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Sex and the elderly: Attitudes to long-lived women and men in early Anglo-Saxon England ☆
Abstract
Currently, in the industrialised world, women have a higher life expectancy than men, a pattern often seen in the past as well. However, in Britain, from the Neolithic to medieval period, it has been suggested that men outlived women. One issue with such statistics is that age estimation techniques are often biased, underestimating the age of older individuals, while the oldest individuals in a sample often disappear into catch-all categories such as 50+ years. Here we employ an approach that renders visible the older individuals in three archaeological cemeteries (Great Chesterford; Mill Hill; Worthy Park) to assess gendered longevity and differential mortuary treatment of the elderly in Anglo-Saxon England. We find that women tended to outlive men and while some elderly females were respected in death, others were more likely to receive a non-normative burial than males. Old males tended to receive 'elaborate' burial, and were less likely to receive a deviant burial. It appears that ageing in Anglo-Saxon England was a gendered process, with some older women respected like their male counterparts, while others were possibly perceived less auspiciously.
... The elderly is the cohort most likely to be buried with grooming items, especially tweezers (Cave and Oxenham forthcoming), but neither of these individuals took such items to their graves. While high status Anglo-Saxon male or masculine burials signal martial rank, female or feminine graves exhibit aspects of beauty (Cave and Oxenham 2017). Burial 94, although interred with a highly decorative brooch, was unlikely to have been beautiful: either because they were male (cranially sexed as male -see above), masculine in appearance or due to their advanced age (it is worth noting that females can develop male-like cranial features with increasing age (Walker 1995, 36)). ...
... These two relatively plain burials, one of muted femininity and one of potentially feminised masculinity, stand in contrast to the wealth of the male/masculine burials from this latest phase. Elderly men are more generously treated in death than elderly women (see Cave and Oxenham 2017) and this pair reflects this finding. Were their relatively modest graves representative of their liminalities? ...
... e elderly is the cohort most likely to be buried with grooming items, especially tweezers (Cave and Oxenham forthcoming), but neither of these individuals took such items to their graves. While high status Anglo-Saxon male or masculine burials signal martial rank, female or feminine graves exhibit aspects of beauty (Cave and Oxenham 2017). Burial 94, although interred with a highly decorative brooch, was unlikely to have been beautiful: either because they were male (cranially sexed as male -see above), masculine in appearance or due to their advanced age (it is worth noting that females can develop male-like cranial features with increasing age (Walker 1995, 36)). ...
... ese two relatively plain burials, one of muted femininity and one of potentially feminised masculinity, stand in contrast to the wealth of the male/masculine burials from this latest phase. Elderly men are more generously treated in death than elderly women (see Cave and Oxenham 2017) and this pair reflects this finding. Were their relatively modest graves representative of their liminalities? ...
Liminalities and ambiguities can be useful in identifying complex patterns in many areas of study. This paper examines two elderly burials from the Anglo-Saxon cemetery of Mill Hill, Deal, Kent in England. These two individuals display multiple liminalities, particularly with respect to their advanced age, gendered identities and in their potential religious beliefs. Their advanced age suggests they spent the last years of their lives in the knowledge that they were close to the ultimate transition: death. Moreover, being quite elderly has likely affected their gendered identities, rendering them muted, altered and/or de-gendered. The combination of their elderly status, their physical position in the cemetery and the phasing of their graves suggests they were the last two individuals buried at Mill Hill, possibly some considerable time after it had gone out of general use. Their graves are dated to the Final Phase or Conversion Period of Early Anglo-Saxon England when, among other changes, Christianity begins to become the dominant religion; this and the presence of an unexcavated cemetery nearby, with goods pointing to a later date than this one, suggests the possibility that these two individuals were the last pagans in their community. These are all factors which point to the multiple liminalities of the two individuals.
... The skeletal sample from the Worthy Park cemetery has been included in several pieces of research since its excavation; many utilising the rich archaeological evidence within multi-site analyses or further discussion regarding early Anglo-Saxon mortuary practices (Bohling, 2020;Cave & Oxenham, 2017;Sayer & Dickinson, 2013;Stoodley, 2000). Others have focused solely on individuals from the Worthy Park population, further illustrating the wealth of information from the cemetery. ...
