Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Examination of Aging and the Elderly in Bioarchaeological Contexts

博士论文研究：生物考古背景下的衰老和老年人研究

• 批准号: 2234302
• 负责人: Jennifer Byrnes
• 金额: $ 2.01万
• 依托单位: University of Nevada Las Vegas
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-04-01 至 2025-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2234302&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Examination; Aging

Older adults represent the shared history of communities and play important roles in societies both past and present. In bioarchaeological research, however, they are typically underrepresented. This doctoral dissertation research project focuses on elderly adults in the archaeological record to examine this important source of past biocultural information. The project is framed in terms of a bioarchaeology of aging. This research has potential to inform both historical and clinical understandings of health across the lifespan by connecting interdisciplinary theories of aging from anthropology and public health. The project supports the research of a woman in STEM, provides research and training opportunities for students, and engages with local communities in science outreach.The project integrates evolutionary and social theories into a broader biocultural theory of aging, to reconstruct the experiences of elderly individuals in the past and provide a broader, historical and biocultural context for understanding the aging. Specific pathological and degenerative changes to the skeleton, as well as the Skeletal Frailty Index, are utilized in order to estimate the biological age of skeletons. These changes include those utilized in the estimation of chronological age-at-death (i.e. degenerative changes to the pubic symphysis and auricular surface of the ilium) but also include other changes (i.e. dental wear, antemortem tooth-loss, and the development of osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease). Severity of degeneration is taken into consideration in addition to the complexity of degeneration experienced (e.g. how many different categories of degenerative or pathological changes are observed). All adult individuals from the site are included in the study sample to provide additional context by which to interpret findings related to frailty and resilience observed among elderly individuals. This research can advance existing methods and definitions for age estimation from skeletal data and proposes a theoretical platform by which bioarchaeologists might better interpret the lived experiences of the elderly from a biocultural perspective.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

老年人代表了社区的共同历史，并在过去和现在的社会中发挥着重要作用。然而，在生物考古学研究中，它们的代表性通常不足。该博士论文研究项目重点关注考古记录中的老年人，以研究过去生物文化信息的这一重要来源。该项目以衰老生物考古学为框架。这项研究通过连接人类学和公共卫生的跨学科衰老理论，有可能为整个生命周期的健康的历史和临床理解提供信息。该项目支持女性在 STEM 领域的研究，为学生提供研究和培训机会，并与当地社区进行科学推广。该项目将进化论和社会理论融入更广泛的衰老生物文化理论中，重建老年人过去的经历，并为理解衰老提供更广泛的历史和生物文化背景。利用骨骼的特定病理和退行性变化以及骨骼脆弱指数来估计骨骼的生物年龄。这些变化包括用于估计实际死亡年龄的变化（即耻骨联合和髂骨耳廓表面的退行性变化），但也包括其他变化（即牙齿磨损、生前牙齿脱落以及骨关节炎和退行性关节疾病的发展）。除了所经历的变性的复杂性（例如观察到多少种不同类别的变性或病理变化）之外，还考虑了变性的严重性。该站点的所有成年个体都包含在研究样本中，以提供额外的背景来解释与老年人中观察到的脆弱性和复原力相关的发现。这项研究可以推进现有的根据骨骼数据估计年龄的方法和定义，并提出一个理论平台，生物考古学家可以通过该平台更好地从生物文化的角度解释老年人的生活经历。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。