CV
Education
PhD | Durham University / The British Museum | 2015-2018
Submitted: December 2018; Viva: May 2019; Graduated: July 2019
Funded by AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award
Thesis: Respiratory disease in the Middle Nile Valley: a bioarchaeological analysis of the impact of environmental and sociocultural change from the Neolithic to Medieval periods.
MSc | The University of Sheffield | 2014-2015
Human Osteology and Funerary Archaeology, Distinction
Funded by White Rose Scholarship
Thesis: An investigation into the potential effects of site hydrology on the diagenetic alteration of bone.
BA (Hons.) | University of Kent | 2011-2014
Archaeology and Anthropology, First Class Honours
Employment
Research Associate | University of Leicester
December 2020 - Present
Postdoctoral researcher in palaeopathology for the UKRI-funded ‘Tobacco, Health & History’ project and follow-on 'TB-omics' project
Research Fellow | University of Leicester
March - November, 2023
Temporary lead (maternity cover) for the UKRI-funded ‘Tobacco, Health & History’ project.
Lecturer | Cardiff University
November 2019 - December 2020
Full-time lecturer in later prehistory and osteoarchaeology on the Early Career Disglair (Brilliant) Lectureship Scheme.
Editorial Assistant | Thames & Hudson, College Division
August - October, 2019
Paid internship for editorial assistance on Renfrew and Bahn’s Archaeology (8th Ed.) and McCorriston and Field’s Anthropocene.
Guest Lecturer | Birkbeck College, University of London
May & October, 2019
Bioarchaeologist | The British Museum
November 2018 - August 2019
Laboratory Demonstrator | Durham University
October - December, 2017
Editorial Roles
Advisory Board Member | International Journal of Paleopathology | 2025 - present
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Topic Editor | Bioarchaeology and Archaeothanatology in Ancient Egypt and Nubia | Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology | 2025-2026
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Editor | The Mosaic | School of Heritage and Culture, University of Leicester, Departmental Newsletter | 2026
Freelance, Volunteer and Administrative Roles
Osteoarchaeological analysis of Sutton Bonington Non-conformist burial ground | ULAS | 2026
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Specialised database construction | MOLA | 2026
​​Funding Shortlisting Panel Member | MOLA | 2026​
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Advisory Board Member | ERC-funded Body-Politics Research Project | 2025-2026
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Osteoarchaeological analysis of Teffont Roman Shrine | Teffont Archaeology | 2023 - Present
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ECR College Representative for the College of
Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities | University of Leicester | 2024 - Present
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ECR School Representative for the School of Archaeology and Ancient History | University of Leicester | 2021 - 2026
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Guest Lecturer | MPhil Module | Trinity College Dublin | 2024, 2025​​
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Ethics Board Member | University of Cardiff | 2020
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Assistant Bioarchaeologist | The Ychsma Project (Université libre de Bruxelles) | 2019
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Laboratory Demonstrator | Birkbeck College, University of London | 2017
Training and Professional Memberships
Associate Fellow of the Advance HE (Ref.: PR159238)
Completion of the Cardiff Academic Practice Programme
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Completion of the Durham University Learning and Teaching Award (DULTA)
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Member of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO)
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Member of the Paleopathology Association (PPA)
Associate Fellow of the Leicester Institute of Advanced Studies
Key Skill Sets
Bioarchaeological Analysis
Human osteology
Palaeopathology
Dental calculus microfossil analysis
Human bone histology
Human remains care and curation
Method development
Scientific Analysis
Endoscopy
Light transmitted microscopy
CT scanning
Radiography
3D scanning
Scanning electron microscopy
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Teaching
Lecturing and practical-based teaching
Module lead and design
Marking and assessment design
Online teaching
Supervision, mentoring, and tutoring at Phd, Masters, and undergaduate level
PhD examination
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General
Lab management
Outreach and public education
Statistical analysis
Relational database construction and management
Copyediting and proofreading
Networks
Founder of the Bioarchaeological Respiratory Network
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Member of the Interdisciplinary Tobacco History Network.
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Member of the Midlands Bioarchaeology Network.