Previous applications of empirical palaeodemographic methods on Early Medieval English skeletal samples are minimal, likely due to factors including demographic sample bias. Recent improvements to palaeodemographic estimations, however, have focused on ways in which some biased samples can still be meaningfully investigated. This study incorporates the D0-14/D and D15-49/D15+ models for estimating fertility and to also detect possible underenumeration of age cohorts in a skeletal sample. The early Anglo-Saxon skeletal sample Worthy Park, Kingsworthy is used for this demonstration, as the representative nature of the population sample is already questioned. Results indicate that the Early Medieval people represented within this sample are estimated to have a moderate to high fertility rate (4.328-7.156) over the 200-years of cemetery use. The results also confirm likely demographic under-representation within the sample; with the pre-adult age-at-death cohort (i.e. 0-14 years) most affected. Through stepped manipulation of the age-at-death distribution, it is hypothesised that there is also under-representation of older adults (50+ years) in the sample. The archaeological context of Early Medieval England is also considered alongside these results, with evidence to suggest that the local Anglo-Saxon settlement , who primarily used the Worthy Park cemetery, may have seen more higher-yield agricultural practices earlier than other regions, or at least the demographic effects of immigration. This article provides an in-depth case study, demonstrating the use of how coordinating fertility models and pre-existing archaeological context can further strengthen the palaeodemographic assessment of skeletal samples despite possible under-representation.
A paleohistologia é uma ferramenta com diversas possibilidades de aplicação em contextos arqueológicos, como, por exemplo, na estimativa de idade dos indivíduos, auxílio no diagnóstico de doenças que atingem os ossos, entendimento das estratégias de subsistência e dieta, descrição de processos tafonômicos e na diferenciação entre osso humano e não humano. Apesar das muitas possibilidades relacionadas à técnica, algumas das limitações, como o fato de se tratar de uma método invasivo de pesquisa, fazem com que a paleohistologia seja muito pouco usada em contextos sul-americanos, contando com apenas dois estudos. Este artigo busca trazer um panorama geral, histórico e metodológico, apresentando as possibilidades e limitações trazidas pelos estudos paleohistológicos, bem como uma breve reflexão acerca dos desafios e potencialidades que se relacionam ao início das pesquisas em paleohistologia no Brasil.
Liminalities and ambiguities can be useful in identifying complex patterns in many areas of study. This paper examines two elderly burials from the Anglo-Saxon cemetery of Mill Hill, Deal, Kent in England. These two individuals display multiple liminalities, particularly with respect to their advanced age, gendered identities and in their potential religious beliefs. Their advanced age suggests they spent the last years of their lives in the knowledge that they were close to the ultimate transition: death. Moreover, being quite elderly has likely affected their gendered identities, rendering them muted, altered and/or de-gendered. The combination of their elderly status, their physical position in the cemetery and the phasing of their graves suggests they were the last two individuals buried at Mill Hill, possibly some considerable time after it had gone out of general use. Their graves are dated to the Final Phase or Conversion Period of Early Anglo-Saxon England when, among other changes, Christianity begins to become the dominant religion; this and the presence of an unexcavated cemetery nearby, with goods pointing to a later date than this one, suggests the possibility that these two individuals were the last pagans in their community. These are all factors which point to the multiple liminalities of the two individuals.
The provides an overview of the main features of social structure in England during the fifth to seventh/eighth centuries AD. The term 'social structure' is applied loosely here, referring to all aspects of social organisation and differentiation. The emphasis is squarely on archaeological data, and given the state of research and the nature of the available evidence, burials and cemeteries figure prominently in this survey. Historical evidence is brought to bear on the various questions where possible, but neither special expertise nor exhaustive treatment is claimed here for the evaluation of written sourcs. The two main types of evidence relate to different, but overlapping phases: the burial evidence dates mainly to the fifth to seventh centuries whereas written sources do not start before the seventh century.
The repair, customisation and use-adaptation of early Anglo-Saxon brooches are frequently observed practices and, crucially, they embody object biography. This paper provides a quantitative assessment and descriptive survey of the procedures involved, and concludes that together they demonstrate that some types of brooch were not readily replaceable. It is suggested here that this behaviour is better explained by the inalienable nature of some of these objects than by their economic value. Early Anglo-Saxon society's social reproduction was based on gift-exchange as opposed to economic transaction, and the value of brooches must be viewed in this context. Brooches were integral to the construction of age-related feminine identities in the everyday performances of dressing and display, as well as to the preparation of the cadaver for the funeral, and were also possibly exchanged or bestowed during rites of passage. It is from such cumulative performances that some brooches gained a value that was specific and perhaps inseparable from the context of their owners.
Significance
Public interest in social and economic equality is burgeoning. We examine a related phenomenon, lifespan equality, using data from charismatic primate populations and diverse human populations. Our study reveals three key findings. First, lifespan equality rises in lockstep with life expectancy, across primate species separated by millions of years of evolution and over hundreds of years of human social progress. Second, industrial humans differ more from nonindustrial humans in these measures than nonindustrial humans do from other primates. Third, in spite of the astonishing progress humans have made in lengthening the lifespan, a male disadvantage in lifespan measures has remained substantial—a result that will resonate with enduring public interest in male–female differences in many facets of life.
