Afternoon Anthropology Lecture Series: Teresa V. Wilson

Join us for “Inequality, Vulnerability, and Well-Being: A Skeletal Approach to Structural Marginalization in Ancient Jordan and Present-day Louisiana,” presented by Teresa V. Wilson, an assistant professor - research in Louisiana State University's Department of Geography and Anthropology.

This presentation will explore how we can identify the social forces that contribute to negative health outcomes for the vulnerable and marginalized in a community. The skeletal consequences of social change and systemic marginalization will be used to highlight how anthropologists can find structural vulnerability in the past and the present.

While general paleopathological analyses of a population may suggest overall well-being, an assessment of enamel defects that form during early childhood can give bioarchaeologists a glimpse into hidden vulnerabilities. Dental histology was used to examine repeated childhood stress during a period of social, political and religious transformation as the Romans and Byzantines colonized the Jordanian site of Ya’amun. This research supports the assertion that health is not just the absence of disease and overall well-being must be seen as a complete biocultural phenomenon.