Prizes, Awards, and Small Grants
ESRC Impact Acceleration Account Internal Award | 2026 | £7,447
Supporting school outreach activities
University of Leicester Departmental Small Grants Scheme | 2026 | £500
Supporting school outreach activities
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​​​BABAO Workshop Grant | 2025 | £1000
A practical introduction to Transition Analysis 3
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University of Leicester I-REACCH Grant | 2025 | £2200
Fostering Interdisciplinary Engagement among Early Career Academics in CSSAH
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University of Leicester I-REACCH Grant | 2025 | £1482
Promoting an inclusive research culture for fellowship applicants and award holders
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PPA European Annual Conference Early Career Award | 2024 | $250
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Leicester Institute for Advanced Studies Seedcorn Grant | 2024 | £725
Investigating air quality and its effect on inflammation in the Industrial Period
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University of Leicester Citizen Recognition Scheme Award | 2023 | £500
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BABAO Workshop Grant | 2021 | £80
'Taking a breath: reflecting on respiratory disease in bioarchaeology' symposium
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Cardiff Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (CUROP) | 2019 | £1000
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BABAO Conference Attendance Bursary | 2019 | £115​​​​
BABAO Bill White Prize for best student poster (2nd place) | 2017
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PPA Cockburn Prize for best student poster (2nd place) | 2017
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BABAO Bill White Prize for best student poster (1st place) | 2016
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​Durham Archaeological Science Conference Attendance Bursary | 2016 | £300
Conference/Event Organisation
Co-organiser | British Academy Early Career Network Event | University of Leicester | 21st October 2026
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Scientific Committee | British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology 27th Annual Conference | Lincoln, UK | 12th-13th September 2026
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Session Chair | Body-Politics End of Project Event | National Museum of Denmark | 17th-18th June 2026
Primary Organiser | Early Career Academic Writing Retreats | University of Leicester | 8th June and 16th October 2026
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Co-organiser | Understanding REF - Culture and Environment (ECR Event) | University of Leicester | 28th April 2026
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Primary Organiser | British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology 26th Annual Conference | University of Leicester | 18th-20th September 2025
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Scientific Committee | 11th International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology | Turin, Italy | 26th-29th August 2025
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Co-organiser | Symposium: 'In the same breath: (Bio)Archaeological Approaches to Respiratory Diseases' | European Archaeology Association Annual Conference | Sapienza University of Rome | 31st August 2024
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Scientific Committee | Paleopathology Association European Annual Conference | Leiden University | 21st-24th August 2024​
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Co-organiser | Tobacco, Health & History Annual Seminar | University of Leicester | 23rd-24th January 2023
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Session Chair | Intersectional Bodies Symposium | University of Leicester | 16th – 17th June 2022
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Primary Organiser and Chair | 'Taking a breath: reflecting on respiratory disease in bioarchaeology' Symposium | Online | 7th-8th June 2021
Outreach Events
Research-Led School Education Initiative | Irchester Field School | Chester House | 15th June - 6th July 2026
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Research-Led School Education Initiative - 'Toothy Tales from the Past!' | in collaboration with North Northamptonshire Council | 2nd June - 9th June 2026
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Osteoarchaeology Workshop - 'Reconstructing Past Lives' | Volunteer Training for Teffont Archaeology | Teffont | 3rd October 2025
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Children's 'Change Maker' Session - 'The Bone Lab' | Botanical Gardens Festival | Leicester Botanical Gardens | 31st August 2025
Research-Led School Education Initiative | Irchester Field School | Chester House | 16th June - 4th July 2025
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Public Engagment Stall - 'Tobacco, Health & History'| Celebration of Heritage Event | University of Leicester | 22nd March 2025
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Public Engagment Stall - 'How old are we anyway?' | Lifelong Ageing Fair | Lambeth Town Hall, London | 16th November 2024
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Public Engagment Stall - 'How old are we anyway?' | Great Exhibition Road Festival | 18th-19th June 2022
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Public Engagment Stall - 'Skeleton Science' | British Science Festival | Leicester | 17th September 2022
Presentations - Podium
British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology 27th Annual Conference| Loughborough | 11th-13th September 2026
A. M. Davies-Barrett & S. A. Inskip. Exploring the hypothetical burden of smoking-related respiratory disease in post-medieval rural and urban England.
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TB-Omics Workshop | University of Leicester | 11th September 2026
A. M. Davies-Barrett. The osteoarchaeology of TB: Past and future directions
Osteobites | CIfA | 26th November 2025
S. Inskip, A. M. Davies-Barrett, N. Jakubovics, & R. Holliday. Tobacco as a risk factor for past oral health; exploring the benefits of an Index of Oro-dental Disease.
Tobacco, Health & History End of Project Seminar | University of Leicester | 17th October 2025
A. M. Davies-Barrett. Who smokes? Interdisciplinary analysis of frequencies of tobacco consumption in England and the Netherlands.
A. M. Davies-Barrett. The palaeopathology of tobacco use.
Do we see an impact on disease from the consumption of tobacco?
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Social Science History Association | Toronto, Canada | 2nd November 2024
A. M. Davies-Barrett & S. Inskip. Interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the history of tobacco consumption in western europe (Invited Talk).
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51st Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Biological Anthropology | London, Canada | 30th October-2nd November 2024
S. A. Inskip, A. M. Davies-Barrett, N. Jakubovics, & R. Holliday. An ‘index of oro-dental disease’: a holistic method for understanding the impacts of different risk factors on oral health in archaeological populations with a case study of tobacco.