Objective: To model the impact of dementia on past societies. Method: We consider multiple lines of evidence indicating elderly individuals to have been more common throughout the past than is frequently accepted. We then apply known dementia incidence/prevalence rates to plausible assumptions of past population structures to suggest prevalence in the past. Results: Dementia prevalence in premodern societies is likely to have been around 5% of the rate seen in modern, developed countries but with a total past incidence running into billions. Discussion: Dementia is often seen as a “modern” challenge that humans have not had to contend with before. We argue that this condition has had considerably greater effects than previously envisaged and is a challenge that humans have already withstood successfully, on one hand at a lower incidence but on the other without the considerable clinical, technological, and social advances that have been made in recent times.
The elderly are the most neglected demographic in archaeology. In today's youth-obsessed society the elderly are consistently denigrated, particularly those perceived to be physically or mentally frail. A related and growing concern in contemporary populations is the physical abuse of the elderly, believed to be an escalating phenomenon. This study is the first to examine the risk factors, social context, and patterns of trauma associated with elder abuse in the present, with the aim of providing diagnostic criteria to apply to past societies. The utility of skeletal evidence in the identification of violent trauma has been detailed in cases of child and intimate partner abuse, both modern and archaeological. Investigating the skeletal evidence for elder abuse is potentially more complex due to the confounding physiological effects of the ageing process, the lack of clinical research, and contemporary ageist attitudes towards older people. Within the clinical and bioarchaeological literature there has been a tendency to dismiss injuries in older individuals as the product of accident or opportunistic violence. A proportion of elder members of past societies are likely to have been victims of abuse and family violence. Whilst there are no pathognomonic skeletal features of elder abuse, multiple injuries to the bones of the following are indicative: cranium, maxilla-facial region, dentition, cervical vertebrae, clavicles, ribs and spiral fractures to the humeri. Attention is also drawn to decubiti as indirect skeletal indicators of immobility and possibly neglect. Archaeological context is important to consider, including non-normative burials or those indicating social marginalisation. Bioarchaeological evidence has the potential to provide a long term perspective on the care and treatment of past elders. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
The purpose of this article is to present new oral health data from Neolithic An Son, southern Vietnam, in the context of (1) a reassessment of published data on other Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Age Southeast Asian dental series, and (2) predictions of the Neolithic Demographic Transition (NDT). To this end, frequencies for three oral conditions (caries, antemortem tooth loss, and alveolar lesions) were investigated for seven Southeast Asian adult dental series from Thailand and Vietnam with respect to time period, age-at-death and sex. A clear pattern of elevated rates for oral disease in the Neolithic followed by a marked improvement in oral health during the Bronze and Iron Ages was observed. Moreover, rates of caries and antemortem tooth loss for females were almost without exception higher than that for males in all samples. The consensus view among Southeast Asian bioarchaeologists that oral health did not decline with the adoption/intensification of agriculture in Southeast Asia, can no longer be supported. In light of evidence for (1) the low cariogenicity of rice; (2) the physiological predisposition of females (particularly when pregnant) to poorer oral health; and (3) health predictions of the NDT model with respect to elevated levels of fertility, the most plausible chief explanation for the observed patterns in oral health in Southeast Asia is increased levels of fertility during the Neolithic, followed by a decline in fertility during the subsequent Bronze and Iron Ages. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
In this article we shall be analysing the representations of old age and ageing made by three generations of older women with different life stories (single, married, children and childless). Our principal findings, based on a qualitative analysis of 25 in-depth interviews conducted with three generations of older women (65–74, 75–84 and 85 and older), mainly reveal their reluctance and even refusal to define themselves as ‘older or elderly women’, largely due to persistent stereotypes linking old age to dependency, social isolation and fragility. Aware of the social prejudice regarding women and old age, they reject it unanimously. Older women represent a challenge to these homogenising preconceptions of old age, which they, on the contrary, experience in a multitude of ways, often enjoyable. Their conceptions of ‘ageing well’ are diverse and do not correspond to a clinical definition of ageing. Their representations of ‘ageing well’ and of ageing express positive values of autonomy, independence, consistency and integrity, maintenance of physical and intellectual health, and being socially active so they can ‘stay in the swing of things’, in the continuum of their lives and future projects, rather breaking with contemporary life or existing on the margins of society.
