Disability Beyond Disease: A Bioarchaeological Study of Access and Inequality at the Rural Medieval Italian Sites of Villamagna and Pava

In this dissertation project I use multiple lines of evidence to investigate the ways in which inequality and access shape disease outcomes, mobility and movement, and experience in two rural Medieval sites in the Italian peninsula (San Pietro di Villamagna, Lazio; Pieve di Pava, Toscana). I question the nature of disability itself, examining it from multiple angles and in terms of a vibrant body of critical disability studies scholarship, biological anthropology research, and feminist new materialisms. Medieval Europe, and the Italian peninsula in particular, is a dynamic and diverse period for understanding the body and its role in daily life, due to the complexity of changing religious ideology and practice, as well as turbulent political transformation. Biological anthropologists have considered disability, impairment, and the body as an object of study for decades; in contrast, the framework implemented in this dissertation thinks with disability about the influences and intersections of social inequalities, access to economic privilege, and agricultural work in the rural Medieval landscape. In this project I use population-level skeletal indicators from the spine and femur alongside individual-level descriptive paleopathology analysis to examine these issues. The spine elements from 265 individuals (Villamagna n=128, Pava n=137) were examined for skeletal indicators of degenerative joint disease in the apophyseal and zygapophyseal joints and scored according to an ordinal scale; cross-sectional geometry properties of the femur for 233 individuals (Villamagna n=114, Pava n=119); and a descriptive paleopathological analysis of one individual from Villamagna results are presented in this dissertation. Degenerative joint disease data from the spine suggest that economic access plays a role in disease outcomes at Villamagna, and that subtle intersectional differences in economic experience (intra-class differences) are important factors alongside physical activity in predicting spine disease outcome. Cross-sectional geometry data from the femur suggest differing baseline levels of terrestrial mobility between Pava (Tuscany) and Villamagna (Lazio), greater sample dispersion (variation) amongst older age people, and higher bending strength and rigidity at Villamagna compared to Pava. Females with less access to economic resources are have significantly higher medullary area (endosteal bone loss) and significantly less cortical area than other groups, in addition to higher prevalence of spine disease. The case of one particular individual from Villamagna highlights the trouble with diagnosis and purposes a methodology of counter-diagnosis for expanding traditional paleopathology and osteobiography approaches to human skeletal remains and disease. These results demonstrate one way in which bioarchaeological data and biological anthropology can be ethically oriented towards social justice and liberation, expanding the ways in which disability and disease are conceptualized broadly and more specifically in the archaeological and recent past. The results of this project prompt us to think with an intersectional and critical disability perspective about any number of bioarchaeological and biological anthropology questions, not only about identity—but also about human variation, adaptation, and biology.

Advisor: Agarwal, Sabrina C