Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Contributors

Preface

  1.  Foundations and Approaches to the Study of Care in the Past
William Southwell-Wright, Rebecca Gowland, and Lindsay Powell

Section 1 Care and the Life Course

  2.  Childcare in the Past: The Contribution of Palaeopathology
Mary Lewis

  3.  The “Terrible Tyranny of the Majority”: Recognising Population Variability and Individual Agency in Past Infant Feeding Practices
Ellen Kendall

  4.  Precious Things: Examining the Status and Care of Children in Late Medieval England through the Analysis of Cultural and Biological Markers
Heidi Dawson

  5.  That “Tattered Coat Upon a Stick” the Ageing Body: Evidence for Elder Marginalisation and Abuse in Roman Britain
Rebecca L. Gowland

Section 2 Care, Impairment and Disability

  6.  The Palaeolithic Compassion Debate – Alternative Projections of Modern-Day Disability into the Distant Past
Nick Thorpe

  7.  Setting the Scene for an Evolutionary Approach to Care in Prehistory: A Historical and Philosophical Journey
David Doat

  8.  “A Long Waiting for Death”: Dependency and the Care of the Disabled in a 19th Century Asylum
Shawn M. Phillips

  9.  Prayers and Poultices: Medieval Health Care at the Isle of May, Scotland, c. 430–1580 AD
Marlo Willows

Section 3 Care and Non-Human Animals

10.  Towards a Zooarchaeology of Animal “Care”
Richard Thomas

11.  Rare Secrets of Physicke: Insect Medicaments in Historical Western Society
Gary King

12.  Concluding Thoughts and Future Directions
Rebecca Gowland, Lindsay Powell, and William Southwell-Wright