The Anglo-Saxon weapon burial rite was independent of the intensity of warfare; it did not always reflect functional fighting equipment; it was not determined by the individual ability to fight, nor by the actual participation in combat. Weapon burial was positively correlated with burial wealth, with labour investment into the burial, and with stature; and it was, in some places at least, determined by descent. The latter, therefore, emerges as the only factor which clearly determined who was buried with weapons, and who was not. Thus, it was not so much the individual's rank or status which was displayed in the burial with weapons, but the status of his family - which is exactly what anthropologists tell us to expect in a complex society. The Anglo-Saxon families which practised the weapon burial rite appear to have been wealthier than the families that did not; and in the fifth and sixth centuries, the weapon-burying families were of Germanic stock whereas the others were a heterogeneous group which probably included Celts. It would be wrong to call the families with weapon burial "nobles" or "aristocrats" because they are too numerous: half of the Anglo-Saxon men of the fifth to seventh centuries cannot have been "noblemen". But the social élite of the early Anglo-Saxon society was probably among those families which buried their men with axes, swords or seaxes: these men had the tallest stature and the strongest physique, and their burials saw the greatest investment in grave-goods and labour. Its correlations shows the Anglo-Saxon weapon burial rite to have been a symbolic act: weapon burial was not the reflection of a real warrior function, but the ritual expression of an ethnically, socially and perhaps ideologically based "warrior status".
Inaccuracies introduced through biases in preservation are a major source of error in paleodemographic reconstructions. Although it is generally assumed that such biases exist, little is known about their magnitude. To investigate this problem, we studied age and sex differences in the preservation of skeletal remains from Mission La Purisima and a prehistoric cemetery (Ca-Ven-110). Comparison of mortality profiles obtained through analysis of skeletal remains and burial records from the mission indicates that biases in preservation can be very significant in poorly preserved skeletal collections. The Purisima burial records show that most of the people interred in the cemetery were either infants or elderly adults. The skeletal remains, in contrast, are predominantly those of young adults. The burial records and skeletal collection produced comparable sex ratios. These results show that age biases in preservation are much more important than sex biases. This conclusion is supported by data on the completeness of the skeletons from La Purisima and Ca-Ven-110. At both sites, the remains of young adults were better preserved than those of children or elderly adults, and the completeness of male and female skeletons was comparable.
This thesis uses the cruciform brooch, a well-represented and highly decorative dressfastener,
as an entry point for looking at the construction of identities relating to ethnicity,
gender, age, and power in the early Anglo-Saxon period. The examination of this artefact
is holistic and multi-dimensional, and the major topics of consideration are: (a) typology
and stylistic variability, (b) chronology, (c) distribution, (d) mortuary context, (e) use,
repair and costume, and finally (f) iconography and symbolism. These threads come
together to provide an understanding of why and how the cruciform brooch evolved as it
did, how it was used in life and death (and by whom), and the complex social identity the
artefact was used to construct and display.
Given an overview of the variability of LBK funerary practices and integrates them into a common interpretative scheme
There is a striking and unexplained male predominance across many cancer types. A subset of X-chromosome genes can escape X-inactivation, which would protect females from complete functional loss by a single mutation. To identify putative 'escape from X-inactivation tumor-suppressor' (EXITS) genes, we examined somatic alterations from >4,100 cancers across 21 tumor types for sex bias. Six of 783 non-pseudoautosomal region (PAR) X-chromosome genes (ATRX, CNKSR2, DDX3X, KDM5C, KDM6A, and MAGEC3) harbored loss-of-function mutations more frequently in males (based on a false discovery rate < 0.1), in comparison to zero of 18,055 autosomal and PAR genes (Fisher's exact P < 0.0001). Male-biased mutations in genes that escape X-inactivation were observed in combined analysis across many cancers and in several individual tumor types, suggesting a generalized phenomenon. We conclude that biallelic expression of EXITS genes in females explains a portion of the reduced cancer incidence in females as compared to males across a variety of tumor types.
The relationship between beauty practices, femininity and feminism is well documented in the scholarly literature. In many societies, ‘doing’ beauty is a vital component of ‘doing’ femininity: being beautiful, as defined by the norms of a society — for example, in terms of skin type and complexion, and body shape, size and appearance — and working towards achieving those conventional standards are an accepted (and expected) part of what women do by virtue of being ‘women’. Some feminists (associated, especially, with the ‘second wave’) have criticized normative beauty practices, and the highly profitable commercialized beauty industry that drives those practices, as oppressive upon women generally. The beauty industry has been targeted for upholding narrow and restrictive definitions of beauty, for reinforcing the burden of ‘lookism’ upon women (namely, women are constantly judged by how they look), and for promoting unhealthy body image obsessions and potentially harmful beauty procedures (Bordo, 1995; Coward, 1984; Kilbourne, 1999). However, other feminists (identified with the ‘third wave’ and whose views quite easily fit within that of postfeminism), have reclaimed beauty practices as enjoyable, self-chosen and skilled feminine pursuits (e.g. Jervis and Zeisler, 2006).
