Untold experiences: how can bioarchaeology better approach the study of child abuse in the past?

The feasibility of identifying evidence of child abuse in the bioarchaeological record has been the subject of debate. To move forwards, it is crucial to critically explore the extent to which the evidence of the abuse of children in the past might be rendered more visible and its interpretation more reliable.
This project investigated the potential of a novel interdisciplinary approach that combines osteological and clinical evidence with radiological and bioengineering-modelling data, interpreting these data within their historical and socio-cultural contexts.
It employed a multi-scale sample approach, re-evaluating six key extant cases of suspected child abuse (c.3rd BC - 19th AD) and examining a large medieval and post-medieval dataset (c.901-1900 AD; n=860) from ten sites in England to identify instances of childhood skeletal trauma and discover new cases of abuse in the archaeological record. This led to the identification of a substantial dataset of individuals exhibiting traumatic injuries (CPR 9.3%; number of injuries=116), which allowed the discovery of six new cases of physical child abuse. The re-evaluation of the six extant cases of suspected physical child abuse also led to more substantiated cases.
The present study has highlighted how the evidence base can be improved when investigating something as culturally specific and temporally-nuanced as child abuse in the archaeological record. The effectiveness of radiographic examination must be emphasised (essential for trauma identification in 56% of cases), while micro-CT has shown some potential when investigating fracture healing. This study adopted a bioengineering method, finite element analysis (FEA), to re-assess one of the key children (Užubaliai No.10), demonstrating its potential to investigate long-bone fractures, highlighting how FEA can increase the robusticity of identification and interpretation of child abuse in the past.
This study has provided methodological and interpretive theoretical advances to reframe and improve the investigation of child abuse in the bioarchaeological context.