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British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology 25th Annual Conference| Keele University | 6th-8th September 2024
S. A. Inskip & A. M. Davies-Barrett. Using an ‘index of oro-dental disease’ to investigate the impacts of tobacco consumption on oral health in British and Dutch post-medieval populations (c. AD 1500 – 1850).
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European Archaeology Association Annual Conference | Sapienza University of Rome | 31st August 2024
A. M. Davies-Barrett & S. Inskip. Exploring the health burden of smoking-related respiratory disease in the past.
Paleopathology Association European Annual Conference | Leiden University | 23rd August 2024
A. M. Davies-Barrett & S. Inskip. An ‘index of oro-dental disease’: a holistic method for understanding the impacts of different risk factors on oral health in archaeological populations.
The Sudan Archaeological Research Society Colloquium | Swansea University | 25th May 2024
A. M. Davies Barrett & R. Whiting. Life and death at the town of Kawa: osteological analysis of the Kushite cemetery assemblage (Invited Talk).
School of Archaeology and Ancient History Research Seminar Series | University of Leicester | 14th May 2024
A. M. Davies-Barrett. Who smokes anymore? Investigating past impacts of tobacco consumption using osteoarchaeological and biomolecular approaches (Invited Talk). ​​​
​Funerary Archaeology Research group | University of York | 10th November 2023
A. M. Davies-Barrett. The Tobacco, Health & History Project: Investigating the historic impacts of tobacco consumption using osteoarchaeological and biomolecular approaches. (Invited Talk).
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British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology 24th Annual Conference | UCL | 15th-17th September 2023
A. M. Davies-Barrett, D. Badillo Sanchez, M. Serrano Ruber, & S. Inskip. The archaeometabolomic identification of tobacco users: Improving understanding of tobacco-associated disease prevalence in post-medieval England.
29th European Archaeology Association Annual Meeting | Queen's University Belfast | 30th August-2nd Sept. 2023
A. M. Davies-Barrett, D. Badillo Sanchez, M. Serrano Ruber, & S. Inskip. Disease prevalence and its relationship to tobacco consumption in industrial england.
Food Systems and Practices: Past, Present and Future | The University of Sheffield | 27th-28th June 2023
A. M. Davies-Barrett. The historic health impacts of the commodification and consumption of tobacco: an osteoarchaeological perspective (Invited Talk).
Tobacco, Health & History Project Seminar | University of Leicester | 23rd January 2023
A. M. Davies-Barrett. Palaeopathology and tobacco consumption: initial results.
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‘Dental Calculus as a Window to the Past’ Workshop | The British Museum | 21st July 2022
A. M. Davies-Barrett. Changing prevalence of respiratory disease in the Middle Nile Valley: potential respiratory irritants and how we might find them in dental calculus (Invited Talk).
Intersectional Bodies Symposium | University of Leicester | 16th-17th June 2022
A. M. Davies-Barrett & S. Inskip. Skeletal evidence for tobacco consumption as embodiment of identity: Industrial England (Invited Talk).
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Tobacco, Health & History Annual Project Seminar | University of Leicester | 18th March 2022
A. M. Davies-Barrett. Palaeopathology.
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7th Annual School of Archaeology and Ancient History PGR Conference | University of Leicester | 3rd March 2022
A. M. Davies-Barrett. Desert dust and city smoke: investigating the impact of environmental aridification and urbanisation on respiratory health in the past (Keynote Lecture).
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‘Back(bone) to the Future – bioarchaeological perspectives on climate change and climate crisis’ Conference | German Archaeological Institute | 2nd-3rd December 2021
A. M. Davies-Barrett. Desert dust and city smoke: investigating the impact of environmental aridification and urbanisation on respiratory health in the past (Invited Talk).
​​​​​​School of Archaeology and Ancient History Research Seminar Series | University of Leicester | 27th Oct. 2021
A. M. Davies-Barrett. Desert dust and city smoke: linking risk factors for respiratory disease in the past to modern global crises (Invited Talk).
5th Sudan Studies Research Conference | Warsaw | 4th-5th September 2021
A. M. Davies-Barrett & T. Vlemincq-Mendieta. Life and death at the town of Kawa: findings of the recent osteological analysis of the Kushite cemetery assemblage (Invited Talk).
​Cardiff Archaeological Society Lecture Series | Cardiff | 3rd December 2020
A. M. Davies-Barrett. Air pollution and respiratory disease: not just a modern-day problem (Invited Talk).
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University Archaeology Day | 2020 | 22nd October 2020
A. M. Davies-Barrett. The path to COVID: how respiratory disease has plagued past people too (Chosen Representative for Cardiff University).