Sex differences in longevity can provide insights into novel mechanisms of aging, yet they have been little studied. Surprisingly, sex-specific longevity patterns are best known in wild animals. Evolutionary hypotheses accounting for longevity patterns in natural populations include differential vulnerability to environmental hazards, differential intensity of sexual selection, and distinct patterns of parental care. Mechanistic hypotheses focus on hormones, asymmetric inheritance of sex chromosomes and mitochondria. Virtually all intensively studied species show conditional sex differences in longevity. Humans are the only species in which one sex is known to have a ubiquitous survival advantage. Paradoxically, although women live longer, they suffer greater morbidity particularly late in life. This mortality-morbidity paradox may be a consequence of greater connective tissue responsiveness to sex hormones in women. Human females’ longevity advantage may result from hormonal influences on inflammatory and immunological responses, or greater resistance to oxidative damage; current support for these mechanisms is weak.
Objectives:
To examine changes in active life expectancy in the United States over 30 years for older men and women (aged ≥ 65 years).
Methods:
We used the 1982 and 2004 National Long Term Care Survey and the 2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study to estimate age-specific mortality and disability rates, the overall chances of survival and of surviving without disability, and years of active life for men and women.
Results:
For older men, longevity has increased, disability has been postponed to older ages, disability prevalence has fallen, and the percentage of remaining life spent active has increased. However, for older women, small longevity increases have been accompanied by even smaller postponements in disability, a reversal of a downward trend in moderate disability, and stagnation of active life as a percentage of life expectancy. As a consequence, older women no longer live more active years then men, despite their longer lives.
Conclusions:
Neither a compression nor expansion of late-life disability is inevitable. Public health measures directed at older women to postpone disability may be needed to offset impending long-term care pressures related to population aging. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print March 17, 2016: e1-e7. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2016.303089).
The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology presents the results of recent research and illuminates those aspects of Anglo-Saxon Studies upon which archaeology has had the greatest impact. The book explores the complex relationship between archaeological, historical, anthropological, and literary methods. Since the early 20th century the scholarly study of Anglo-Saxon texts has been augmented by systematic excavation and analysis of physical evidence - settlements, cemeteries, artefacts, environmental data, and standing buildings. This evidence has confirmed some readings of the Anglo-Saxon literary and documentary sources and challenged others. More recently, large-scale excavations both in towns and in the countryside, the application of computer methods to large bodies of data, new techniques for site identification such as remote sensing, and new dating methods have put archaeology at the forefront of Anglo-Saxon studies.
This article focuses on the development of the EU’s strategic relationship with China, by exploring the balance amongst three key mechanisms mobilized by the EU: framing, negotiation and management. The article outlines these issues in general, relating them to relevant conceptual and theoretical concerns, and then applies them to the EU–China strategic relationship. Through an examination of the framing ideas embodied in key documents, the development of an EU–China “negotiated order”, and the management of cooperation and competition in sectoral and institutional contexts, the article identifies a number of key tensions and requirements for effective coordination, which affect the potential development of an effective EU strategy.
Issue is here taken about inference from skeletal evidence to the darker side of Dark Age life and death.
This article addresses how the current understandings of gender and gender roles have arisen, before investigating the possibilities for how it might be interpreted and understood through the archaeological evidence available today. The apparent gender division within early Anglo-Saxon burial archaeology arises from the inclusion of distinct grave-good assemblages. The studies outlined have helped to delineate the major patterning present in early Anglo-Saxon gendered grave furnishing: use of restricted sets of grave-goods, mainly limited to certain adult males and females, but with some adaptations for those aged twelve and over, and sometimes a concomitant decline in gender signaling in older age groups. Artefacts associated with particular types of craft production can give some indications as to the location of gendered activity. Historical and legal sources for the Anglo-Saxon period can also contribute to the picture derived from archaeological evidence.
The evidence for Anglo-Saxon diet presented in this article is derived from stable isotope analysis (carbon and nitrogen), ceramic residue analysis, cess pit analyses, and other archaeological features. Archaeological floral and faunal records present some evidence for the types of food available for human consumption. Pottery residues (and other materials) can be informative about the preparing, cooking, and storing of food, providing an insight into specific foodstuffs consumed in the Anglo-Saxon period. Furthermore, isotopic evidence for the Anglo-Saxon diet is explored at a large scale, and then investigates isotopic variation in conjunction with other factors. Three themes of variation -social, geographic, and chronological -are mentioned. The Anglo-Saxon stable isotope results indicate a mainly terrestrial diet, with medium to high amounts of animal protein intake depending on period/cemetery. The overall consistency of the Anglo-Saxon diet lies in the comparison with contemporaneous continental sites.
