Timing is everything: Implementing a Life Course Perspective to Investigate Developmental Origins of Health and Disease in a Medieval Italian Skeletal Sample

Bioarchaeologists have recently shown increasing interest in the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis as a better way to explain variation in morbidity and mortality in both past and present human populations. We present here an analysis of sex differences using vertebral neural canal data (n = 70) as well as prevalence and timing of linear enamel hypoplasias (n = 51) from the late medieval rural population of Villamagna, Italy. Vertebral neural canals were measured following standard protocols, with thoracic elements considered separately from lumbar ones as they complete growth at different stages in the life course. Linear enamel hypoplasias were identified macroscopically while a sub-sample of individuals with unworn teeth (n = 21) were analyzed for the timing of LEH events by measuring the position of each event on the crown in relation to histological estimates of tooth development. Our results for the transverse measure of vertebral neural canal size suggest that males faced substantial stress in late childhood that is also correlated with an earlier age-at-death. Conversely, we do not see a sex-difference in mortality risk with LEH. These data, taken together, lend support to recent arguments that stress in later childhood and early adolescence may be a better predictor of increased morbidity and mortality than stress events earlier in life. We conclude with a brief discussion of future directions, in particular how interpretations health and stress within the DOHaD framework should grounded in a well-developed biocultural context.