The Mother-Infant Nexus in Anthropology

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Introduction: The Mother-Infant Nexus in Archaeology and Anthropology

   • Rebecca Gowland, Siân Halcrow

   Pages 1-15

3. Infant and Maternal Health in Bioarchaeology

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 17-17

      PDF

   2. Infants in the Bioarchaeological Past: Who Cares?

      • Siân Halcrow

      Pages 19-38

   3. Like Mother, Like Child: Investigating Perinatal and Maternal Health Stress in Post-medieval London

      • Claire M. Hodson, Rebecca Gowland

      Pages 39-64

   4. The Mother-Infant Nexus Revealed by Linear Enamel Hypoplasia: Chronological and Contextual Evaluation of Developmental Stress Using Incremental Microstructures of Enamel in Late/Final Jomon Period Hunter-Gatherers

      • Daniel H. Temple

      Pages 65-82

4. Nourishment and the Nexus

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 83-83

      PDF

   2. The Ecology of Breastfeeding and Mother-Infant Immune Functions

      • Elizabeth M. Miller

      Pages 85-101

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

      • Ellen J. Kendall, Andrew Millard, Julia Beaumont, Rebecca Gowland, Marise Gorton, Andrew Gledhill

      Pages 103-123

   4. Cooperative Lactation and the Mother-Infant Nexus

      • Aunchalee Palmquist

      Pages 125-142

5. Social and Cognitive Interactions in Early Life

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 143-143

      PDF

   2. Mothering Tongues: Anthropological Perspectives on Language and the Mother-Infant Nexus

      • Sallie Han

      Pages 145-155

   3. The Mother-Infant Sleep Nexus: Night-Time Experiences in Early Infancy and Later Outcomes

      • Helen L. Ball

      Pages 157-171

   4. Moving Beyond the Obstetrical Dilemma Hypothesis: Birth, Weaning and Infant Care in the Plio-Pleistocene

      • April Nowell, Helen Kurki

      Pages 173-190

6. Rupturing the Nexus: Infant Loss in the Archaeological Record

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 191-191

      PDF

   2. Using Bone Histology to Identify Stillborn Infants in the Archaeological Record

      • Thomas J. Booth

      Pages 193-209

   3. Archaeothanatology as a Tool for Interpreting Death During Pregnancy: A Proposed Methodology Using Examples from Medieval Ireland

      • Mélie Le Roy, Eileen Murphy

      Pages 211-233

   4. Touching the Surface: Biological, Behavioural, and Emotional Aspects of Plagiocephaly at Harappa

      • Gwen Robbins Schug

      Pages 235-256

   5. Ruptured: Reproductive Loss, Bodily Boundaries, Time and the Life Course in Archaeology

      • Rebecca Gowland

      Pages 257-274

   6. Concluding Thoughts: Small Beginnings, Significant Outcomes

      • Siân Halcrow, Rebecca Gowland

      Pages 275-277

Over the past 20 years there has been increased research traction in the anthropology of childhood. However, infancy, the pregnant body and motherhood continue to be marginalised. This book will focus on the mother-infant relationship and the variable constructions of this dyad across cultures, including conceptualisations of the pregnant body, the beginnings of life, and implications for health.



This is particularly topical because there is a burgeoning awareness within anthropology regarding the centrality of mother-infant interactions for understanding the evolution of our species, infant and maternal health and care strategies, epigenetic change, and biological and social development.



This book will bring together cultural and biological anthropologists and archaeologists to examine the infant-maternal interface in past societies. It will showcase innovative theoretical and methodological approaches towards understanding societal constructions of foetal, infant and maternal bodies. It will emphasise their interconnectivity and will explore the broader significance of the mother/infant nexus for overall population well-being.

• developmental origins of health and disease
• origins of early life adversity
• maternal-infant health relationships in archaeological contexts
• immunological & social approaches to infant feeding
• stress responses in infants

• Department of Archaeology, Durham University, Durham, UK

  Rebecca Gowland

• Department of Anatomy, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

  Siân Halcrow

Rebecca Gowland is an Associate Professor in Human Bioarchaeology at the Department of Archaeology, Durham University. Her research focuses on the inter-relationship between the body and society in the past and she is particularly interested in the life course and age as an aspect of social identity. She has co-edited the Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains (2006, Oxbow) and Care in the Past: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (in press, Oxbow), and has co-authored Human Identity and Identification (2013, CUP). In addition, she has published widely in peer-reviewed journals on methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of skeletal remains. Rebecca teaches bioarchaeology, with a particular emphasis on palaeopathology, to undergraduate and postgraduate students

Siân Halcrow is an Associate Professor in Bioarchaeology at the University of Otago, with a research focus on infant and child stress and disease in the past and social aspects of childhood. She manages the skeletal analyses on several international archaeological projects in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, China and Chile. Dr Halcrow's research is funded through sources including the NZ Royal Society Marsden fund, University of Otago Research Grants, and Fulbright NZ. She is also a Partner Investigator on Australian Council Research Grants. She has published widely on infant and child bioarchaeology, and teaches undergraduate health science and biological anthropology courses, and a postgraduate bioarchaeological course.​

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