This article explores some structures and dynamics which may have contributed to the development of social and political hierarchies in England in the fifth to seventh centuries, and some of the problems associated with this field of research. In particular, it investigates how some social dynamics and institutions, and the relationships between economic and social dynamics, may be seen to have promoted structures of power in ways that conditioned the development of dynasties wielding local, regional, and eventually supra-regional power by the beginning of the seventh century. Assemblages from furnished burials constitute the main archaeological source for considerations of gift exchange. Burial was an arena of social and political competition. Inheritance, as a mode of exchange between generations, is in many ways the antithesis of gifting items to the dead through furnished burial.
This book is the first to investigate how Anglo-Saxon society dealt with social outcasts. The study begins in the period immediately following Roman rule and ends in the century following the Norman Conquest. This period, the 5th to 11th centuries, witnessed the conversion to Christianity, the emergence of the late Saxon state, and the development of the landscape of Domesday Book. While the study of early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries and churchyards of the Christian period is well established, a substantial body of excavated and documented evidence for human burial in a range of other contexts has remained neglected until now. This book thus reveals for the first time a nuanced and varied approach to burial rites in Anglo-Saxon England, particularly relating to individuals cast out from mainstream society. Although impressive written evidence survives, archaeology is uniquely placed to investigate the earliest period of post-Roman society, the 5th to 7th centuries, where documents are lacking and to provide an independent assessment of documented situations in the later part of the period. The landscape setting of unusual human burials provides insights into the chronology of territorial arrangements and how features such as boundaries and pre-existing monuments, such as barrows and linear earthworks, were perceived by the Anglo-Saxons. Overall, the book argues that modes of outcast burial show a clear pattern of development from the pre-Christian centuries, where deviant burials are found only in community cemeteries, to a situation whereby locally determined rites, such as crossroads burial, existed alongside formal measures imposed from the 7th century ad in the context of kingdom formation.
Context:
The cost of late-life dependency is projected to grow rapidly as the number of older adults in the United States increases in the coming decades. To provide a context for framing relevant policy discussions, we investigated activity limitations and assistance, care resources, and unmet need for a national sample of older adults.
Methods:
We analyzed the 2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study, a new national panel study of more than 8,000 Medicare enrollees.
Findings:
Nearly one-half of older adults, or 18 million people, had difficulty or received help in the last month with daily activities. Altogether, 1 in 4 older adults receiving help lived in either a supportive care (15%) or a nursing home (10%) setting. Nearly 3 million received assistance with 3 or more self-care or mobility activities in settings other than nursing homes, and a disproportionate share of persons at this level had low incomes. Nearly all older adults in settings other than nursing homes had at least 1 potential informal care network member (family or household member or close friend), and the average number of network members was 4. Levels of informal assistance, primarily from family caregivers, were substantial for older adults receiving help in the community (164 hours/month) and living in supportive care settings (50 hours/month). Nearly all of those getting help received informal care, and about 3 in 10 received paid care. Of those who had difficulty or received help in settings other than nursing homes, 32% had an adverse consequence in the last month related to an unmet need; for community residents with a paid caregiver, the figure was nearly 60%.
Conclusions:
The older population-especially those with few economic resources-has substantial late-life care needs. Policies to improve long-term services and supports and reduce unmet need could benefit both older adults and those who care for them.
The aim of this paper is to present a method to facilitate age-at-death estimation of older individuals (generally those aged 50+ years) in a representative cemetery sample. The purpose of disaggregating catch-all categories, such as 50+ years, is to enable the exploration of the elderly (those in their 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s) in the context of mortuary archaeology, bioarchaeology and/or palaeopathology. The methodological steps include (1) assessment of occlusal tooth wear in an Anglo Saxon cemetery sample from Worthy Park, UK; (2) seriation of the sample, from relatively youngest to oldest, based on the degree of tooth wear; (3) selection of an ethnographically derived model (known mortality profile) by which seriated individuals in the Worthy Park sample could be reallocated to more realistic or appropriate age classes; (4) reallocation of individuals in the seriated Worthy Park sample to the model age classes. A Hadza, Tanzania, hunter-gatherer profile was chosen to model the Worthy Park sample, although others are available. Using this model, some 66% of the entire adult sample, originally allocated to the single final age category 45+ years, was distributed across four new age categories from the mid-40s to mid-70s. Relatively straightforward, this approach provides a way to identify those individuals, 50+ years old, not normally sensitive to traditional age-at-death estimation methodologies currently available. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Who buried the dead? Cemeteries contain the graves of people from local communities but the individual dead were buried by only a few members of that community, those that survived them. This article seeks to use detailed chronological information to analyse funerary data and proposes a system for establishing a generation-based dating scheme. Such a scheme advances studies of archaeological cemeteries by the discussion of life-time rather than end-of-life chronologies. This will enhance studies of social relationships, memory and the transmission of specific social identities by moving towards a more experiential archaeology. Specifically, I use a detailed study of three Anglo-Saxon cemeteries to investigate notions of social time. This article uses generational information in conjunction with other mortuary differentiations such as spatial location, age, life course, gender and grave-good wealth to show that Anglo-Saxon social status was determined by who was alive at any one time, and that the status of head of the household was not entirely determined by gender, but by who was able to fill the role.
