Biological Embodiments of Societal Complexities: Sociocultural Determinants of Human Skeletal Health

What is the social skeleton? This project investigates how social factors influence human health and biology, and how they are “embodied” in the human skeleton. Using a holistic interdisciplinary approach, it combines skeletal biology with the humanities and social sciences to examine how social variables such as childhood living conditions, social status in adulthood, ethnocultural identity, and social age impact skeletal aging, growth, and pathology. By focusing on an exceptionally well-documented late 19th-century Austrian anatomical collection—comprising skeletal remains of more than 700 individuals of known identity—this research uses genealogical data (in order to illuminate the social environment and documented lives of these individuals, as well as of their parents and grandparents) to explore how life course and intergenerational social conditions affect health outcomes. It applies social theoretical frameworks and uses a long-term contextualised historical perspective to explore patterns through the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) and the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) frameworks. This historical perspective will illuminate the sociocultural mechanisms that drive chronic health disparities faced by vulnerable communities today. Furthermore, the project integrates art as a conceptual tool for communicating the research questions, reflecting on the scientific findings and their wider significance.