Dis/ability stories from Roman Dorset: an integrated osteobiography approach

Abstract

The primary aim of this study is to develop and demonstrate an approach through which human skeletal remains can be used to explore impairment and disability in the past in a theoretically informed way. This study addresses a frequent trope in osteoarchaeological publications in which unusual palaeopathological specimens are investigated as isolated case studies, which are often decontextualised and uncritically presumptive about the resulting disability (Dettwyler 1991). This thesis presents the integrated osteobiography approach; a form of microhistory which aims to develop an understanding of a life experience using osteological data integrated and contextualised with any and all available clinical, historical and archaeological data. The dis/ability as a continuum perspective provided a key theoretical underpinning of the thesis. This view of disability understands that everyone has an aspect of their identity related to their body and its ability to perform as expected and desired in their social and physical environment. This view challenges the commonly held attitude that disability affects a minority of people. The dis/ability as a continuum approach also helps visualise bodies as ever-changing entities, the abilities of which can vary throughout a lifetime (Zakrzewski et al. 2017). The approach also encourages a broader perspective of what is considered a possible impairment, helping to prevent our modern preconceptions of what an impairment is affect our view of the past. Feminist theory has also been highly influential to this thesis, from influencing the theoretical foundation to the communication style. Karen Barad’s (2007) concept of ‘entanglement’, helps visualise dis/ability as one aspect of an individual’s personhood which is interacting and mutually impacting other aspects, such as age and gender. Feminist scholarship has also influenced the author’s use of a situated knowledge approach, which encourages openness and honesty about a researcher’s motivations and experiences surrounding their subject matter, and reflects on how this may impact the study. This integrated osteobiography approach is applied to the 3rd -4 th century cemetery site of Alington Avenue, Dorset, UK, from which 37 skeletons form the dataset. Osteological, mortuary, archaeological and clinical insights are melded together to create the osteobiography accounts. Three of the osteobiographies are selected for inclusion in the main thesis for the stories they can tell. AA766 is a skeleton of a biological female which exhibited Langer type mesomelic dwarfism. This skeleton provided the unusual opportunity to track the well-documented development of an impairment alongside the known life course stages for a Romano-British female, as well as consider the experience of a lived environment from a shorter stature viewpoint. AA852 acquired a trauma necessitating an arm amputation shortly before death. For this case, the concept of the ‘disabled corpse’ was coined, exploring the impact of acquired bodily difference on the burying community and their behaviour. Finally, through skeleton AA210, a more familiar set of palaeopathology is examined and the impact of older age on dis/ability is considered. This case study fulfils the desire to explore the impact of more ordinary palaeopathology alongside the extraordinary, and assesses the potential issues surrounding not being recognised as different or disabled. Partly to help integrate the different data set types and partly to help improve accessibility of the study, three fictive narratives were written, portraying the burial of AA852 at Alington Avenue. These fictive narratives help explore experience of the palaeopathology identified with proper citation in the form of footnotes. The thesis demonstrates how the integrated osteobiography approach can be used to explore dis/ability in the past in a theoretically nuanced manner. Osteobiography has been argued to offer a more democratic vision of the past (Robb et al. 2019). This thesis hopes to contribute to this democratic vision, not only in the people who are studied, but also in the readership encouraged by the more accessible format.

More information

Identifiers

ORCID for Sonia Zakrzewski: orcid.org/0000-0003-1796-065X

Catalogue record

Export record