Dr Claire Hodson was awarded a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in 2020 for this project ‘Bringing up Baby’. Claire is undertaking this award at the Department of Archaeology, University of Reading (Grant Award: PF20\100096).
Claire is a bioarchaeologist and biological anthropologist who has worked in academic and commercial osteology roles, in both archaeological and forensic contexts. Her research has long been focussed on the fetal, perinatal and infant life course, investigating ways in which growth and health of these individuals has been disrupted in past societies.
This fellowship will enable Claire to expand her research and use new methods of skeletal analysis to document the very earliest moments of our lives. Assessing individuals from geographically and temporally diverse populations, this research will investigate fetal-infant mortality, morbidity, and sociocultural treatment, exploring change and continuity in these early life-course experiences between populations. Through skeletal and funerary analysis, this project will establish a comprehensive narrative of fetal-infant life in Britain.
Claire completed her PhD ‘Stressed at Birth: Investigating Fetal, Perinatal and Infant Growth and Health Disruption’ at Durham University in 2018. This research employed the novel use of detailed measurements of fetal-infant remains to reveal growth disruption in both pre- and postnatal individuals. This was significant in identifying the impact of detrimental intra- and extrauterine environments on fetal-infant health. By proxy, this research also provided significant insights into maternal health and wellbeing.
Consequently, Claire has been an invited speak at St Thomas’ Hospital, London (2017), Jucu Archaeological Project, Romania (2017), and Queen’s University, Belfast (2018), as well as at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (New Orleans 2017), the Infancy and Urbanization Conference (University of Bristol, 2019), and a Wenner-Gren workshop focussing on the mother-infant nexus (Durham University, 2017). Claire also delivered the SSCIP (Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past) Biennial Lecture at Sheffield University (2018) and was the co-organiser of the interdisciplinary conference ‘Little Lives: new perspectives on child health and the life course in bioarchaeology’ (Durham University, 2015), a British Council ‘Science in School’ programme (Strasbourg 2014; Montpellier 2016), as well as for the international event, ‘Pint of Science’ (Teesside University, 2016-2017).
Since completing her thesis Claire has been an adjunct lecturer in Forensic Science, as well as a guest lecturer at several higher education institutions, gaining her Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in 2018. She has also co-delivered several practical workshops for forensic practitioners, local constabularies, and military personnel, as well as conducting numerous outreach events for science festivals, schools and community groups. Claire is a member of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO), Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past (SSCIP), British Association for Forensic Anthropology (BAFA), and The Society for the Study of Human Biology (SSHB). Claire is currently the Membership Secretary for SSCIP (2018-2023).