Theme:
2. Archaeological Sciences, Humanities and the Digital era: Bridging the Gaps
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Elevating the Elders: (Re)Centering Older Adults in Bioarchaeology
Content:
Over the last several decades bioarchaeologists working in contexts around the world have made great strides in understanding the past through the contextualized study of human skeletal remains recovered from archaeological sites. Despite the numerous ways in which bioarchaeological studies have enhanced what we know about past communities, the identification and interpretation of older adults has been underrepresented in bioarchaeological scholarship. Among the reasons why this reality exists are because methodological shortcomings have been identified and bioarchaeological researchers have been stifled by an inability to confidently assign individual age estimates beyond the fifth decade. As a result of this trend, few studies have examined how and why the human lifespan has changed over time. Additionally, the inability to identify older adults in the archaeological record has left a void in the literature and numerous questions related to the role that elderly individuals played in their communities remain unanswered. Despite these limitations, numerous scholars have devoted considerable energy to changing the narrative about elderly individuals in past communities, through both their theoretical and methodological contributions. Drawing inspiration from this emerging body of literature, we invite scholars working on questions related to older adults across time and geography to share their perspectives in this symposium. We welcome contributions focused on social theory related to older adults, methodological contributions focused on improving the identification of older individuals in the archaeological record, or case studies from any temporal period or region where the identification of elder individuals helped improve the understanding of an archaeological context.
Keywords:
bioarchaeology, older adults, elderly, social theory and gerontology, age estimation
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Jonathan Bethard (United States) 1
Co-organisers:
Jo Buckberry (United Kingdom) 2
Carlos Silva Carvalho (United Kingdom) 2
Affiliations:
1. University of South Florida
2. University of Bradford
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