A preliminary study on the effects of childhood adversities in the medieval population of Leopoli-Cencelle (RM, 9 th –16 th C.E.)

The study on childhood in Middle Ages has also recently expanded in relation to high infant mortality. Children were not excluded from harsh living conditions like high population density, poor hygiene, contact with pathogens and poor parental care. The skeletal sample from Leopoli-Cencelle (9 th -16 th centuries CE) is a model for understanding the Italian medieval period for different reasons, such as the large sample size, the good preservation of the material, and the well-preserved archaeological evidence. In the cemetery area near St. Peter's Church, besides adult individuals, several infant burials, including fetuses, were discovered. Children’s bodies are fragile, so the study is very difficult. In this sense, bioarchaeology and paleopathology have refined approaches toward biological materials characterized by a high level of fragility. The children's exposure to repeated stressors can affect body development. Moreover, the genetic predisposition to develop certain anthropometric characteristics could be influenced by environmental factors, limiting genetically regulated phenotypic expression. Advanced imaging methods will be used to examine children’s bone structure and mineral density to explore the long-term implications of stress-induced phenotype changes. In this research, the same samples will be subjected to ancient DNA analysis to explore the genetic composition of populations and determine molecular sex. The DNA will be extracted using silica-based extraction methods and Illumina double-stranded libraries will be shotgun sequenced. For the preliminary analysis, a sample of 30 well-preserved children aged from different age classes (foetus, perinatal, 1-6 years, 7-12 years, 13-19 years) will be selected. The outcome of this project is therefore to explore how children cope with adequate growth in stressful conditions in a diachronic perspective, that can be read as a degree of human adaptation to the environment. The research was financed by MUR “PRIN 2022 - Prot. 202255L4YW”, “Early-life adversities: writing a biological history of childhood through a transdisciplinary approach”.