Investigating Childhood Metabolic Health during the Rise of the Athenian Democracy

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Bioarchaeology of the Phaleron Cemetery, Archaic Greece: Current Research and Insights" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Sociopolitical change, such as that which occurred during the Archaic period in Athens (700–480 BCE), has the potential to increase food scarcity and physiological stress. When dietary diversity is negatively affected, women and children are often the first to suffer the effects of insufficient micronutrient uptake. Thus, investigating metabolic disorders in archaeological populations is essential for understanding both a population’s nutritional health and the etiology of early childhood stressors. This study investigates paleopathological indicators of metabolic stress in preadult individuals from Phaleron Cemetery (n = 75), ranging in age from birth to 15 years, to understand the potential impact of sociopolitical transition on nutritional insufficiency at Phaleron. In this sample, 81% had at least one indicator of physiological stress that could be related to nutritional deficiencies, and 36% had a suite of stress indicators consistent with scurvy, suggesting significant undernutrition among those who did not survive to adulthood. However, because scorbutic indicators may resemble markers of normal growth, other metabolic disorders, or nonspecific physiological stress, multiple etiologies and possible comorbidities are considered and evaluated. Furthermore, we argue that the presence of these indicators in individuals who would have been breastfeeding may indicate maternal nutritional stress.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Bioarchaeology of the Phaleron Cemetery, Archaic Greece: Current Research and Insights   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39368.0