Sharon N. DeWitte's research while affiliated with University of South Carolina and other places

... For example, the Holocene saw the emergence of sedentary patterns through the intensification of plant and animal domesticates, triggering the loss of dietary breadth and the transmissibility of zoonotic pathogens (Larsen, 2023;Lewis et al., 2023). If social-cultural anthropology aims to clarify the current Anthropocene epoch, it must integrate these biosocial facts of human evolution. ...

... Klunk et al. analyzed ancient DNA data from individuals in London and Denmark before, during and after the Black Death [1], and argued that allele frequency changes at immune genes were too large to be produced by random genetic drift and thus must reflect natural selection. They also identified four specific variants that they claimed show evidence of selection including at ERAP2, for which they estimate a selection coefficient of 0.39-several times larger than any selection coefficient on a common human variant reported to date. ...

... Historical documents suggest that economic improvements yielded a higher standard of living (Kitsikopoulos, 2002) and bioarchaeological investigations signal an increase in health and decrease in mortality risk (DeWitte, 2014a). Additionally, given the possibility that the Black Death likely had at least a short term "harvesting" effect, as increased mortality was associated with skeletal evidence of early stress events during the Black Death, this event perhaps also acted as a force of natural selection (Bos & DeWitte, 2022). Consequently, the patterns seen here from London populations before and after the Black Death, likely represent a complex interplay of improved T A B L E 4 Descriptive statistics, D index (with standard deviation) and coefficient of variation for lower limb (femur + tibia) lengths (in mm) by estimated sex and time period living conditions, biological buffering, and genetic selection. ...

... This Special Feature introduces the broad patterns of health and well-being based on the bioarchaeological record. In Perspective 1, Robbins Schug et al. (18) make the case that climate change and its impact on health and well-being extends far back into prehistory. Epidemiological evidence drawn from archaeological contexts reveals that communities responded to environmental challenges in diverse ways, with important implications for dietary sufficiency, disease ecology, migration, and interpersonal violence. ...

... As humans are biocultural beings, that is, their biological and sociocultural dimensions are inextricably linked, the interpretation of human skeletal data must consider the historical, natural environmental and cultural context which past individuals experienced. Through such an integrated approach, bioarchaeological studies can elucidate important topics, often with contemporary implications, such as social inequalities and their embodied outputs, adaptation to climate change, the factors underlying differential susceptibility to diseases, or the character and impact of past human mobility (Buikstra et al., 2022). ...

... Similar information is not available for most paleodemographic applications, except when records exist for the past few centuries. A number of studies have used the Danish historical distribution provided in TA2 (Ahlström, 2015;Boldsen, 2007;Buikstra et al., 2006;Bullock, 2013;Bullock et al., 2013;DeWitte, 2015;DeWitte & Hughes-Morey, 2012;Ham et al., 2021;Hughes-Morey, 2016;Kelmelis & DeWitte, 2021;Wilson, 2014;Zoeller et al., 2021). While derived from a premodern population, its use for paleodemographic purposes is not entirely satisfactory because there is no reason to believe it approximates all such distributions. ...

... According to some assessments, at the end of the 14 th century, Kutná Hora had about 8,000 inhabitants (Maur, 1998, p.49); however, other studies present (for around 1500 CE) that the population of the city and its suburbs was more than 10,000, and perhaps even 18,000 (Molenda, 1976;Macek, 1992, p.27). Urban growth will occur based on natural increases and any net immigration from nearby or relatively more distant regions (Betsinger and DeWitte, 2021), and this certainly also applied to medieval Kutná Hora, whose socio-professional structure was characterised by an absolute predominance of professions and crafts related to mining, metallurgy and minting. The continuing demand for silver affected the mining system, which was forced into an increasing specialisation of workers with the gradual penetration into greater mining depths (Jaroš, 1955). ...

... Cemeteries and individual burial places too, in this regard, offer an important space for reconstructing prophylactic healthcare: from burial customs and ideas on the relations between spiritual cleanliness, morality and physical health risks, to practical prescriptions on how to manage relations between the living and dead bodies of different qualities (Roberts, Lee, and Bintliff 1989;Halsall 1997). While the latter issues have long been dealt with in ritual theory and the archaeological literature on burial, recent paleo-scientists have shown how skeletons convey information about the otherwise largely unrecorded presence and experiences of diseases, food scarcity and other health-related challenges such as air pollution among earlier communities (Panhuysen 2005;DeWitte 2016;Petersone-Gordina et al. 2018). In combination with such chemical analyses, anthropologically informed studies chart a fruitful path for reconstructing community care regimens and how these were designed to reduce (further) suffering from members who had to contend with lifelong illnesses (Tilley 2015). ...

... The resulting poor sanitation, crowding, food insecurity, and pollution have been linked to the spread of infectious disease, nutritional deficiencies, heavy metals and toxins exposures, and limited social support networks of seasonal workers/travelers (Betsinger & DeWitte, 2021). Diets and mobility have a synergistic relationship with infectious disease loads of urbanizing populations (Scrimshaw, 2003;Wolowczuk et al., 2008), with impacts being experienced variably by individuals depending upon their socioeconomic status and/or degree of marginalization (Betsinger & DeWitte, 2020). ...

... This supports the hypothesis that the expansion of the market and available products resulted in dietary diversification in late medieval urban centres. Although a much larger city, similar results were found in medieval London, which the authors link to the large variety of available foods there (Walter et al., 2020). Moreover, differences in isotope ratios between males and females are noted in Alkmaar, but not Blokhuizen. ...