Health's Wayward Sisters: Applying Syndemic Models to the Analysis of Diet, Nonspecific Stress, and Mortality

Abstract

This thesis explores how the application of syndemic theory in bioarchaeological research necessitates a shift in the reductionist analytical frameworks that inform research, the impacts of this, and how this framework can be broadly operationalized and applied in bioarchaeological research. A syndemic model underlines the interconnected and interactive nature of health-related conditions and thus offers a more integrative and dynamic approach to interpreting health data from the past. Chapter 2 outlines the implications of adopting a syndemic model, demonstrating how it can generate new research questions and insights by shifting current discrete, reductionist analytical frameworks to more inclusive ones, and outlining how we can start applying these frameworks in bioarchaeological research broadly. Chapters 3 and 4 demonstrate how syndemic models can be applied to commonly analyzed bioarchaeological data, reify the benefits of this approach, and how it can be operationalized. This is done via multivariable statistical analyses to examine intra-population variation in diet, nonspecific stress, and mortality in the medieval (10th-16th centuries CE) osteological sample from Osor, Croatia. The results reveal that multivariable approaches more effectively capture the interrelated nature of health data than traditional bivariate methods, uncovering nuanced patterns of interaction and intra-population variation. Notably, the monastic individuals at Osor exhibited distinct dietary practices and higher rates of nonspecific skeletal lesions yet did not experience reduced mortality typically associated with medieval monastic communities. In contrast, privileged lay individuals showed increased frailty despite their more protein and/or marine-rich diets. One area of the cemetery, Sector 6, emerged as a potentially distinct subgroup based on distinctive isotopic and demographic patterns. The results in Chapters 3 and 4 underscore the value of syndemic models and multivariable analyses in uncovering complex health dynamics and offer a replicable framework for future syndemic-oriented research in bioarchaeology and related disciplines.