British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology 21st Annual Conference | Natural History Museum | 13th-15th Sep. 2019
A. M. Davies-Barrett, C. A. Roberts, & D. Antoine. Respiratory disease in the Middle Nile Valley: the impact of environmental and sociocultural change from the Neolithic to Medieval periods.
Third Sudan Studies Postgraduate Conference | University of Oxford | 4th May 2019
A. M. Davies-Barrett. Respiratory disease in the Middle Nile Valley: the impact of environmental and sociocultural change from the Neolithic to Medieval periods.
‘Stressed out: debunking the stress myth in the study of archaeological human remains’ Conference | UCL | 19th-20th May 2017
A. M. D. Barrett. Respiratory disease as a ‘non-specific indictor of stress’? The value of identifying specific causative factors.
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The Sudan Archaeological Research Society Colloquium | The British Museum | 8th May 2017
D. Antoine & A. M. D. Barrett. Life and Death in the Kerma Classique at the Fourth Cataract: the evidence from site 4-L-2.
Presentations - Poster
British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology 26th Annual Conference | University of Leicester | 18th-20th September 2025
A. M. Davies-Barrett & S. A. Inskip. The invisible smoker: Interdisciplinary approaches for better understanding tobacco-use in seventeenth to nineteenth century England and Netherlands.
V. Louka & A. M. Davies-Barrett. Palaeoimaging as digital conservation: A case study of a partially mummified individual from Ancient Sudan.
International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health Annual Conference | Durham, UK | 6th-9th August 2024
S. Inskip, A. M. Davies-Barrett, D. Badillo Sanchez, M. Serrano Ruber, & D. Jones. Exposing the early impacts of tobacco-use culture on population health (1700-1870): An interdisciplinary analysis of archaeological human remains.
Bone Research Society Annual Meeting | The University of Sheffield | 10-12th July 2024
S. Inskip, D. Badillo-Sanchez, A. M. Davies-Barrett, M. Serrano Ruber, & D. Jones. Archaeometabolomics of osteoarchaeological material and the analysis of tobacco use behaviour in pre-modern populations
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Palaeopathological Association 52st Annual Conference | Los Angeles | 18th-20th March 2024
M. Casna, A. M. Davies-Barrett, & S. A. Schrader. Bioarchaeological approaches to female tobacco consumption in two skeletal populations from the Netherlands (1300-1829 CE).
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Canadian Association for Biological Anthropology, 48th Annual Meeting | Hamilton, Ontario | 27th-30th October 2021
S. Inskip, A. M. Davies-Barrett, D. Badillo Sanchez, M. Serrano Ruber & S. Morriss. Using microscopy to improve the detection of pipe use in past populations
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British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology 22nd Annual Conference | Online | 17th-19th September 2021
A. M. Davies-Barrett, D. Badillo Sanchez, M. Serrano Ruber, & S. Inskip. Piping up on the issue of notches: microscopic investigation of dental modifications caused by tobacco pipe-smoking.
17th Annual Conference of the Metabolomics Society | Online | 22nd-24th June 2021
D. Badillo-Sanchez, A. M. Davies-Barrett, M. Serrano Ruber, M. Hansen, D. JL Jones, & S. Inskip. Sampling and extraction of metabolites from osteoarchaeological remains: the need to achieve reproducible data by reducing innate covariance.
'Taking a breath: reflecting on respiratory disease in bioarchaeology' Symposium | Online | 7th-8th June 2021
A. M. Davies-Barrett, L. S. Owens & P. A. Eeckhout. Palaeopathology of the Ychsma: respiratory disease at the Central Coastal site of Pachacamac, Peru.
T. Rajab & A. M. Davies-Barrett. A bioarchaeological analysis of the prevalence of rhinosinusitis across Romano-British and Early Medieval populations.
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British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology 19th Annual Conference | Liverpool John Moores University | 8th-10th September 2017
A. M. Davies-Barrett, C. A. Roberts, & D. Antoine. A new method for recording and presenting the true prevalence of rib lesions related to respiratory disease.
1st Sudan Studies Postgraduate Conference | Durham University | 13th May 2017
A. M. D. Barrett, R. Whiting, & D. Antoine. Insights into disease and lifestyle in two medieval cemeteries from the 4th Cataract of Sudan.
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Palaeopathology Association 44th Annual North American Meeting | New Orleans | 17th-19th April 2017
A. M. D. Barrett, C. A. Roberts, & D. Antoine. Investigating the impact of air quality on the occurrence of respiratory disease in the Middle Nile Valley: comparing Kerma and Medieval sites.
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British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology 18th Annual Conference | University of Kent | 8th-10th September 2016
A. M. D. Barrett & P. Nystrom. Why water matters: investigating the effects of site hydrology on the diagenetic alteration of bone.