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Articles focuses on mortality of infants and children as a means of assessing how well skeletal samples can represent the living populations they are drawn from and as a means of evaluating some the general health characterisitics of the greater population of 19th century of Belleville. Neonatal mortality is considered to be a reflection of of the endogenesis state of the infant (genetic and congenital abnormalities, paternal health and nutrition, and circumstances surrounding birth). Postneonatal mortality is judged a better indicator of aspects of the infant's environment (nutrition, infectious disease, and living conditions) (Bourgeois-Pichat 1951a,b). While skeletal remains and records provide information on health and disease in infants and, BY INFERENCE, in the community as a whole, each type the data also presents a different facet of the problem of such reconstruction. pg. 73 Skeletal remains, in contrast to parish records, recapitulate late the lifetime of nutrition and disease experiences of an individual. The skeletons of infants and children can provide evidence of chronic physiological stress, such as defects into his enamel (Goodman and Rose 1990), anemias (Stuart-Macadam 1992), altered bone metabolism, dietary composition, and intragroup dietary differences (Tuross et al 1990
Katzenberg et al 1993). Growth in development patterns, which are critical components for evaluating the quality of a child's health, have been assessed by comparing the relative sizes of subadult long bone's to modern standards and two other skeletal samples (Jantz and Owsley 1984
Co 1984
Mendforth 1985
Lovejoy et al 1990
Hoppa 1992
Saunders 1992
Saunders et al. 1993a). Recently, it has been argued that is not possible to detect associations between aggregate-level measures of skeletal stress (morbidity) or mortality as studied by paleodemographers and paleopathologists and the risk of illness in death experience by individual members of past populations (Wood et al. 1992). These authors attributed to go into two main problems. The first problem concern selected mortality or the fact that we are loing with a sample of dead individuals, not all of the individuals who were at risk for disease at particular ages. Second refers to hidden or undetectable variability of the risk of developing disease or dying. It is asserted that the skeletal evidence pertaining to transitions and subsistence patterns, such as the adoption of ever culture, is equally consistent with either improvement in health or a deterioration in health overtime. However, others have responded that because most totaling caters of health or were represented by lesions that reflects arrival for sometime after the morbidity event, they are not directly tied to mortality (Goodman 1993
Saunders and Hoppa 1993) and therefore should not necessarily be affected by selected mortality in addition, it is important to examine a variety of indicators of health nutrition in order to result any paradoxical interpretations. Finally, appropriate hypothesis building in skeletal studies of past populations require that we take cultural social factors into account (Goodman 1993). pg. 77 the lack of subadult in many archaeological collections is more likely due to differential burial practices and inexperienced or biased excavation (Saunders 1992). pg. 82 When infants are fed artificially, the mortality slope is steeper in the first half of the year than in the second. This excess cumulative mortality in early infancy is attributed to the absence of passive immunity in nutritional benefits conferred by breast milk, coupled with early exposure to unsanitary conditions surrounding artificial feeding. It is also associated with high rates of infant mortality. For breast-fed infants, cumulative mortality rises gradually in the first half of the year, the rises more sharply in the later months. By the sixth month the immunoprotective and nutritional advantages of breast mouth have diminished in so the access cumulative mortality seen therefore reflects the the defects of the infants exposure to environmental insult. pg. 83 This is an important point, because the term "weaning" has several meanings. Strictly speaking, the refers to the process but which an infant is incurred studied views other than personal the concept of weaning also incorporates the complete cessation of breast feeding at a specific time, referred to as the "weaning age." As Fildes (1986) and other (Dettwyler 1987) note, there is not universal rule regarding when solid foods begin to be introduced or when breast feeding is terminated
neither is there a universal pattern in the style of weaning: it may be abrupt, gradual and protracted, or syncopated. It varies cross-culture and through time, and may even vary from child to child in the single-family depending on the desires and circumstances of the mother in the demands of the child. pg. 85 Conclusion Patterns of skeletal growth support the houses that the most serious and Norma problems faced by infants and children could form of acute infections rather than chronic under nutrition or chronic infectious diseases.
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