This is a study of the complex age organization that characterizes the early Anglo-Saxon burial rite. It involves an analysis of the grave goods, and wider aspects of the burial rite, demonstrating how the mortuary realm was active in the construction of stages in the lifecycle, and how this identity was closely bound up with the gender and social status of the deceased. Despite offering some suggestions regarding the life experiences that each stage held, it proposes that the real function of this system was to signal the position of members of the primary descent group within the households that made up the settlements of the early English.
Summary • Comparative studies of ageing address the evolutionary lability of the rate of ageing as an indication of potential for, and constraints on, the extension of life span. • Experimental studies on ageing have focused on damage induced by reactive oxygen species (ROS) and other stresses, and on the mechanisms to prevent or repair this damage. Research on animal models has revealed genes with large effects on life span. However, the relevance of some animal models to human ageing is unclear and it is not known whether evolved differences in ageing involve such major gene effects. • Studies on the demography of populations of vertebrates in the wild show that animals suffer from senescence in nature. Variation in the rate of ageing is consistent with evolutionary theory in that senescence is delayed in populations that suffer relatively low extrinsic mortality. • Populations of longer-lived individuals suffer a higher proportion of ageing-related mortality, and thus stronger selection against early ageing. The presence of ageing-related deaths in these populations suggests a lack of suitable mechanisms that would further extend life span. • Similar patterns of ageing-related mortality in wild and captive or domesticated populations indicate that most ageing-related death is caused by intrinsic factors, such as tumours and cardiovascular failure, rather than increasing vulnerability to extrinsic causes of mortality. • Studies of several wild populations of long-lived birds suggest that ageing-related mortality is often catastrophic, with individuals maintaining high levels of condition until shortly before their demise. • Comparative studies of many species suggest connections between early development and the pattern of ageing later in life, consistent with laboratory studies on variation within individual species. The physiological connections across the life span are not well understood. • Comparative studies have provided important insights into the ageing process. However, we still lack information on important issues, including the causes of death in natural populations, the relationship of within- and between-population variation in the rate of ageing, the genetic basis of variation in rate of ageing in natural populations, and detailed longitudinal studies of individual health and reproductive success in relation to age at death.
Comparison of a large series of sexed adult skeletal populations and a similar series of adult pre-industrial peoples shows that there is a regular and systematic bias in the sexing of adult skeletons. This bias, which is about 12% in favor of males, is due to the nature of secondary sex characteristics in bone. It should be corrected in skeletal series before demographic analysis is made of them. Application of this knowledge and the same data to problems of age-specific male and female mortality rates is inconclusive, but points to an area for important future investigation. Application to the fossil record confirms some ecological ideas about human evolution.
This meta-analytic review of 232 effect sizes showed that, across five categories, attitudes were more negative toward older than younger adults. Perceived age differences were largest for age stereotypes and smallest for evaluations. As predicted by social role theory (Eagly, 1987), effect sizes were reduced when detailed information was provided about the person being rated. The double standard of aging emerged for evaluations and behavior/behavioral intentions, but was reversed for the competence category. Perceptions depended on respondent age also. Results demonstrated both the multi-dimensionality and the complexity of attitudes toward older adults (Hummert, 1999; Kite & Wagner, 2002).
This article presents the argument that mortuary practices were mechanisms for the construction of memories and, in turn, the constitution of identities during the turbulent socio-economic, political, and religious transformations of the fifth and sixth centuries ad. Understanding the mortuary process, variability, and change provide the background from which a fuller exploration of later fifth-and sixth-century cremation and inhumation practices can be based. It is possible to glean elements of the complex mortuary processes associated with inhumation. Graves would have provided a rich display, but not a single tableau, since many artefacts and materials would have successively augmented and concealed the body through its composition and consignment. Mortuary performances provided contexts for creating a sense of historical depth and public affirmation for what may have often been short-lived and experimental social identities and religious systems.
