ORCID

5575252

Keywords

forensic anthropology, structural violence, embodied inequality, weathering hypothesis, age estimation

Abstract

Structural violence refers to the experiences of inequality faced by marginalized sex, gender, race, and socioeconomic groups. Unequal access to healthcare, housing, and education can cause poor health that may affect how a decedent is analyzed by forensic anthropologists. This research hypothesizes that, due to gender- and sex-based marginalization, females will display greater rates of stress and correlated accelerated aging (i.e., weathering), than males. Computed tomography scans from 100 males and 99 females aged 20-69 years old and white and middle class, were sampled from the New Mexico Decedent Image Database (NMDID). Stress was assessed via cranial porosities, antemortem tooth loss, and vertebral osteoarthritis. Age was estimated using cranial suture fusion, pubic symphyseal changes, and vertebral osteoarthritis, independently of each other. A Mann-Whitney U test and a Fisher’s exact test were used to assess significance for the ordinal and nominal variables, respectively. A Krippendorff’s error test, intraclass correlations coefficient (ICC), and weighted/unweighted Cohen’s kappa test were run on 40 randomized individuals to analyze intra-observer error two weeks after initial data collection was completed. An ordered logit was run to assess whether sex, age, and combined sex and age can predict the likelihood and severity of a stress-related condition. Results indicate that there is no significant evidence of disproportionate stress between males and females, and that accelerated aging does not occur to a degree that significantly skews osteological age-at-death estimation. The correlations test suggests that, while the majority of the stress markers are not associated with inaccurate age estimates, there are some correlations between estimate inaccuracy and osteoarthritis. The findings of this research may be interpreted as a lack of skeletally embodied inequality, but not necessarily that the sample was not experiencing structural violence at all.

Completion Date

2025

Semester

Summer

Committee Chair

Adams, Donovan

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Anthropology

Format

PDF

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Campus Location

Orlando (Main) Campus

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