Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

JUNO, Roman Goddess, protector of children, was said to strengthen their bones.

The Juvenile Osteology Group - JUNO, focuses broadly on studying the interactions between the juvenile human skeleton and its genetic and ontogenetic environment, encompassing all biocultural processes and responses in life, death and after death, to better understand and explain past events and change at the individual or population level. This includes clarifying the complex interconnections between culture, identity, nutrition, socioeconomic status or climate and life-history transitions, injury, disease patterns or taphonomic processes inscribed in children’s bones and teeth, recovered from forensic, archaeological or paleontological contexts. The team is working on the following broad topics:

• The ontogenetic environment for dental and skeletal growth, applied to the development of theory and methods of osteological analysis in bioarchaeology and forensics.
• Growth, stress and disease patterns observed in children from archaeological populations, which a focus on  the transition to and from the Islamic occupation period in Iberia.
• Issues with diagnosing and interpreting child trauma from archaeological and forensic contexts.
• Taphonomic and post-mortem aspects of immature bone.