A sex difference in oral health has been widely documented through time and across cultures. Women's oral health declines more rapidly than men's with the onset of agriculture and the associated rise in fertility. The magnitude of this disparity in oral health by sex increases during ontogeny: from childhood, to adolescence, and through the reproductive years. Representative studies of sex differences in caries, tooth loss, and periodontal disease are critically reviewed. Surveys conducted in Hungary, India, and in an isolated traditional Brazilian sample provide additional support for a significant sex bias in dental caries, especially in mature adults. Compounding hormonal and reproductive factors, the sex difference in oral health in India appears to involve social and religious causes such as son preference, ritual fasting, and dietary restrictions during pregnancy. Like the sex difference in caries, tooth loss in women is greater than in men and has been linked to caries and parity. Results of genome wide association studies have found caries susceptible and caries protective loci that influence variation in taste, saliva, and enamel proteins, affecting the oral environment and the micro-structure of enamel. Genetic variation, some of which is X-linked, may partly explain how sex differences in oral health originate. A primary, but neglected, factor in explaining the sex differential in oral health is the complex and synergistic changes associated with female sex hormones, pregnancy, and women's reproductive life history. Caries etiology is complex and impacts understanding of the sex difference in oral health. Both biological (genetics, hormones, and reproductive history) and anthropological (behavioral) factors such culture-based division of labor and gender-based dietary preferences play a role.
This book is a collection of studies in celebration of Heinrich Härke's significant contribution to medieval mortuary archaeology. It marks the occasion of his retirement as Reader in Archaeology at the University of Reading. The chapters reflect the diverse contributions of Härke's research interests while simultaneously each engages with a particularly important theme in Härke's work. The introduction points to ongoing research that is developing new understandings of mortuary evidence in the investigation of early medieval social identities. It evaluates the implications of both Härke's work and the papers presented in this volume for the direction of future studies in this field. The starting point must be to regard mortuary practice as neither a mirror nor mirage of past social identities and social structures. Instead, graves need to be viewed as 'halls of mirrors' through which the archaeologist can explore past societies, their perceived pasts, future aspirations and social identities.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Reading, 1997.
This is a "state of the issue" paper about gender and physical health. It organizes the hypotheses proposed for male-female differences in physical health status, therapeutic health behaviors, and longevity and it summarizes empirical research, especially sociological research, on the topic over the past 10-15 years. Capsule summaries of sex differentials in health and of recent trends in health and morality are also presented for American (U.S.) men and women. The central theoretical viewpoint of this paper is that sex differences in health are principally the outcome of differential risks acquired from roles, stress, life styles, and preventive health practices. Psychosocial factors--how men and women perceive and evaluate symptoms, and their readiness and ability to take therapeutic actions--are important as well, but typically secondary to acquired risks. Other factors such as prior health care, biological risks, health reporting, and caretaker effects (for example, physician sex bias) have even smaller importance. We hypothesize that the relative weight of acquired risks and psychosocial factors varies for different types of health problems as follows: (1) Psychosocial factors have their greatest weight in responses to chronic, nonfatal, or low severity diseases and injuries and (2) gender differences are also greatest in responses to these; that is, men and women differ more in their perception, evaluation, and treatment of prolonged, mild conditions than of acute, life-threatening, or severe ones. The paper suggests some strategies for social science research on male-female health differences in the next decade or two.
The singularity of reproductive senescence in human females has led many investigators to consider menopause an adaptation permitting increased maternal investment in existing progeny. Much of the focus has been on the grandmother hypothesis-the notion that aging women gain an inclusive fitness advantage from investing in their grandchildren. This hypothesis has evolved from an explanation for menopause into an explanation for the exceptionally long postreproductive lifespan in human females. In the old grandmother hypothesis, menopause is an adaptation facilitating grandmothering; it is about stopping early in order to create a postreproductive lifespan. In the new grandmother hypothesis, grandmothering is an adaptation facilitating increased longevity, and menopause is a byproduct. This paper reviews and critically evaluates the evidence for and against both hypotheses, focusing on key predictions of each. If menopause is the result of selection for increased maternal investment, this involved mainly mothers, not grandmothers.
Female postreproductive life is a striking feature of human life history and there have been several recent attempts to account for its evolution. But archaeologists estimate that in the past, few individuals lived many postreproductive years. Is postreproductive life a phenotypic outcome of modern conditions, needing no evolutionary account? This article assesses effects of the modern world on hunter-gatherer adult mortality, with special reference to the Hadza. Evidence suggests that such effects are not sufficient to deny the existence of substantial life expectancy at the end of the childbearing career. Data from contemporary hunter-gatherers (Ache, !Kung, Hadza) match longevity extrapolated from regressions of lifespan on body and brain weight. Twenty or so vigorous years between the end of reproduction and the onset of significant senescence does require an explanation.