Interindividual differences in embodied marginalization: Osteological and stable isotope analyses of antebellum...

Through pathological and stable isotope analyses, this study probes the stressors, disease ecology, and diets of enslaved individuals from an antebellum plantation cemetery. The study aims to highlight how interindividual isotopic differences reveal that marginalization is not uniformly experienced or embodied.

The cemetery population consists of 16 individuals; dental and skeletal pathological indicators were collected for all individuals, and light stable isotope ratios (δ¹⁵ N, δ¹³ C) were generated from the collagen and hydroxyapatite of nine individuals.

The analyzed individuals have high frequencies of enamel defects-similar to contemporaneous enslaved cemetery individuals-and particularly high frequencies of carious lesions. Skeletal analysis shows evidence of chronic conditions among several individuals, two of whom likely have tuberculosis. Although the sample size is small, stable isotope values display interesting trends: there is interindividual heterogeneity in δ¹³ C values, and most subadults from the cemetery have lower δ¹⁵ N and higher δ¹³ C values than the sampled adults. These relationships can be tested with larger datasets and have the potential to reveal important information about slave foodways and the broader experience of enslavement.

The results of this study suggest that racial discrimination, enslavement, and age do not fully account for the heterogeneity in degree of embodied stressors. There are likely other factors at play, intersecting with the aforementioned, that influenced the lived experience of slavery and the degree of marginalization.