Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

We use archaeology to study the ancient and recent human past, to seek patterns and explanations, and to discover ourselves. Many people study the human experience; I want to tell the stories of our collective past through the bones of our ancestors. Much information can be gleaned from the skeleton (sex, age, ancestry, diet, body size etc). Human osteologists study bones because they preserve when all other soft tissues decay. I am interested in examining the relationship between age, health, and disease from skeletal evidence to better understand how the human body changes over the lifetime of an individual. The aging process is inevitable. Everybody grows old. Over the life course we engage in a variety of tasks, activities, and behavior, all of which shape the body both inside and out. But we are also living longer. As a result osteoarthritis (OA) has become the most common joint disease in contemporary populations worldwide, occurring most often in the spine, knee, hip, and hands. OA in bones and joints affects 1 in 10 Canadian adults, as well as 85% of the population over the age of 75. By 2031, the number of Canadians with OA is predicted to increase by 124%. Globally, OA represents a major health crisis in aging. Since life expectancy has doubled in the last century, it is not surprising that the archaeological record also reflects an extremely high prevalence of OA. The onset, presence, and severity of OA poses a major mobility limitation in future generations. My research will demonstrate how adult bone matures in order to understand the fundamental processes (and progression) of aging in humans. If we understand how bone ages, we can develop strategies to improve health in modern societies. This is an important study that will help to explain human histories. Understanding the process of skeletal aging helps to describe demography, population health, longevity, individual lived experiences, and the relationship between biology and culture.