr/Ca ratios entering food chains, and (b) metabolic considerations such as age, pregnancy, etc. Changes in Sr/Ca ratios during interment may also obscure biological Sr/Ca levels.



The theoretical basis of the technique, its complications, and practical use by anthropologists are reviewed, in an attempt to define the quality of information currently and potentially available from Sr/Ca analyses.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ajpa.1330250505

Strontium and paleodietary research: A review

Publisher Summary
This chapter reviews how patterns of skeletal growth and pathology can be used to investigate changing patterns of human interaction with the nutritional environment. Much of the effort in paleonutrition research has been directed toward the identification of dietary items. The realization that the skeletal pathologies of archaeological populations could aid in interpreting adaptation stimulated research in this area. The greatest drawback to the use of skeletal populations in nutritional studies is the generalized nature of their response to Stressors. Skeletal pathologies are most useful for archaeological reconstruction when a series of general and specific measures are analyzed for an entire skeletal population. In this way, both chronic and acute stress can be recognized, and the severity of each assessed. The future productivity of paleonutritional studies will require cooperation not only between anthropological subdisciplines, but between anthropology and a variety of other disciplines. Skeletal analysis, in particular, is increasingly oriented toward the techniques of chemistry and microbiology.

Nutritional Inference from Paleopathology

Middle and Late Pleistocene paleoscape modeling along the southern coast of South Africa

Infants and children are nearly universally found to be among the most vulnerable subgroups of a population. Their health can be a sensitive indicator of the health of the population as a whole. Furthermore, repeated bouts of illness during infancy and childhood, periods of rapid development, can have lasting functional effects on the individual and the group. In this paper we provide a framework for studying infant and childhood health in archaeological populations, briefly review methods for studying infant‐childhood health in skeletal remains, and provide examples of the sensitivity and adaptive significance of this segment of the population by examining infant and childhood health at Dickson Mounds, Illinois and Wadi Haifa, Sudanese Nubia. A variety of methods are available for studying infant and childhood health in archaeological groups. Taken together, these methods can provide insights into the patterns and consequences of health in prehistory.

/pdf/infant-and-childhood-morbidity-and-mortality-risks-in-l1ols8rpdw.pdf

Infant and childhood morbidity and mortality risks in archaeological populations.

D EVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE IS INTENDED, typically, to ". . . enable the poor . . . in developing countries to meet their basic human needs on a sustainable basis" (USAID 1978). One of the most basic needs of the poor in less developed countries is adequate nutrition (see World Bank 1978). Most programs of agricultural and rural development are intended, directly or indirectly, to improve the nutritional status of disadvantaged populations (see USAID 1977), but the gap between intent and accomplishment is often wide. Although there is some evidence that direct health and nutrition interventions can significantly improve the nutritional status of the poor at minimal cost (Gwatkin et al. 1979), there is growing uncertainty about the impact of indirect means of raising nutritional status. Such indirect approaches-including employment generation, development of infrastructure, land reform, and raising the productivity of smallholder agriculturalists-have, in the past, been thought to have a generally positive effect on nutrition among the poor majority by raising income and improving food consumption. But Berg (1973), Reutlinger and Selowsky (1976), and others have suggested that, because of maldistribution, certain aspects of malnutrition can persist-especially among the poor-in the face of otherwise successful general development programs. These findings imply that currently there is insufficient awareness of the "malnutrition problem." Too little attention has been directed to the ways in which specific development programs affect community-level social and economic conditions, which, in turn, may affect nutritional status. Thus, there is no general understanding of how specific development programs, apart from direct interventions, may affect consumption patterns and therefore nutritional status. As an initial, perhaps oversimplified illustration, consider the following sets of circumstances under which consumption-related malnutrition may arise:' (1) Food production is inadequate, due to lack of land, labor, capital, or any one of these; (2) Food production is adequate, but some people cannot afford enough food, or the

https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNAAV877.pdf

Gail G. Harrison

Papers

Nutritional Anthropology and Biological Adaptation